More Texas

We’ll be back again and then we’ll camp in the town and not near Austin which is a 90 minute drive each way.

Time to visit Austin. We’ve heard a lot about the city thru our research into the US Grand Prix. The Grand Prix (GP) is our reason for coming here. (see next week’s blog).

The LBJ Library had a Beatles touring exhibit.

Austin is the State Capitol of Texas. Famous for food and music (Austin City Limits?). It sounded like a nice place to explore. The Capitol building is very impressive and we wandered the visitor center and the Capitol for nearly an hour before walking down Congress to the river. We walked for nearly 3 hours exploring the side streets and especially 6^th Street where the music and nightlife happen.

A nice place, but just as we got burned out on National Parks a month ago, now were getting burned out on cities! We’re also getting “Hitch Itch” again (see http://banbrv.blogspot.com/2014/12/scratch-it-where-it-itches.html), and starting to think about packing up and heading to San Antonio at the end of the week.

We have a “Thousand Trails” (TT) membership that we bought cheap o Craigslist. TT is very much like timeshares in that you get the high pressure sales pitch and pay way over the top for what you get, but you can buy “Used” memberships and transfer them to your name. Which is what we did a couple of years ago. You have to pay annual dues but you get 30 days per year free camping and it’s only $3 a day after that so if you camp a lot it can be worthwhile. Most TT parks are very well equipped if not all that well maintained.

We found the TT resort at Lake Medina in Lakeland TX about 40 miles north of San Antonio and decided to use the last of our free days there.

This place like the timeshare near Austin is over run with deer, getting quite blasé about them now. 

This resort is on a lake too Lake Medina, the place is pretty but pretty run down. The activities center is well looked after but the roads are terrible and the other building falling into disrepair. There’s a great big pool that’s in good shape. With the weather in the 90’s we took advantage of that and the hot tub attached that isn’t in quite as good shape.

My new 2 wheel transport

We explored the River Walk in San Antonio and loved the atmosphere of the city. We'll be back to explore more.

Of course in San Antonio you have to visit the Alamo.

In a flurry of activity we planned the next couple of months one evening. (No TV!). On Wednesday we will leave here and go to Austin where we’ll stay in an RV park, empty the black and grey tanks, fill the water tanks, stock up with beer and wine before we go to the race track for the USGP. 

We will camp on the track until the next Monday, then go back to San Antonio and stay 2 nights at the Elks Lodge there while we see more of the city. Then we’ll move back to the TT resort for 3 days to use up our free nights for this year. Our friend Jesse lives in El Paso and we have to pass thru there to get to Arizona. We planned 4 days to get there. Then we want to be in Yuma for Thanksgiving and we’ll probably stop in at Casa Grande (See http://banbrv.blogspot.com/2014/12/we-wish-you-merry-christmas.html) for a week or so on the way. After thanksgiving we’ll be back in Casa Grande for the winter.

We’re buzzing with anticipation especially about the Grand Prix.