Day 3 - At last an easy drive

[Note:  Text in blue is written by Rick]


This morning we woke up in a Wal-Mart parking lot after a not-so-great night of sleep.  My brilliant plan to stop for the night at Walmart so that I could put Joan to bed at a decent hour while Bronwyn went in the store to stock up on everything we needed, and save a few bucks by spending a free night in the Walmart parking lot (Walmart allows RVs to spend the night in their lots) didn't work out quite as well as I imagined.  At first, it was hot and noisy, but there was a nice breeze and the trailer cooled off pretty quickly.  By the time that Bronwyn returned from shopping, the trailer was fairly comfortable ... but still noisy.  Fortunately, Joan fell asleep quickly and things looked like they might work out OK.  


Unfortunately, Walmart likes a clean parking lot.  At about midnight, some type of very noisy street cleaner did a couple of laps around our rig, which succeeded in waking up everybody.  Joan decided that she was now cold so we closed the window by her bunk.  A short time later, she was too hot ... and now very awake.  The nearby road noise was no longer lulling her to sleep.  Eventually, Joan decided to sleep on the couch, but not until everybody lost a lot of sleep.


Morning arrived too soon.  Bronwyn and Joan went to Walmart for some fresh doughnuts while I got the trailer ready to roll.  After a quick breakfast, a stop for gasoline, and a stop for coffee (it wasn't until after breakfast that I found where we had packed the coffee pot), we were on the road to Austin.


The drive to Austin was scenic and uneventful.  We played a game where we all had to spot things that you wouldn't see in Charlotte.  Bronwyn spotted a funeral home near Waco that was two geodesic domes joined together.  Definitely the most unusual funeral home we had ever seen.  I guess Bronwyn won the prize.


After slightly more than an hour of driving, we arrived at the Austin Lonestar RV Resort.  This was the top-rated campground in the Austin area, but I secretly shared Bronwyn's skepticism about an "RV Resort."  Bronwyn made a lot of cracks about how I had made reservations for us at a "resort."  And the jokes increased when we saw that one of the neighboring establishments was an adult video store.  (Texas seems to have absolutely no zoning rules.) However, things began to look up when we were greeted at the gate by the manager in a golf cart.  He was expecting us, and took us immediately to our camping space, helped make sure we got set up OK, and told us to stop by the office to fill out the paperwork when we had a few minutes.  The RV resort deserved its high ratings.  A large tree provided some shade and after a few minutes the trailer was disconnected, the side of the trailer was extended out to make more interior space and we were hooked up to electricity, water and sewer.  More importantly, the air conditioning was running now that we had 120v power.  

After a shower and lunch, Joan and I took a refreshing swim, while Bronwyn took a refreshing nap.  Around 4 pm, after things had cooled to the low 90s, we headed into Austin to meet Bronwyn's friend from high school and see some sights.  I will let Bronwyn tell the story from here.


{OK, so we have decided to color code our text so we can keep straight who is being long-winded doing the talking.  Forevermore, Bronwyn is in orange.....Joan is in violet}


So Austin is not the most kid-friendly town.....but heaven if you are in college or post-college years.  So we did not have a whole lot planned beyond seeing the capitol (received a AAA Gem rating).  Prior to the trip, I had printed out some Letterboxing information, so we had 3 locations to find letterboxes on the grounds of the capitol.  So before we met up with my friend Carrie, we went in search of the letterboxes.


The first box we looked for did not appear to be there anymore.....and Rick came across a nest of fire ants, so we decided that even if there was a letterbox there, it was not worth risking the pain of a fire ant attack.


The second letterbox was right were the clue said it would be, so I was somewhat relieved that at least we would have a 33% success rate.  The hand-carved stamp was of the capitol was pretty cool.

The last letterbox also appeared to be missing.....and let me tell you, we got down on our hands and knees and searched for it.  Good thing no one was around or they might have thought we were planting an explosive device!


By the time we finished searching, it was time to meet Carrie in front of the capitol.  Amazingly it is open until 8pm on Sunday, you can take pictures anywhere in the building, and they let Rick get through the X-ray machine with his pocket knife.  You gotta love Texas!


We would definitely recommend checking out the building...the dome is very cool from the inside, and it is neat to see the Senate and House of Represenatives chambers.

Carrie, Joan and Bronwyn in the Texas Senate

After a nice dinner with Carrie's family and in-laws, we headed back to "the resort" and looking forward to a peaceful night's sleep.