Austin"s McKinney Falls

Recently, we were pulling into a campground and heard a high pitched sound. We looked around wondering what was making that awful noise. As we were driving to our spot, people were looking at us in a questioning way. It was us!  We have had our bikes stolen in the past and prefer to keep them and not bother the insurance company for new ones. We had put an alarm on our bikes that is supposed to scare off potential thieves if they cut the chain or messed with the lock.

We haven't had TV for a couple of weeks.  We turned on the news to hear another storm  and  tornado warnings on the way for round two. We were surrounded  by trees that made us uncomfortable. We dodged the bullet by being south of Austin and just got a lot of rain. Onion Creek has risen quite a bit once the sun came out.

 We stayed in McKinney Falls State  Park and had purchased a state parks pass that gives us half off the second night. The RV park in town is $100 /night during the spring. This was a good choice even if we had to battle the traffic to get into Austin.
Fishing in Texas's state parks does not require a fishing license even if we weren't residents. The bass and catfish are huge. But after the storm the creeks were too muddy to fish.

 We had to check out downtown Austin. Good thing we had our trusty GPS and a good backseat driver to maneuver the strange flow of the city. The traffic that we had heard about lived up to the hype.

Plenty of street art.

We stopped at the Driskill Hotel to share a huge amazing cinnamon roll after lots of walking. It was Saturday and the wait for brunch was quite long.  We opted for the bakery and coffee with a window view of  the baker at work.

Built in 1886 as the showplace of a cattle baron, The Driskill remains a landmark of legendary Texas hospitality, located on Sixth Street in the heart of downtown Austin, From the magnificent columned lobby with its marble floors and stained-glass dome to the classic, newly revitalized décor, it was fun to imagine a time gone by.

 After finishing our cinnamon rolls we headed down the street to the capitol. It is amazing to me to see the amount of money spent on fixtures and fountains. There must have been a lot of tax money coming in during the cattle and oil growth. The door handles were pretty fancy.

The hike bike trail around Lady Bird Lake is 10 miles long with bridges and loads of people walking and biking even on a Monday morning.

Turtle conga line

Downtown Austin from the boardwalk

Lady Bird Boardwalk

Back at McKinney Falls lower falls.

Shelter Rock along Onion Creek

On to Bayou country...