We heard really awesome things about Austin, so we wanted to make sure we were there long enough to enjoy what all it has to offer, and honestly, we totally could have stayed longer. We stayed at a beautiful campground in McKinney Falls State Park in a big, secluded site surrounded by trees. It was such a serene and divine spot to really relax and call home for a few days.
Our first couple of days there, we ventured around McKinney Falls State Park and hit some of the trails. The trails weren’t very long, but we really enjoyed walking around the beautiful park.
Once we got to the top of the waterfall, we tried to walk over it with Charlie, but he just wasn’t having it, so we headed to a picnic table area for some lunch. Y’all…this spot was sooo beautiful! The picnic tables were surrounded by trees everywhere. It was truly breathtaking. We sat there and really soaked in the beauty of our surroundings while we enjoyed our lunch.
After lunch, we headed back to check out one of the local breweries, Hops and Grain. We only stayed for a drink or two and then headed home for the night to (hopefully) find firewood and build a nice cozy fire. Much to our surprise, we could not find firewood ANYWHERE. We checked a couple of places and were told that it was “out of season” and there wasn’t any around, but I was still determined to have a fire at our campsite!
The next morning, we met up with some of my good friends who live in the area now for some good ol’ Texas BBQ in Downtown Austin. BBQ here is SO good, but the way they do it here is different than in Georgia— everything is a la carte and you order your meat by the pound. It took Eric and I a minute to figure it out and we looked like major rookies to the Texas BBQ game!
While we were in Austin, we also checked out Lady Bird Lake and went for a nice bike ride around it. Towards the end of our ride, we noticed a crowd gathering around the bridge over the lake, so we stopped to see what everyone was looking at. Come to find out, we were standing at the Congress Avenue Bridge, which is home to the largest urban bat colony in North America. The colony has an estimated at 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats.
The following night, we went out to dinner with my friend and her husband, and afterward, we went on a search for firewood…and finally found some! So we went back campsite and decided to test out a new s’mores combo, using striped cookies and marshmallows. They were okay, but definitely not as good as a real s’more.
As our Austin trip was coming to an end, we grabbed Texas BBQ one last time, checked out the ‘Greetings from Austin’ sign, and made another campfire before we checked out of the campground the next morning.
We ended up deciding to stay in Austin an extra night, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to stay at McKinney Falls (they were all booked up), so we decided to stay at a RV resort down the road. We washed our clothes, give Charlie a bath and got things ready for our longest drive yet—a 9-10 hour drive to Las Cruces! We loved Austin, and we’ll definitely be back, but for now, we’re on our way to New Mexico!
The Fernweh Foleys 