Some reflections on our travels and holiday in Austin, Texas over the winter of 2024. This blog entry is more about travelling, our long stay and coping and less about any grand adventures.
We booked six weeks (January 24 - March 6) in a three bedroom two bath house in the Zilker neighborhood of South Austin. Our land lords, Carole and Kenny, rent four long stay properties under the title "Under the Texan Sun". We stayed at their "Hill House" in 2018 (a two bedroom, one bath home) then here at "La Casa" in 2019, 2020 and again this year 2024. They are good people to rent from, we're happy with the place and have made a reservation to come again for the same period in 2025. The larger house gives us more space for ourselves, our cats and our visitors — this year Gord and Leslie came for a week. There were other guests we had invited; some who had hoped to come but timing didn't work out for them.
We have been coming to Austin for long stay winter holidays since 2013 and we've been visitors to the city since 1990. For these long stays, for several years we stayed at "Casita del Sol" (this blog Austin Feb, 2013) in Bouldin but when they stopped taking pets we found a place in Travis Heights (this blog Austin Nov, 2016). Both are in nearby neighborhoods of South Austin. We weren't that keen on that last place so we've been staying with Under the Texan Sun ever since. We've been bringing our pets with us every year. It makes finding a place a bit of a challenge; that's one reason we're pleased to rent with Under the Texan Sun.
The gap from 2020 to 2024 is largely due to the Covid Pandemic. We left in March of 2020 just as the pandemic was declared and recognized by both Canada and the US. We considered going to Austin in 2023 after we came down with Covid in January and, with Carole's help, had even found a nearby rental. Unfortunately our car problems got in the way and we couldn't go. At that time, January of 2023, we reserved "La Casa" for 2024 — you really need to book a year in advance.
Sidebar: In 2021 Texas experienced a massive winter storm where the power was out for many days throughout the state. It was cold and people in the hundreds died on the street and in their homes — Governor Abbott blamed it on wind energy (when it was fact gas wells that froze), Senator Ted Cruz (R Tex) fled to warmer weather in Mexico. In the Austin American-Statesman I read of a woman who had died in her home during that storm and power outage when her catheter froze! In 2023 a similar ice storm hit the same areas with similar power problems.
We are glad we were not in Austin for either of those events! I understand they still haven't integrated their power system with the rest of the country/continent to help mitigate these disasters. However, the weather we had this year was marvelous. We even got to see the blue bonnets in bloom.
We take our car, our bikes/ebikes and our three cats on these Texas holidays. Originally it was our two cats Piscine and Richard Parker travelling in a Honda Civic, then a Hyundai Elantra, and staying at "Casita del Sol" in Bouldin. In the years that followed, with the three cats we now have, we bought a larger car (Honda CRV), in late 2018 for our subsequent trips. The Honda CRV is much bigger with enough room for all of us and our gear. Mind you, of the three cats, only Piscine, who has been with us on every trip, is comfortable with the ride. Radar and Little Moe are not happy travellers. They hunker down in the car and are clearly not having any fun. When there, they don't venture outside, unlike Piscine. There's a long cat story there which I will come to in a bit.
The drive to Austin is pretty much 25 hours driving time on the road (it's 2,500km and you can average 100km/hr on the US Interstate Highway system). That requires some overnight stops along the way. Usually we do it over three days with two nights lodging; we have done it in two days with only one overnight stay but that's awfully hard on the drivers and the cats. On our way down this year, with Reg doing all the driving, we took an extra day with overnight stays in Cincinnati, Memphis and Dallas. On the way back, Kate did a bit of driving, and we stayed in Little Rock and Indianapolis as we have often done before. We stay at the La Quinta chain because they are "pet friendly"; these days pet friendly seems to cost a lot more than it used to!
One of the reasons we like Austin in the winter is the fine weather and the bike trails. We've always brought our bikes and have enjoyed exploring Austin around Town Lake and the various river trails. Often we have taken our bikes to San Antonio and biked to the old missions along the river. In years past we've done a lot of biking, even for just getting around on the streets to various parts of the city. This year, with Kate's ankle injury, we brought a pair of ebikes that we had bought last summer before her surgery. We ended up using Uber a lot and not biking as much as we had hoped.
Bringing these ebikes was a bit of a struggle on a couple of fronts. First, the goose neck bike rack we were using for our pedal bikes wouldn't work. We had to get a tray for them to sit in and an adapter to fit the trailer hitch. Second, ebikes are not at all tolerant of wet weather. There are sensitive electrical components that you do not want to get wet. The bikes are very expensive and need to be protected from the elements. On the way down I had the bikes wrapped with a waterproof cover but that didn't work very well at all. We ended up stopping for duct tape and rope to better secure the cover which the wind wanted to tear apart.
On the way back I figured out a better solution — the bikes were first shrink wrapped individually, then shrink wrapped again on the rack, then covered with waterproof cover and all of that tied down with ropes. On the way there the roads were wet, snow and cold was an issue. We had torrential rain in Arkansas and East Texas (I read about 6" of rain in one day!). But the bikes survived. On the way back, when the bikes were better protected, we had fine weather and never saw any wet days. We did get to use our bikes a few times — some short rides in the neighborhood, once along Town Lake, another day in San Antonio and some exploring of the Walnut Creek bike trail. As Kate improves we hope to be able to use the ebikes more.
There are a couple of interesting stories around our arrival in Austin. The first, as promised, is about the cats. The second is about the features of our rental.
As mentioned the cats are not happy travellers and we may not take all of them ever again on these long stay holidays. Piscine is a reasonable traveller and although she cries a lot in the car in the morning she soon settles down. Radar and Little Moe are almost catatonic in the car. They do not like getting into the car, in fact they have to be man handled to get them in, and once in they just lay frozen in place hoping that nothing more happens. On our arrival the cats were pretty freaked out. Little Moe especially spent a lot of time pacing around the house and crying loudly. Kate was concerned that he might not be peeing as he should (Richard Parker had died of urinary stones and behaved similarly). We ended up taking him to a nearby Emergency Veterinary Clinic. He did not want to go and he did not want to be there. He was impossible to handle and was climbing the walls to get away. He would not calm down, could not be examing and had to be sedated. In the course of doing all that I got a nasty cat bite and ended up in a nearby Emergency Clinic where I was prescribed an anti-biotic. All of that ended up costing nearly $400 for me and over $1,000 for the cat. And there was nothing wrong with the cat other than the stress from travelling and being manhandled into La Quinta hotel rooms! On the way back, on the first day, Little Moe threw up in the car and Piscine pissed on Kate's pillows. Sigh.... I should say that after a few days in Austin they were comfortable around the house and had forgiven us. But clearly travel with cats is challenging.
The second arrival story is perhaps comically/stupidly funny. We've been to this rental before but haven't been back in years and on arrival this time we noted that there didn't seem to be a microwave; or at least there wasn't one on the counter where we expected it. We are firm believers that, on a long stay like this, if there's something you need that isn't there, go and get it. And we need a microwave, so when we went to stock up on essentials at Costco (reminder: they want cash or their credit card and our debit card doesn't work with them) we ended up buying a nice one with plans to leave it behind — the expense is rather minor when you consider what you are paying overall for the long stay. We had set it up, and used it a couple of times, when making coffee one morning, I looked up from the stove to see that there's a built in microwave there over the stove with a stove exhaust fan in it. Oh for dumb! We ended up donating the one we had just bought to one of the local groups that help out with the homeless. We might have taken it back to Costco but we had no desire to pack it back up and go stand in the return lines.
This blog has wandered far too long so I'm going to close it here. There are other stories to tell, but I have other duties that call on me today.
