You had me at “Keep Austin Weird”!
I have no idea why but for many years I’ve looked forward to exploring Austin Texas and by 2000 when they adopted their slogan to “Keep Austin Weird” it felt like the mothership was calling me home. I considered visiting with thoughts of moving.
Is it the idea of a nightly flight of 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats that roost under the Congress Avenue Bridge? Is it the Cathedral of Junk started in an artist’s backyard in the late 80s? The fact that chicken bingo is a thang? Or simply because it’s known for good live music and boot scoot’n, which I’m a fan of?
It doesn’t really matter. It’s just important that you understand my obsession with this city that I’ve never visited to also understand how the visit went.
I’ve gotten ahead of myself and need to start with our quick stop in New Braunfels. We’d heard from several friends about New Braunfels, including a couple who have put it at the top of their retirement list. We only had a couple of hours but wanted to see the area so we parked, strolled around historic downtown, grabbed a sugar-fix, sucked down some coffee, and checked out their tubing on the river before getting back on the road. The town is absolutely adorable, but we really enjoy live music, live theater and art that can be rare in towns this size unless there is a college. Definitely worth a stop, but didn’t check off enough of our retirement wish list must-haves.
Further up the road, we did like the city of Lockhart. It still didn’t have the art venues but was that much closer to Austin, which does.
Driving towards Austin
The “Pecan Grove RV Park” we stayed in was close enough to the city center that you could see Austin’s downtown skyscrapers.. The operators were nice and its convenience can’t be beat, but it was crowded and based on the electrical situation, seemed to be due for a few upgrades.
Seems Legit
We chose the RV park and its central location with the intent of getting the bikes out to explore the area and our first day in Austin was gorgeous! We drove to and then walked around Covert Park at Mount Bonnell for pretty views of the city. It was nice to be in a location more similar to San Francisco with its hills and trees (and multi-million dollar homes lining the lake beneath the park).
Covert Park 
During the rest of our stay, unfortunately, we had unusually cold and rainy weather that really put a damper on things.
From the driving we did, and the couple of bike rides Doug braved, what we can say is that Austin seemed to have:
- pretty parks (like Covert Park at Mount Bonnell) and river access
- nice biking and hiking trails
- great food (best BBQ we’ve eaten to-date was at Terry Black’s BBQ, just down the street from where we stayed)
- plenty of artistic activities (Austin claims to be the “Live Music Capital”)
- a tech culture and educated work force due to the University of Texas and other local schools
- low crime rates
- the size we’re considering, and we liked the hills and trees in the area
Bundled up in the RV
Doug’s Ride to the Capitol 
Austin usually has decent weather too, so it is still on our potential retirement list but, unfortunately, we didn’t get out enough to really get a good feel for the city. It was tough to leave with so much still unknown about the area, but I guess weird Austin will have to wait for a second look.
