Austin Texas Wrap Up
It's been about three weeks now that my wife and I have been home from our trip to Austin Texas. I've shared pretty much all of the big stuff with you that I had planned on sharing, but there are a few other things that I wanted to post about as I have been reflecting on our time in the Lone Star State. I've already made it no secret that two days wasn't nearly enough time to spend in Austin. I think I also mentioned that if I had known we were only an hour and a half away from San Antonio, it would have been cool to travel down there as well.
Next time...
This is going to sound like an obvious mistake to a lot of people, but I think one of the biggest things I noticed on this trip is just how poorly I pay attention to my hydration when I am traveling. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I don't want to be out and about having a good time and have to find a bathroom every ten minutes. However, there has to be a reasonable balance between staying adequately hydrated and spending your whole vacation in public restrooms.
Needless to say, I did a poor job of drinking enough water on this trip. It took me several days once we got home to get fully back to normal. It was rough, and how horrible is it to have such an awesome trip only to feel like crap when you get home?
You might remember last week I told you about Matt's El Rancho restaurant and how crazy it was the night we went. If you need to, go ahead and go back to last week and read the post about it. I ended up doing a bit more research to see if Matt's is always that busy, and it turns out the answer is no. As a matter of fact, in doing some Internet sleuthing, I discovered that the night we were at Matt's, there had been an altercation where the police and paramedics had to be called due to a guy smashing a beer mug on another guys face.
I don't know if it happened before or after we got there, but it's still a pretty good indication of just how busy, tense, and insane the place was. I saw someone else post and said they have lived in Austin for 16 years and they have never seen Matt's as busy as it was that night.
I guess we were just lucky then!
It's still pretty crazy to think we could have been right in the middle of all that. In fact, it could have been happening in another area of the restaurant as we were eating our dinner. Who knows.
If you live in the US, you know that gas prices have been a pretty big deal lately. I was actually lucky enough to get gas at our local Costco the other day for $3.75 a gallon, but it has been a long time since it has been that low, and that honestly still isn't a great price.
After we left Matt's El Rancho on Saturday night, we had to fill up the rental car so we could return it with a full tank on Sunday morning. We happened to stop at a gas station down the road from the restaurant, and though I don't remember how much I paid per gallon, the station had this sign out by the road which I thought was interesting. Interesting enough to take a photo of it.
It turns out this is a standard practice to keep the public calm and not panic buy. Which believe it or not happens. I'm actually surprised when the price dropped to $3.75 in Michigan I didn't see guys with truck beds full of gas cans filling them up. I've seen people do things like that for far less savings.
I know I said it before, but if you ever make your way down to Texas, I highly encourage you not to sleep on HEB. It might seem like just another grocery store to you, but it's pretty freaking fantastic. I think I mentioned last week that I could have spent a lot more time there, and that is the absolute truth. These chips are just a single example of that. These waffle cut, garlic and hatch chili chips were pretty freaking amazing.
In addition to that, we also picked up some homemade flour tortillas that were out of this world. I actually saw a post on Facebook the other day from a person in Columbus, OH and they were saying that whenever they go down to Texas they stop at HEB and get some homemade flour tortillas and they were asking if there was a place in the middle of Ohio that had similar quality tortillas.
Want some BBQ, fried chicken, or about a million other fresh made things? They have all of that too, as well as all of your regular grocery staples.
Or how about a massive pumpkin? They had those at HEB too. I think it might have taken two people to pick up one of the $50 pumpkins, but you know what they say, everything is bigger in Texas...
As I mentioned above, the fresh prepared food section of HEB was pretty outstanding. I wish I had paid a bit more attention to it while we were there. Honestly, I kind of discounted it because it seemed like it was simply a grocery store. However, now I know, and if you know, you know.
Another thing that really impressed us about Austin was the general lack of fast food places. Yes, there was an occasional Whattaburger here and there, or some of the standard coffee shops, but for the most part in the heart of Austin, fast food joints are nowhere to be found. You have to travel out to the outskirts of town to actually find a McDonald's or a (believe it or not) Taco Bell.
Which isn't that surprising when you realize how much great local food there is available in Austin. It was still interesting to make that realization though.
Austin has definitely left a mark on me, and I don't think this is the last time we will visit. In fact, we have already started talking about maybe going back again one day. It might not be right away, but I have a feeling Texas will find a way to call us back.
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