Austin Texas

 Saturday was the day that we had to leave our VRBO in Kingsland and make the move to Austin. We didn't get up particularly early, but once we did it was time to start cleaning up and making the place looker better than when we arrived. We ate breakfast, got everything clean, and finished watching Space Jam all before 10:00am when it was time to pack everybody into the van and head to Austin.

Our first stop was the Capitol City dorm. Bro. Simpson gave us a tour of the place that Matthew Jr is thinking about spending his next four years. It is a large house just on the outskirts of Austin. Bro. Simpson said that when they built the place it was far out in the country with cows surrounding them on all sides. The cows are long gone, and now it is surrounded by large apartment complexes. The dorm separates the boys to the ground level and the girls get the upstairs rooms. After thanking Robbie, we went out to see the sites of Austin. Originally, our plan was to go to Pedernales Falls State Park, however Matthew's swollen knee made walking painful. So instead we decided to go to some places in the city of Austin. Our first stop was the Austin Aquarium. Our family loves to go to Aquariums, and there are several great ones not to far from our house, including Gatlinburg, Chattanooga, and Atlanta. This was nothing like those. This was in an old strip mall and looked like it might have been a Ross before being converted into an Aquarium. That didn't stop them from charging full price. Well, maybe it has been a while since I have checked prices those other aquariums charge about $40, while Austin was about $25. I guess everything is just getting more expensive. However, while I may grumble about the price, the cashier was super helpful and got us a large discount by getting us a membership which turned out to be cheaper for our family than buying individual tickets.

Once inside, we got to wander around and see the many sights. Julia and Joanna had an absolute blast. They loved touching the Mantra Rays. One employee went around with a snake that they got to hold. Their business model included buying tickets that you could spend for different activities. Feeding the Manta Rays was 1 ticket, while playing with the Wallaby was 5 tickets. So if you wanted to do everything you would end up spending double the admission price. We were given a couple of tickets for signing up as members, but didn't end up doing any of the extra activities. The one that Rebekah wanted was to play with the Wallaby, but the employee said that it wasn't coming out to play right now. Julia and Joanna also got a tie balloon. There was a man dressed up as a clown doing tie balloons while telling jokes. He was kind enough to do one for the two girls for free while telling funny stories and generally making them laugh. Another exhibit was feeding the Parakeets, the three girls went in there but didn't have any Parakeets land on them. By favorite part was two turtles that were getting into a fight.

Overall, the experience was geared for elementary age children. The two girls had a ton of fun, enjoying every minute in the Aquarium, while the enjoyment definitely diminished with age. Matthew was just happy we weren't going on a hike. He spent most of his time sitting on benches and watching the people go buy. It was also here that we noticed a big difference between Austin and other places in the world. While there were many families with children there, it was also largely populated by young adults who looked like they were proud of themselves for their ability to "adult". Finally, it was quite difficult to take pictures in the aquarium as they kept it quite dark. I played with the settings on my camera a lot, trying to figure out how to get good pictures in low light. I don't think I ever figured it out. But I did manage to change the aspect ratio accidentally, and now I have no idea how to turn it back.

When we were finished with the aquarium, we still had several hours left in the afternoon, so our next stoop was the Texas Military Forces Museum. Located inside Camp Marby, part of the Texas National Guard, this free museum was well worth the visit. On our way to the museum, we got lost for a minute as the GPS told us to go in a gate that was closed. But we eventually found our way to the correct entrance and were able to visit the museum. It was a large room with several vehicles mostly from World War 2. There were also several side rooms with additional memorabilia. While most of the museum was dedicated to WW2, there was one room on Texan Independence and the Alamo. The two girls were given a scavenger hunt, which they found a lot of fun. However, due to the limited time we had (it was near closing time), they were unable to find everything so they didn't get the prize. My favorite exhibits were the multiple different dioramas of different battles. They were incredibly intricate. While most exhibits were hands off, there was a model cockpit that you could climb into, Matthew could barely fit inside.

Once the museum closed, we toured the outside which had an incredible number of tanks, missiles, and various support equipment (including a military tractor). We wondered around looking at the different tanks for quite a while before finding a old training ground with a bunch of bars at different heights. Matthew had great fun showing off his pull-up skills. 

Once we had seen everything that the museum had to offer, it was time to go to dinner. For that we went downtown to Aba Austin. Downtown Austin is probably the "hippest" place I have ever been to. It definitely had a young liberal hipster vibe to it and we felt out of place. It took a long time to figure out where to park, but we eventually found a parking lot not too far away from the restaurant. We decided to go there was an early dinner, which was the right decision since it was very crowded. When we arrived, they had just turned away a party of 8 saying it would be a 2 hour wait. Luckily, our party of 6 got in without a wait at all. It was a Mediterranean restaurant that advertised as being "family style". We didn't really understand what they meant and so we let the waiter pick most of our food. It was then we realized our situation. We got the kebabs: Lamb, Beef and Chicken. They were all out of this world. Matthew said it was by far the best chicken he had ever had. The price of the entrees' wasn't too bad either, but then the other shoe dropped. Sides were extra, and not only extra but basically the price of an entree. So instead of ordering 4 items and leaving full, we had to order 7 items and leave not quite hungry but far from full.

After leaving the restaurant, we walked up and down the main street. Two things I quickly noticed about Austin, number 1 the very high number of Teslas and number 2 the number of driverless cars the went around picking people up and dropping them off. I suppose this is the future of America. Stacy wanted nothing to do with it and was very emphatic that she wanted to go back to rural Alabama. We finished the evening at a local ice cream shop and went to our Holiday Inn for the night.