Texas, Austin: The Oasis of Texas

Austin was our last destination in Texas before we moved on to New Mexico. The three-hour drive from Dallas went by very quickly and, before we knew it, we were in the capital city of one of America's largest states. Our visit to the city marked the last "friend and family reunions" that we would have for a couple of weeks, so we were sad but excited to move on to pure sightseeing and exploring again on our southwest US road trip during the summer of 2007. When we arrived in Austin, we had exactly one month left before we were due to leave the United States for good and head to the South Pacific, the next focus of our 2007 adventure.

Since we mentioned reunions as the primary reason for us travelling to Austin, we'll go ahead and introduce you to the people we saw now, so you'll have an idea as to who was there. Family first, we met up with Kyle's aunt (Jeane) on our last morning before leaving the city, which you can read about at the bottom of this journal entry. Friends next, we arranged to see our good friend, Brady, and Kyle's good friend and ex-flatmate from his time living in Dallas, Lindsay, as well as her husband, Clint, and their two kids. Also, Kyle wanted to meet up with a friend of his from his days working summer camps for NCA - John - and his wife, Lynette, who worked for the same company as Kyle. There was Jennifer, too, a new friend whom we had met in Vietnam and another new friend, Ashley, whom we had met on Koh Phi Phi island in Thailand; we met both of them during the Asian exploration part of our 2007 trip around the world. Brady's sister, Rebecca, and her husband, Karl, also lived in Austin and we had both gotten to know them well when they lived in London for a 6-month stint due to Karl's job taking him there, so we hoped to meet up with them, if possible. A couple of these arrangements didn't work out, unfortunately; you'll need to put the pieces together when you read the story to find out who we failed to see.

Despite their extraordinarily high sodium content, they were pretty tasty and we subsequently bought more

On our first day in Austin, we had a lot of food, so much food that we both were pretty miserable by the time evening came around. If you have been reading our previous journals, and we hope that you have, you'll know that we went out for breakfast in Dallas, on the morning that we left, with a couple of friends, Katie and Jeremy. That breakfast was a large American one at a diner called Pete's Cafe in Farmer's Branch; by the time lunch rolled around, we were both still a little full from eating, but we had planned to meet up with a couple of people that day to eat.

Jennifer and John were going to meet us for lunch at Shady Grove, an outdoor cafe in Austin's Barton Springs area with a setup similar to a trailer park. The weather was gorgeous and hot, so we didn't mind sitting outside under the shade of the grove of trees there (hence the name of the place). Jennifer met up with us, but John had an emergency with work, so we didn't get a chance to see him. Lunch was really good; we shared chili cheese fries with Jennifer, Kyle ordered a chicken sandwich and Dan chose a footlong hot dog. Jennifer had been teaching in Japan when we met her in Saigon earlier in the year, but since then had moved back to Texas, to Tyler. She had planned a weekend in Austin to see some friends and catch up with us, and we were glad that she made it to the city!

Brady was at work when we arrived, but he had hidden a key under his doormat, so we were able to get into his apartment and drop our bags off before meeting him at his office. We said a quick hello to his cat, Ramsey, and then started driving through the hills of Austin to see him. The drive was beautiful as we passed many large houses and great views, and we even had to stop to let a small group of deer cross the road in front of the rental car we were driving. By the time we got to Brady's office, he was ready to leave, so he drove us to The Oasis, where we slipped on down to have a couple of drinks and watch the sunset over Lake Travis.

Whilst the sun was setting over the lake, we stuffed ourselves full of tortilla chips and salsa whilst having a couple of drinks. It was great to catch up with Brady and find out about his future plans to leave Austin, which included him packing up and moving to Los Angeles, and to tell him what we had been getting up to since we saw him in New York a few weeks earlier. We were due to meet Lindsay for dinner at Hula Hut that evening, and we left The Oasis in time so we wouldn't be late meeting her. However, we still managed to arrive at Hula Hut almost an hour late, which was terribly inconsiderate of us.

It took a lot longer to get to the Hula Hut than we had anticipated, even with Brady driving pretty quickly in his Mini Cooper, which he claimed was a sports car, even though it really was just a novelty car. At this point reading the journal, Brady is probably fuming, so he should know that we are just joking... Anyway, when Brady was driving us to Hula Hut, he was talking and not really paying attention to where he was going, and, all of a sudden, he pulled into his apartment complex and realised that he had gone a completely wrong direction.

It was good that he did stop off at his place, though, because Dan had somehow spilled salsa or frozen strawberry margarita from The Oasis on his yellow shirt, and he needed to change it before we went out further that evening. Once he had changed and once Brady had changed, too, since the opportunity had presented itself, we then were back on the road to Hula Hut to meet Lindsay, who had been patiently waiting for us all along.

