Austin, TX - Two great days in the Texas Capital

We left By the Lake RV Park around 9:00 and continued on I-35 through Dallas, TX and into Austin. I-35 is an interesting road - it actually splits north of Dallas. I-35W goes to the west of the city; I-35E goes to the east of the city. We took I-35W, past the Dallas skyline and then onward through Waco and into Austin. It was a long day and we hit Austin during the afternoon rush. Our GPS took us on a round-a-bout path over the so called MOPAC.

Now, arriving at Em's brothers was a challenge for a 30-foot long, 13-foot high vehicle. He lives in the city - a residential part of the city with beautiful Oak trees and low overpasses. We had to avoid one low railroad bridge and find an alternate route. That bridge was marked as 13' 7"; just too close to our height for comfort. And those beautiful trees were not trimmed for tall vehicles, so we found ourselves in the middle of the road quite often to avoid low-hanging branches. Thankfully, those branches were pliable so even when we brushed them, there was no damage. Traffic was sparse on these city streets.

We parked the rig in front of Brother's house - expecting the ground to be level. The crown on the road was so high, our leveling jacks raised the curb side wheels about 5" off the ground. So we abandoned all attempts to level off, turned off the fridge and took the food into the house.

Our two-day visit was wonderful. We sat and talked, toured the state capitol building and drove through a lot of the city, had a nice lunch at The Oasis, a restaurant high on a hill overlooking a beautiful lake. On Saturday, we started slow, and were joined by Brother's friend K and her parents for a nice lunch at Matties at Green Pastures which was the former home of talk show host John Henry Faulk who successfully sued the entertainment industry to halt the use of the Holywood Blacklist. It was a delicious meal.

We continued our visiting into the evening and made preparations for our departure on Sunday morning. It was hot and humid with temps in the high 90's. So the RV was toasty warm even with the Fantastik fans pulling the hot air out through the roof vents.

We pulled away around 8:30 and headed back north on I-35, this time taking the I-35E branch and then turned east toward home. We stopped for the night at another lovely campground called simply Dallas NE Campground in Caddo Mills, TX about 60 miles east of Dallas. Tomorrow we head back into Arkansas to pick up I-40 east through Tennessee and into Virginia. Planned arrival at the homestead is Sunday afternoon, July 17.