Texas — Austin and Waco – 10/19-28/2018

Karen and I made it to Austin, Texas about 10 days ago, right after my last blog post.  The rainy and cool weather continued for several more days upon our arrival and so overwhelmed the Austin city water system that residents were directed to boil their water before drinking it.  In fact, even as I write this blog post, we’re still under that water restriction, but are hoping that it will be lifted in the next day or two.

Being able to hang out with Emma and Robin has been the cure for our weather woes.  They have rented a nice house in the suburbs just a few minutes outside of downtown Austin, which will give us ample opportunity to use it as a base from which we can explore the city and surrounding areas.

When I first started writing this blog post, I fell right into providing an itinerary recap of some of the things we’ve done.  When I read it, even I was bored.  It isn’t that what we’ve done has been boring (it hasn’t been!), but the relaying of an itinerary is inherently boring, so I decided to try again, but with more of a focus on our observations and feelings rather than on events.

Karen and I can’t help but notice the things that tell us we are, in fact, in Texas.  To start with, the vegetation is so different.  For example, you start seeing different varieties of cactus plants everywhere.  Nothing warns you more about how hot the climate can be than seeing cactus.  The next obvious thing is that so many of the roads are straight, wide, and flat, with lots of open land around them.  The speed limits on some of these roads can boggle your mind if you’re from the east.  There are roads that are one lane each way with occasional houses on either side that would probably have a speed limit of 50 back in MD, but out here it’s not uncommon to see 65 mph.  On the interstate, I was surprised when I saw a speed limit sign that said 80 mph – the previous high I remember seeing in the east was 75.  Another Texas thing we saw were unusual dirt mounds, maybe 8 inches high and a foot wide in the middle of grassy fields where we were walking the dogs.  Upon closer inspection, we realized these were the biggest anthills we’d ever seen. They were big enough to make you want to veer away from them!

Emma moved to Austin last June to become the director of a venue for a company that purchases wedding venues and wants people to book the venues for their weddings.  Karen and I have been looking forward to seeing Emma’s venue.  It’s definitely a Texas venue – lots of dark wood, big beams, and rustic.  Emma says that the structure will be renovated in January/February and that much of it will be lightened-up to give it a more up-to-date look.  All of that aside, it was definitely a proud mom/dad moment to see the venue and meet the staff for which Emma has full responsibility.  The fit of Emma to her job just seems so right!

When we travel to new areas, Karen and I both like to try places to eat that are favorites of locals and that aren’t typical restaurant chains.  I’m happy to say that we’ve been very successful – we’ve had really good fish tacos, brisket (just me, not Karen), unique pizza, and Bananas Foster, to name just a few things.  I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Robin has prepared some really great vegan dishes for us from a meal delivery service called Purple Carrot, which provides the ingredients and the recipes.

I do want to relay one “itinerary” story for you.  For those of you who have watched HGTV and, in particular, have been fans of the show Fixer Upper, you know that the show is based in Waco, Texas, which is about 90 minutes north of Austin on the way toward Dallas.  The women in the Levine family have been big fans of the show and the two stars, Chip and Joanna Gaines, so a couple of days ago we decided to make a day trip to Waco to see the various Magnolia (Chip and Joanna’s business name) venues.  We began with a stop at Magnolia Table, which is the restaurant they started.  There was a ton of people in line.  When we asked for a table, we were told it would be around 2 ½ hours before we could be seated!  We said okay and then decided to use that time to head over to the Magnolia Silos and Market.  The first thing one notices is that you don’t see much activity as you’re driving through the streets of Waco going toward the Magnolia venues….until you get within a ¼ mile of them.  All of a sudden, you see tons of people, cars, tour buses, etc.  The magnitude of popularity and commerce that Fixer Upper has brought to this part of Waco is undeniable. When you go into the venues, all of the stuff you see looks familiar – it’s very much like the stuff you see when Joanna decorates the homes that they fix up on their show – very tasteful and very country/rustic.

When we finished our little shopping tour of the Magnolia venues, we headed back to have our very late lunch at Magnolia Table.  I was worried that given how large the restaurant is and how many people it feeds each day, the fare was going to be pretty pedestrian.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  The menu was unique and the food was well prepared and tasty.  I was so glad that it didn’t seem like a tourist trap at all.  We all agreed that the trip to Waco to get our Magnolia fix was a successful one!