A Day in Austin, TX

Our beautiful daughter, Rye.

This was a favorite place that we use to eat at when we lived in Austin during  1988-1990..It has changed a little bit since the last time we ate there.  It went from small, hole in the wall to very popular and not so great food. I was a little bit bummed.

All I can say is that today was HOT!  While coming home the truck said it was 106 degrees!  It's hard to believe that people down town are wearing sweaters and suits.  But, with that said we did venture out into the heat to see downtown Austin.

Before I talk about our trip today, you must know about yesterday...and keep in mind the current temperatures we are having.  It all started around 2AM when we had no AC...yes, that is correct...NO AC.  We checked everything and could not figure out what had happened.  We were in the trailer and out, back in and out...switching breakers on and off.  Doing these minor things is enough to cause us to break out in a sweat...and it did!  We finally came to the conclusion that nothing was going to be fixed at this hour and we tried to get some sleep until the morning.  Key word there was "tried"...it failed for me and the day turned into a "get Mom a Dr. Pepper or else..." kind of day.  We all lived!!

We woke up in the morning and rechecked everything again, for the the 100th time.  We borrowed an electric cable from a neighbor and ruled out that our cord was bad.  The unusual thing is we had power to the outlets, just no a/c, lights and refrigeration.  A different neighbor told us this meant that our 12 volt was bad. We immediately called a service center and had someone trying to help us over the phone to trouble shoot our situation.  At 95.00 an hour for the service call we really did not want him to show up and flip a switch and leave.  This took about an hour and the temperature outside is gradually rising...90...92..95...yeah, it doesn't drop at night like in the mountains..kind of sucks!


He arrived, tested a few things and immediately found our problem...500.00's later.  Our fuse panel had been fried, which was tied to the 12V battery thing ma jig .  We are not sure why...could of been the power surge from the storm, could have been our battries....who knows.  We decided to drive and get the part right then instead of waiting for it to be FED EX'd the next day.  Thank goodness we did!!

The technician gave Cory a quick lesson in how to install the part and we were off.  Took a few hours to return and about 20 minutes to install.  The whole time we were in the trailer with no A/C and it being about 102 degrees outside.  I am sure the trailer was hotter than that.  Cory and I were melting.  I have never experienced the water pouring out of my pores as I have living down here in Texas. We were basically down to our skivvies trying to be electricians and doing our best to not get shocked.  Yeah, we forgot to unhook the brand new batteries before we started working on the panel.  Had a few sparks before we realized this one.

We are learning ALOT about our trailer.  The guy asked me if I  knew what RV stood for, he told me "Ruined Vacation".  Wasn't he cute.  He also said that if the owners of RV's knew  all it took to care and maintain an RV nobody would own one.  I think it is just part of owning anything.  It cost you money to maintain and repair whether we live in a home or an RV.  SO, that was yesterday.

Today we found ourselves in down town Austin and loving every minute of it.  We started off at the visitor center for the capital building, moved to the capital, had lunch at Hickory Street, tried to go to AMOA (Austin Museum of Art), going to "Bodies" at UT and ending our day at the Texas Memorial Museum.  All in all it was fun!  Considering the temperatures, the kids did an awesome job of staying positive and living in the moment.  Tomorrow: Schlitterbahn!!

Believe it or not, we were all having a great time. The camera caught us in between smiles...LOL

This fence goes around the whole state capital and every star is painted gold..The fence and original building were all built by prisoners in the early 1820's.

Rye and Drake are at the very top in the center..on the 4th floor.

This leg bone was as large as Drake and the sign read "Please Touch"...so he is!

The Senate room was beautiful. All of these desk are the original desk from the 1870's.  They have only been modified at the ink well.  A phone had to be installed for them to vote, speak on the floor and talk to their offices.  They were all solid walnut.

This is the rain storm from the day before.  The river is running under neath our trailer.   It was a complete downpour!  Being the good Mom that I am, I encourage my kids to go out and enjoy..LOL

After about 5 minutes we had a ton of standing water...simply amazing!