We'd stayed across the road from Mayfield Park and Nature Reserve, and after a hot night, it was already shaping up to be a stinker of a day when we left in the morning. The neighborhood around the Park turned out to be incredibly posh, and we oohed and aahed at the swanky homes that we drove past. Too bad we didn't know anyone here that could let us have a dip in their pool on a day like today!
Pease Park
Pease Park is Austin's first public park, and a popular spot for families and people looking to go walking, jogging, cycling, or just hang out as there are a couple of food trucks here. There were a few folks running around, shirts soaked in sweat in the summer heat. Our shirts were already sweaty simply walking slowly in comparison!
When we were in Jackson Hole in Wyoming, we'd visited the Mama Mimi, a huge troll made from recycled and renewable materials, at R Park. There are over 130 of such trolls around the world by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, and we went to our second troll on this trip at Pease Park. This one is called Malin's Fountain, of a female troll wearing a necklace and holding a bowl, which had a few items that people had dropped into it. It's tucked away from the trail, but easy enough to spot given how enormous it is.
Another popular spot to check out is the Treehouse, a huge and elevated structure meant to resemble a seed pod on the forest floor. It's an open-air structure that can seat 35 people, with a large net allowing people to see through to the ground below and feel immersed in nature. We didn't go up the ramp to go in, but there were quite a few kids inside it, jumping around it like it was a trampoline, with one exclaiming, "This is SO fun!" while another ran down the ramp, screaming backwards, "This feels scary!" Easy to spot the more adventurous one who will take more risks in life!
Downtown Austin Highlights
We couldn't find a place to park near the Blanton Museum of Art, but it was surprisingly easy to find parking downtown, where we headed to the Texas Capitol building, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986. While it has the same architecture--including the dome--of the capitol building in Washington DC and other state capitols buildings, what makes this one stand out is its color, a slight pink hue from the pink granite used. The grounds around the state capitol building are really pretty as well, with immaculate gardens, and a lantern that was once a drinking fountain, among other historic structures on the grounds.
We didn't go in, but it was packed inside with folks. We did, however, get a very loud rendition of a Billy Joel song by a man standing by the steps with his bicycle, guitar, and speakers. What he lacked in a good singing voice, he made up for in enthusiasm!
A short walk away is the Bullock Texas State History Museum, another grand building with a huge lone star at the front. It's a nice pathway to get here, with silver sculptures of animals including a lizard, turtle and aardvark. We had to be mindful though of where we walked, trying to stay as much as possible along the grass, shade, or lighter toned paths so that Sheila's paws wouldn't get too hot.
While we didn't find parking near the Blanton Museum of Art, we walked back towards it to see the beautiful grounds, including the huge, pretty white canopy structures of petals rising overhead. They have holes all over the petals, allowing for the warm sunlight to seep through. Also at the Blanton Museum is the building simply called "Austin", with its pretty rainbow-colored stained glass windows. There's a nice lawn right near it with colorful chairs, perfect for a rest stop for us before we headed back into the heat of the day.
Dog-Friendly Swimming Hole
We arrived at Historic Sixth Street, considering going there for lunch. We've been here before, back in 2019 for the SXSW conference that's held each year, but it's definitely way better in the evening when the bars are open and everyone's out and about enjoying the entertainment district. In the early afternoon, it looks less appealing and attractive (like when you go to a nightclub during the day), and a lot of the BBQ restaurants here were expensive and we weren't feeling like it at this hour.
The Texas heat meant that the only thing we wanted to do was get cool. While Austin isn't by the coast, if people want to go to a public swimming hole, the best place to do that is Barton Springs, a recreational outdoor swimming pool filled by natural springs, which has an average temperature of 20-21 degrees Celsius (68-70 degrees Fahrenheit), ideal for year-round swimming. Right next to it is Barkin' Springs, the dog-friendly area that is on the downstream side of the Barton Springs pool.
Unsurprisingly, the parking areas right near the springs were packed, so we found a big lot a short bike ride away and started getting our eBikes down from the front of the RV... only to notice that someone had at some point tried to cut the cable that was locking the eBikes, and had been *this close* to making a clean break through! We were shocked and tried to think of when this could have happened since we last used the eBikes in rural Iowa, but it could have been at so many different times along the way. Fortunately we had additional cables to secure the bikes, attached to the rack, so we will just need to have this as an additional precaution.
The ride was fairly easy to get down to Barkin' Springs, but once we got there it was absolutely packed--it seems that half of Austin had the same idea as us and were all hanging out by the swimming hole. There were dudes jumping off a bridge while another one had hung his hammock underneath the bridge, chilling and having a drink. There were families splashing around by the shore. There were people lining up to rent kayaks, paddling or simply sitting in the water, letting it move slowly along. There were folks sitting on the rough rocks, having a picnic and playing music. And there were vendors selling drinks or icy popsicles, aiming to capitalize on the hordes of people who had flocked to be at the pools.