Hula Hut was a Tex-Mex restaurant on the water, where the majority of seating was outdoor under a canopy. Since Kyle had filled himself up on chips and salsa at The Oasis, he didn't order anything to eat; he drank more frozen margaritas. Dan had held back enough on the earlier chips and salsa to order food, and he ate chicken quesadillas. Lindsay and Brady ordered food, but we have no idea what they ate that evening because we failed to write it down - let's see if they pick up on this when reading this journal entry. Perhaps they will post a comment and let us know what they ate, so we can update the story accordingly?

The meal at Hula Hut was tasty (for those who ate); we chatted for a few hours and it was great for Brady and Lindsay to catch up again after such a long time. Kyle and Lindsay had gone to New York with a group of friends from work back in 1999, when Brady lived there; therefore, the two of them met on that trip. Kyle's friends Michelle, Jason and Jennifer also joined them there, and we have managed to catch up with all of them but (unfortunately!) Jennifer during our travels around the US this summer.

When it had gotten rather late and enough margaritas had been drunk to put ourselves on the border of falling face-down or falling asleep, we called it a night. Lindsay had to get home to Clint and her two kids, Mallory and Hadley, but before she left, she asked if we wanted to come over for lunch the next day. Kyle really wanted to see their kids and thought it was a great idea; Dan and Brady were happy to join in on the fun once they heard about the free food. When we got back to Brady's, we talked for a while longer before getting some sleep. It was pretty late when we all finally dozed off and we ended up waking up quite early the next morning.

Before going to Lindsay and Clint's for lunch, we had to exchange our economy-sized rental car for a sport-utility vehicle (SUV), which would give us more room and provide a more comfortable ride during our tour of the southwestern states in the US. Our previous rental booking had required us to exchange cars in Dallas, but after investigating different price options, we settled on making the exchange in a downtown Austin location due to cheaper rates than in the North Dallas Avis location. There were only two SUV choices in Austin when we went to Avis that next morning after we woke up, so it was lucky for us that we could choose a nice car.

A Ford Edge beat out a Chevy Trailblazer; Kyle completely relied on Dan's and Brady's word about the two cars, which was very trusting of him, since he would end up doing most of the driving. The good news is that the car worked out fine - we actually are writing this journal entry one day before turning in the car at Los Angeles International Airport. We can't believe that our month in the Edge is nearly over now! If you don't know what a Ford Edge looks like, you should Google it to see what has been transporting us through the various national parks, deserts, pueblos, restricted areas, alien invasion sites, petrified forests, gambling cities, mountains, ghost towns and mountain villages across Texas, New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California.

We had gone back to Brady's office to pick up our other rental car and we followed Brady to the Avis rental office. Once we had made the exchange and we were driving our new ride, we followed Brady over to Lindsay and Clint's for lunch. We met Mallory and her new baby sister, Hadley. Mallory was not quite three years old and very cute; she was shy at first, but warmed up over time that day. Hadley was busy trying to crawl most of the afternoon when we were there, so we didn't get much time with her. Lindsay and Clint had bought lunch from Rudy's Barbecue; it was delicious! There was a large selection of meats and many sides to choose from such as baked beans and cole slaw.

After hanging out and eating, Brady went home to take care of some things and we went for ice cream with Lindsay and family. Amy's Ice Creams served really thick and creamy desserts that could be blended with different toppings. We both ordered small ice creams that were still way too big after a large barbecue lunch. Our orders were really tasty, but we think that sharing one would have been a better idea, since our stomachs weren't too happy with us after eating. Luckily, Lindsay was willing to go with us to Wal-Mart so we could buy some food and other things for our road trip, and we were able to do some walking to try and ease our stomachs a bit.

Before we left Amy's for Wal-Mart, we said a temporary goodbye to Clint and the two girls, who headed back to their house, and Lindsay hopped into our SUV. She was shocked and horrified when we bought Vienna Sausages to eat when camping in the southwest. Kyle actually liked them and thought that Dan would enjoy them, too, so we had to buy some for Dan to try. Despite their extraordinarily high sodium content, they were pretty tasty and we subsequently bought more of the small cans - many different "flavours" - to eat over the next few weeks. Despite the Viennas, we bought a cooler to store some fruit, bread, peanut butter, lunch meat, cheese and mustard, so we could make sandwiches for lunch while we were on the road. Kyle's uncle, Paul, had given us a large box of Frito-Lay potato chips that would also serve as snacks for our road trip.

