# Austin

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Having spent a good amount of time looking for a good RV Park in or near Austin, TX (on Labor Day Weekend, no less!), we came to the conclusion that most choices were $50/day or more, so maybe we should just go far outside of Austin and stay in another Corps of Engineers site next to a lake! These sites are usually in pretty good locations and usually fairly clean, plus they're rather inexpensive! So, looking at RV Parks around Granger Lake, north-east of Austin and about 1 hour drive away, we found that out of 3 RV Parks, there was one site at one campground which was available for Thursday through Saturday. That's all! So, we took it.

While the 240 mile trip was long, it was uneventful. The trip ended by our driving on some county roads, beginning with "FM" (which we found actually does stand for "Farm to Market"), but they were paved and raised quite a lot above the neighboring farm fields.

Our site at Willis Creek RV Park wasn't much, just electricity & water, the lake was muddy and it was very hot and humid (high 80s with at least 90% humidity).

Kelly and Richard went for a short walk while the kitty rested in the AC. Everyone had a good night's sleep.

The next morning, we had a very slow start day, relaxing in the RV, reading email, etc., and finally getting around to having brunch around noon. Sometimes you just have to do these things!

Finally, we got out and decided we were going into Austin to see the bats at the Congress Street Bridge. Having looked at the weather reports for the Austin area, we saw that there was some chance of rain in the late evening and it actually looked better the next day, however, what if we didn't go see the bats today and it happened to be worse tomorrow? Weather reports change around here really quickly. We decided to try seeing the bats today and if it doesn't happen, then we still have tomorrow to try again.

According to Google's maps, there are multiple ways into Austin and only one of them doesn't involve toll roads. We have no problem with paying toll, so checked into how much it would be and how the system works. Unfortunately, it looks as though in order to use Texas Toll roads, you need a TxTag in order to make effective use of them, and they talk about attaching it to your windshield, so its either something you would need to print or get delivered to you. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen! Other web pages talked about Texas having an agreement with some other states to send you a bill in the US Mail, but California wasn't mentioned. Still other pages talked about fines for using the toll-ways and not being correctly registered, etc. In the end, it just seemed easier to use the non-toll route, even though it involved about 30 minutes more travel. Something to remember when visiting Texas.

On the way to Austin, Kelly decided she'd like to replace her sadly departed squashed fairy coffee mug with another hand-made ceramic mug.

She found a potters' cooperative

Austin Pottery Studio & Gallery

and we dropped in. Here's her new treasure:

It was very difficult to choose amongst the many fine wares. This group is very talented.

Of course, after arriving in Austin proper we ended up having several hours to fill before bat time, so we took a side trip to Zilker Park Botanical Garden.

It is a little slice of zen in a bustling city just beyond its outer trees.

Leaving the garden close to their closing time of 6pm, it was time to head to our appointment with some bats! Having done some research online (batsinaustin.com), we were armed with quite a few potential parking locations, some free, others cheap, and still others a little more expensive. We decided to try out the first choice of "Austin American-Statesman’s Bat Observation Center".

Their parking lot is right beside the bridge to the south and is said to be free after 6pm. We arrived and found signs saying it was "patrolled" and was a paid lot "24/7". Strange. But, there were many other cars of people already there and furthermore, while the machines mentioned giving your parking space number when paying, there were no parking space numbers anywhere in the lot! We decided to trust the web page and get settled in. After a while Richard received a phone notification of "severe thundershowers starting in 10 minutes!" It wasn't kidding and it wasn't wrong!

As some may say, "the heavens opened up and a thunderstorm of biblical proportions commenced!", and everyone ran for cover! It was amazingly fast! It appeared, from radar, as though the storm wasn't going to end quickly, so we decided to try to drive, slowly and carefully, back to the campground. Obviously, the bats were going to be flying today.

The trip back to the campground was very exciting and sometimes not in a good way. Traffic was very slow, there were buckets of rain, and lots of amazing lightening, with accompanying huge thunder claps, all of the way back.

We were a little concerned about those "Farm to Market" roads on the way to the campground, but as we got closer the rain let up quite a lot and the raised roads were no problem at all. The weather front was to the south and east of us, and to the north and west, the sunset sky could be seen peeking beneath the clouds. Cool, yet kind of eerie:

Even missing one stablization foot, the trailer was still standing in the midst of huge wind gusts. The kitty was glad to see us! There are now a lot more campers in the campground! Some neighbors stayed out in the wind having a little party. We watched the lightening and later watched the news (over the net) while having supper.

Saturday, we shall try it a second time!

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Created by Richard Johnson on 2021/05/28 21:28

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