We parked our eBikes next to one vendor selling aguas frescas, and walked along the short stretch of rocks with Sheila to head down to the water. There were already a lot of dogs here, including another Aussie cattle dog that was having a blast playing fetch with a frisbee, and other dogs prancing around in the water. We thought that Sheila would enjoy the cool water, but she actually didn't really like it! There were rocks that were a bit slippery with moss so we had to be careful, and there was one part where it had a decent drop off, and when she slid into that it probably stressed her out a bit, as she likes to only get into the water where it's belly deep. That, along with the crowds of people and dogs filling every square meter of the pool, probably didn't help much. At one point Michael pulled her out of the water, and she was hilariously still doing little dog paddles in the air, although her face didn't look very impressed!
So we stayed for a bit to at least hang out and get cool, and eventually left to head back to bike back to parking lot. At least we all had the cool water on us for a bit, and Sheila is doing really well on her dog trailer as Michael rides the bike--even on the rocky areas, she handles it much better than when she first experienced sitting inside the trailer.
Whip In: Indian Food & The Longest Selection of Beers on Tap
We had an early dinner at the Whip In, a place that Michael had found out about online, that had started as a neighborhood corner store back in 1986, and today is still a convenience store but is also a gastropub, with a huge array of beers and ciders on tap (70 taps line the wall!), along with a delicious-sounding menu of Indian cuisine. It also has live music and events on.
Sheila had that distinct and unpleasant wet dog smell, and she'd been in need of a bath for a while. Since Whip In is off the highway away from downtown, we found a big but vacant parking lot near Whip In where we were able to give her a good bath, knowing she'd get dry quickly with this heat. She's had so many adventures in all sorts of climates since her last bath (getting rained on in Minneapolis, getting sick in Thermopolis in Wyoming, suffering from heat waves in the Dakotas), that she likely welcomed the bath, even though she hates getting them.
There's ample outdoor seating at the Whip In that's also shaded, so we grabbed a bench and ordered food: a paneer dosa for Lisette, and an Indian chicken pizza on naan bread for Michael, washed down with a yuzu ginger cider on tap. The dosa was huge and came with 4 delicious sauces, while the pizza was also decent but had a bit too much cheese and was no match against the Curry Pizza we kept getting when we were in Salt Lake City. The cider was so unique and refreshing that we got a 4-pack to take with us, which will be perfect for these hot days.
Camping in the Parking Lot
When we got back to the parking lot, it was still pretty empty, and as we had some wet towels from going to Barkin' Springs, we hung these on some tree branches alongside our park, and pulled out our camping chairs to just sit under the shade for a while. It was also the perfect time to do some personal grooming, like cutting a bit of Michael's hair, and scraping off the dry skin from our feet with the stainless steel foot file that Michael calls the "cheese grater." It had gotten so hot in our RV that the cloth bag that the foot file is stored in had stuck to the melted steel in some parts inside.
We admit, if someone saw us we would have looked like complete bogans (rednecks in American speak?). But it felt good to get this done in a quiet part of Austin!
Bye Bye, Bats
Who knew that Austin has the largest urban bat population in North America? Every year from around the end of March to the beginning of autumn (fall), Mexican Free-Tailed bats wake up from under the Congress Avenue Bridge, and take flight around sunset. We arrived just ahead of sunset, and the bridge and the grassy area immediately underneath the bridge already had dozens of people waiting for the sunset bat show.
We started off standing on the bridge, but decided to run over to under the bridge instead so we could see the bats better. It wasn't too long that we started to see the first few bats start to fly out from under the bridge. Then it was a slow trickle of a few dozen, then finally it turned to hundreds of thousands of bats fleeing the bridge, a wave of black in the sky as they headed over to Lady Bird Lake. It was quite a sight to see, and apparently can take up to 45 minutes for the bats to fully leave, providing quite the nighttime show! And just like any event, as people started to depart there were taxis waiting to see if they could scoop up any customers, and vendors selling ice cream and other treats.
A Park, Parking Lot
After our eBike lock discovery, we decided to stay somewhere outside of the city center, and headed to a park in a more residential area that we found on the iOverlander app. Someone was very helpful to have found this park that wasn't near any main attractions! There was already someone parked in a red car at the park, sleeping there for the night, so we found a space away from them to set up for the night, keeping the windows open with the screens closed to let whatever breeze come in, minus the mosquitoes. It actually cooled down enough that in the early hours of the morning it felt cool. We live for these moments of respite from the scorching heat!
Route Map
