Little Big City

We have been a couple of busy bees lately, who knew filling a whole apartment from scratch would be tough... Here's our new home, located in the hill country side of Austin, Texas! It's still strange to say that we live in the big Lone Star State, I think a part of me still believes I'm waking up in Maine every morning.

So what about Texas; it has been in the 90's until about two days ago, currently we are at a brisk 82 degrees with it reaching the low 60's in the evening. I hear back in Maine it's becoming chilly, people are wrapping themselves up in jackets and sliding on their boots to head to the Fryeburg Fair for fried food and carnival rides. It makes me a little nostalgic, especially since fall is one of my favorite times of the year, but Texas has an enormous state fair over in Dallas that we're going to visit in a couple weeks so I'm pretty excited about that.

This is our leasing center building, it sits across from our sort of Texas-shaped pool. I gotta admit, one of the things that I love about this state is how much it loves itself, everything is bigger and better here in Texas and I'm starting to dig it. Except for the enormous mosquitoes and crickets, those I don't dig.

The squeeze's parents drove his car down from Maine all the way to Austin packed full with the rest of our belongings, they stayed for several days, although it didn't feel like enough. We took them to see the swarm of bats that live under the Congress Avenue Bridge, unfortunately they didn't make their epic appearance like we had hoped but we did get a great view of Lady Bird Lake.

It's definitely taking some time to get used to, I miss Maine quite a bit. But Austin seems like a wonderful place and everyone has nothing but positive things to say about this little big city. I didn't realize how small Maine was and how big everything else is, but slowly but surely we are getting used to our new home, it's a big feat when we are able to get somewhere without our GPS! To new adventures!

Austin

So we did it, we finally made it! We've actually been in Austin for about four days now, we have just been go, go, go since we arrived. Our first meal here was not BBQ, I'm not sure if that's acceptable or not... our hotel was not near much other than food chains so sushi it was! Those meatball looking things were a tempura roll, but each piece was the size of a burger slider. Everything in Texas is bigger I guess. 

(We still haven't had any BBQ if you were wondering... I know, shame on us.)

The next full day we explored downtown a bit and drove up and down the side roads to get a feel for the city. At sunset we managed to catch the epic show that is the 1,500,000 Mexican free-tailed bats that explode out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge. Apparently it's the biggest urban colony in North America and every night they eat 10,000 to 30,000 lbs of bugs. It was incredible! The sky looked like someone shook a massive pepper shaker over, it was speckled with little black dots by the thousands. The bats are tiny little things, adorable too! Dinner time we grabbed some delicious grub at Eureka! on 6th Street and took in the nightlife.

We also browsed some apartment complexes and found one we liked, but they closed shortly there after and then it was Labor Day, go figure. So instead of hanging out at the hotel all day on the holiday we explored The Domain, which is a massive outdoor mall. It's a little more expensive than our former Maine Mall, with Burberry, Louis Vuitton, and Tiffany & Co storefronts just to name a few. 

We finished the night off at iPic, some crazy luxury movie theater that costs $18 to get in. Overhearing our current living status, or lack there of, the girl at the counter gave us two free tickets for being newcomers to Austin. We still dropped a pretty penny on the food menu, that was brought by a waiter, while we reclined in La-Z-Boy-like chairs, wrapped in complementary blankets and pillows... It was part of the experience so we had to. I'm not sure if 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E' was so enjoyable because it was a good movie, or because we were at the craziest movie theater ever, or both.

After the long weekend we finally heard from the complex we applied to... and we got the apartment we wanted! A huge relief. The only slight blip is that we can't move in until Saturday because the appliances that were being delivered were apparently wrecked, we didn't ask how, but as a result the water and gas will also not be available until then. So for now, hotel living continues! We will both admit that hotel living and ordering out have lost their luster, we are ready for our own bed and a fridge stocked with food.

Apples Galore

This was the time we got lost in a corn maze. Ok, we didn't really get lost, but I did panic for a second and got slightly claustrophobic among the endless corn shoots. I think at some point we gave up and simply tunneled our way out, essentially creating a new exit. 

This was at Wallingford's Fruit House up in Auburn, we'd gone apple picking the previous year but it was a very brief experience and right down the road from the squeeze's home. I wanted to make a day trip out of the next apple picking season so I searched long and hard for a new spot. This place got happy reviews for its extras and food goodies. There were goats you could pet (one managed to get loose and just wandered around unnoticed) and feed, did you know goats love squash?? Because I sure didn't. Some of the staff would throw whole gourds and squash into their fenced in areas and they would just annihilate them.

The main building was like a mini convenience store, you could buy anything from local ciders to apple mango salsa to caramel apples. They had a bakery out back where they pumped out fresh hot apple cider donuts, so good! They had some Halloween related activities for kids, regardless of age bias the squeeze and I took an epic tractor ride to the orchards.

The day was a success. We left with a bag of apples each, a six-pack of local hard cider, and bellies full of donuts and other pastries. I tried to search for apple picking in Austin, not too many options. Maybe we'll reserve that for visits to New England.