Once our shopping excursion was complete, we headed back to Lindsay's to say a final goodbye to them before going back to Brady's. She sent us on our way with several useful items for the next part of our trip: toilet paper (a roll of which we still have not completely used and will be taking to the South Pacific with us), Ziploc bags (a few of which we still have not used and will be taking to the South Pacific with us), plastic cutlery (used, gone), some spare shopping bags (a few of which we still have not used and will be taking to the South Pacific with us) we could use for trash, and some plastic cups (never used, gave away to a friend in LA - sorry, Lindsay, but thanks anyway!). Most of the stuff she gave us came in very handy during our trip - thanks Lindsay! We then parted ways and found ourselves at Brady's, hanging out again and waiting to go out for the evening.

Before we went out for the night, we went over to his sister's house so we could say hello to them before they left for Bend, Oregon. Rebecca and her husband, Karl, were due to go on a short holiday and they had to take their adorable miniature dachsund, Shelby, to their friend's house, who would babysit her until they returned. They only had about ten minutes before leaving, but we managed to see them and exchange a few stories before they left, which was great!

The next item on our agenda for the weekend with Brady was to have dinner in downtown Austin (6th Street area) with a colleague of his, Rosie. Rosie was a lot of fun; it was great to meet her that evening and share a meal. Dinner was at Saba Blue Water Cafe, where they served eclectic Pacific, Caribbean and Latin Coastal dishes. The most interesting thing we ate that evening was an order of lobster scallion shooters, which we threw back and drank/ate like we would have done with a shot of alcohol. Besides the shots, we also enjoyed mu shu pork, tempura tuna, crispy vegetable spring rolls and curry tilapia, as well as some beers.

Next on our evening's agenda was to have some drinks at a bar on 6th Street before making our way to a concert at Stubb's Barbecue. The concert was outside and it was hot that evening, so we all worked up a sweat walking from the bar to the venue. As a result, more beers were in order after we arrived at Stubb's. When the concert was finished, we went to a country bar off 6th Street, where Brady and Rosie chatted whilst we played some games of pool. We all finally grew tired and called it a night, so we said good evening to Rosie and the three of us went back to Brady's.

The next morning would mark our departure from Austin, so we didn't go straight to sleep. We decided to chat some more and hang out; also, Brady made us some music CD's that we could take on our road trip. Thanks, Brady, for the CDs (we have listened to all of them), and also for buying us dinner and the concert tickets - it was a great last night in Austin! The time came for us to get some rest, since we had a long day of driving ahead of us the next day. We had also arranged to meet Jeane for breakfast the next morning at 9:00am and it was already after 1:00am when we had gotten back to Brady's apartment.

Brady suggested that we meet Jeane at Maudie's Too because (a) they served breakfast food and (b) they were located a few minutes from Brady's house. Waking up the next morning was a little difficult after having had so many beers, but we managed to say goodbye to a sleeping Brady and to make it to Maudie's by 9:05am, with all of our stuff packed into the back of our SUV. Jeane was waiting for us; she had arrived about ten minutes early, and since the place didn't open until 9:00am, it was a good thing that she suggested we meet at 9:00am instead of 8:45am, which was our original proposed meeting time.

Eating chips and salsa at 9:00am in the morning was a little bit strange, but we all got over the oddity pretty quickly and were stuffing our faces. The breakfast plates that we ordered were very spicy and the food came back to haunt us later during our 10+ hour car journey that day. Jeane was smart and ordered normal breakfast food, so she probably didn't have the same backdoor odour problems that we experienced from our huevos borrachos con queso dish with many killer serrano peppers mixed in with our eggs.

After saying goodbye to Jeane and leaving Maudie's, we stopped at a gas station to fill up our SUV with petrol, a much-needed activity with a long day of driving ahead of us. Our first stop was Roswell, New Mexico, and we had planned on being in the car for around 10 hours. No doubt we would have some comfort stops along way, but we were determined to get there in one day to continue the momentum in our road trip across the southwest United States. When we got gas, we also filled our large cooler with ice, so the food we had bought with Lindsay the day before would not spoil. We also filled our water jug with ice and water, so we would have plenty to drink as we travelled through extreme heat to get where we were going.

There's one last thing to tell you, before we close this story out for good. Dan's friend, Sally, attempted to send us some cookies (that's the same as biscuits for the British people reading this) and brownies to Brady's house, a week before we were due to get there, but her attempt failed on account of post office incompetency. The package never arrived there, even with seven days to get there from Virginia! We didn't realise that we had forgotten to ask about the package until we were in New Mexico and, when we contacted Brady to ask about it, nothing had arrived yet. As luck would have it, the box of goodies did get delivered the next day, and Brady very kindly sent them on to Phoenix, a future destination of ours, where we would be staying with a good friend of Dan's (Lee), his wife (Kelly) and their 10-month old son (Jack). You'll have to keep posted on the travel journals we publish to find out whether or not the cookies and brownies made it safely to Lee's house or not.