An Austin Style Welcome

While Roswell was not everything I hoped it would be, the next stop surpassed my expectation. Again, we were mainly trying to get our money's worth out of our annual national park pass, so we stopped at Carlsbad Caverns. We didn't do anything around the park, just went straight to the caverns. The place was pretty empty as it was a weekday and it was cold. But wow! The caves were beautiful and huge - the main room could hold an airbus, or so I was told. It is spectacular and I had an eerie sense of being at home. I can't explain it, but every part of me wanted to play house. I was transported back to the times when you don't see a huge cardboard box, you see a multi-story home. You don't see a living room, you see a fort waiting to happen. I wanted to run all over this cavern and dub one space the bedroom, and the next a kitchen. My brain was spinning over with all the possibilities awaiting throughout the cavern. I haven't had an urge like that to 'play' for as long as I can remember, and it's a feeling I intend to hold on to for as long as possible. Pure, unadulterated joy. It took us nearly 2 hours to walk the whole thing, and I was very thankful for the elevator at the end!

We continued on to Van Horne - a town that looks like it has evolved out of a truck stop. It is simply a strip of mediocre diners and motels, with one more upscale hotel for those wanting more plush surrounds. We, of course, stayed in a crappy but serviceable motel. I wish I could say more about this little stopover, but that is all it was really, a stopover. We were up early the next day and our way.

We wanted to stop in a place called Marfa. When we first decided we were going to do a roadtrip, we were asking random people where they would stop. The first guy we asked this told us about Marfa. He was from Texas and had recently moved to Seattle and told us about this weird art installation in the middle of the desert. We felt that it rounded the trip off nicely - the last thing we visit is the first thing we pinned to our

map. It was on a long strip of road and we almost drove past it! We were expecting it to be in the town of Marfa, but it was something  like 50 miles out. It's a Prada shop, complete with shoes and bags, carefully placed in the middle of the desert. You can't go in, just window shop as it were. Apparently the government are trying to take it down because they define it as a billboard, not an art installation. Fingers crossed they don't get their way!

We did want to stop in Marfa, but we had previously decided to do a long haul and just get to Austin. Road Tripping in motels is no where near as fun as in the RV, and every night we stayed in a motel our money was reducing. So we drove through Marfa and have every intention of going back for a weekend. For a place seemingly stuck out in the middle of nowhere, they have carved out quite a community for themselves. I did hear that artists headed out to these parts for a bit of inspiration and to get away from the pace of Austin. There is a university there and some really quirky looking stuff, it really was a shame that we didn't get to stop on the way.

It was a long drive to Austin made worse by our panic about the van. The Texas roads that head through miles of empty space are windy. Damn windy. Our van gets thrown all over the place, and the driver's side wheel randomly thuds against the wheel arch. So we were driving and waiting for a wheel to do flying off. This is rather melodramatic, I know. But let's see how you hold your sanity together when barrelling down the road at 70mph and you start to hear and feel a intermittent sound coming from under the vehicle. Your brain is telling you it's fine while you have to stop your body from finding the door handle and doing a tucked body roll out of the vehicle to the safety of the unthudding ground.

This was not my biggest bite...

We got to Austin in one piece. We found a motel last minute and managed to get them down from $65 to $45 a night. When I got to the room, I could not believe my eyes. How anyone could charge $65 for that room and look them in the eye I will never know. The walls had stains on every one. It looked like someone had stood in the middle on a lazy susan and projectile vomited. It lacked the basic amenities given to us at every other motel (which were half the price). The location was crap. The next day I woke up covered in bed bugs. Well, I didn't realise they were bed bugs until later on in the day when they started to swell up. The worst one, which I still have, swelled up to the size of my palm. Never, ever stay at The Sands Motel in Austin. I have already written a review on yelp, just in case anyone else has the misfortune of even considering this place.

We swiftly moved to a motel that provided kitchenettes and paid a week upfront. It was so nice to have some sort of base again. We set about finding an apartment straight away and were viewing places that afternoon! We were even invited to a party by one of our realtors. We felt a bit bad because in the end we went for an apartment that he didn't show us round, but we decided to hit the party anyway, what have we got to lose after all? It turned out to be a nice evening, and we made a couple of friends out of it, including the assistant manager at our new apartment block.

We are now all moved in to our new apartment. It is slightly nicer than our last one and it has a walk in cupboard that most English houses would refer to as a spare bedroom. We are starting to see winter lift here in Austin. It seemed to last about a week, and it was surprisingly cold. When I say we are all moved in, it took us about 15 minutes to transport all of our stuff out of the van and into the apartment. We have a sofa - reclining sofa! We went out and chose our Christmas tree. We were obviously a little late - we went to a farm to choose and cut our own and strided meaningfully towards the trees. We looked around and could find nothing decent to chop, so went for a precut one instead. It's still lovely though! Had we gone on the weekend, the tree farm not only does mulled cider and cookies, but serves up BBQ as well. Brilliant!

Right across the road from our apartment is a place called Torchy's Tacos. Holy fuck. Incredible tacos. Big, cheap and creative - I had a jerk chicken taco with mango and it left me with a tear in my eye. We also made it out on the town in our local area. I had deep fried devilled eggs and that was just sublime. We went to various different establishments and enjoyed each one and ended in a pizza joint. We were rather sozzled by this point but luck was on our side. There was no line to be seated, which we realised moments later was something of an anomaly. We sat at the bar and had one of the best pizzas I've had for a while. Luckily our new apartment block has a little fitness center in it, otherwise I'm going to roll out of this state.

Now we just look for jobs. We're applying, but no bites yet. Hopefully this city will treat us well, it has so far.

Piccies!

Carlsbad Caverns
Road To Texas
Moving to Austin