Crawfish

I had never had crawfish before visiting TX. I'd heard of crawfish and had eaten everything in between, but this little crustacean never made it to my plate. Despite being a Mainer I'm actually not a big lobster fan, I'd opt for crab or shrimp any day. Maybe subconsciously I convinced myself they would taste like little lobsters because that's what they look like. I'm a little upset I went so long without trying them though because they are delicious! While in Austin my friend took us to the Crawfish Shack & Oyster Bar, a casual little spot where they serve you delicious cajun style seafood goodness in a giant metal pan. Buckets are of course provided to toss the remains of your sloppy meal. We got a mix of half shrimp and half crawfish all mixed in with red potatoes and corn.

Nom nom nom.

I love spicy food, perhaps in another life I was a southern native. I'm looking forward to diving into one of these enormous dishes again, that's for sure.

Woman Inherits the Earth...

“God creates dinosaurs, God kills dinosaurs, God creates man, man kills God, man brings back dinosaurs. Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the earth” 

If that isn't a great quote, then I don't know what is. I was at a bar in Austin when I discovered this staring back at me inside the women's bathroom. The excitement was instant and before I knew it I had whipped out my pink lipstick and attempted to finish the quote. I was a few cocktails in so the negative impact of smearing my lipstick on a public bathroom door hadn't occurred to me, I was just thrilled with the coincidence of being at the right place at the right time to see my favorite movie quote from my favorite movie.

If you weren't already aware... Jurassic World comes to theaters on June 12 this summer...

Bring on the Spring

Since it's officially the month of Spring, I felt inclined to post about something that reminds me of anything other than snow and the freezing cold. Since TX was the theme last time, I'll stick to it for now. Remember how that resort was nestled atop a mountain surrounded by forests overlooking a lake? Here's a view of that from their pool. I'd never been to a place like this, let alone travel much, so I needed to snap a photo so the memory could stay alive. I grew up in a family where your work ethic took precedence over everything; if you didn't have three jobs, you weren't doing it right. If you weren't always tired, you weren't doing it right. If you had time to take a vacation, you weren't doing it right.

These days my dad does travel a lot. He's worked very hard his whole life and now takes 1-2 vacations a year to travel overseas. Granted he still puts in 60 hour work weeks and has two jobs which allow him only Sundays off, but he does that so he can take those trips to France, Egypt, and Cyprus. This is all still very recent though, within the past five years or so.

Surrounded by people who never took a break made me nervous to ever take a break. I felt as though I was lazy if I had too much free time, I was concerned that spending money on a vacation was considered frivolous. But now I see my dad enjoying himself, even my sister who is also a workaholic traveled to Jamaica before starting her new job as a probation officer recently. 

Basically the moral of the story is that I need to take a damn vacation. We are going to make this move down south EPIC. I can't wait to travel down the east coast, stopping at major cities and sites, visiting attractions like the zoo (I've never been to a zoo so bear with my lame excitement). Maybe even Disney?? My mind literally can't handle the excitement of seeing so many new things. Cheers to that.

Sweet South

Almost two years ago I visited Austin. And I was totally hooked. I said to myself, "This is where I want to be." I took this photo while going horseback riding, I'd been before many years ago but not like this. The horses trekked their way up the side of a what seemed like a small mountain with sharp thorny brush, steep hillsides, loose rocks, and slippery gravel. I thought I was nearly going to die a couple times.

I guess I should probably explain how I ended up there. You see, the friend I was visiting worked at Travaasa Austin, a luxurious spa resort that was nestled atop a mountain surrounded by forests overlooking a lake. For only a lot of money you get to stay in a modern and rustic room overlooking a canyon, dine in their exquisite restaurant, have access to a full spa which offers hot-stone massages, and are welcome to join in the many daily activities offered to the guests. Some of these activities included archery lessons, hikes, yoga, and you guessed it, horseback riding! I was very fortunate in the fact that I knew someone, and sometimes that's the best "in" you can get. I think for the entire two days I was there, once overnight, I spent a whopping $100.

Back to the horseback riding. Because I wasn't really a "paying guest" we sort of had to wedge our way into getting access to these awesome extras. Normally you had to sign up for whatever activity you were interested in, but we just sort of showed up and went with the flow. Horseback riding was actually booked the day we wanted to go, we simply arrived and batted our eyelashes at the real cowboys who were in charge and managed to add ourselves to the group that was leaving shortly. Unfortunately, the horses we were paired with were technically "out of order." My horse especially seemed a little aggressive and impatient, he would stop abruptly to go to the bathroom regardless of the terrain (or incline at that matter), and would cut ahead of the other horses and run to the front of the line. You can imagine the look on my face at this point. A couple times he tripped on large rocks and sank in soft sand, almost taking me down with him. When we reached a part of the mountain that had large thorny trees, he ran alongside them forcing me to duck and pull my leg back so as not to lose a limb.

Once we returned to the ranch I learned that the poor guy hadn't been feeling well and that was why he was "out of order." Needless to say, I felt pretty terrible about him having to haul my weight up a mountain in 90 degree weather all the while he was sick. As we headed back to the resort I saw him off in the distance being hosed down with icy water, considering the other horses didn't get the same special treatment and he tried to smear me on a tree, I'd say we were even.