May was a busy month! We started off with an Ameriprise conference in Austin, Texas. We’d never been before and Mark’s portion of the trip was free — so we jumped at the opportunity for a weekend away. The conference was held at the Four Seasons right in downtown Austin, so that was an especially cushy treat because we don’t stay in thousands-of-dollars-a-night types of places! The room was very comfortable and the grounds of the hotel were gorgeous. They were having some sort of rose celebration, so everything was decked out with thousands of roses. The ‘backyard’ of the resort was right along the river and river park with huge oak trees, walking trails, hammocks, and more. It was really peaceful. And, because it was right downtown, it made it easy to walk to close bars and restaurants. While Mark was doing his meeting things, I basically hung out at the hotel, read my book, and worked out.
The first night there we scored tickets to Trisha Yearwood at the Austin City Limits stage. This was a suuuuuper small venue and an absolute treat to see her up close like that. She sang all of her old songs and spent a lot of time talking in between each one, sharing little stories of her life and songwriting. It was so cool!
The second night we attempted to go to the famous “bat bridge” near the hotel to see the millions of bats fly out at dusk. We were there with hundreds of other people plus multiple boat tours on the river and…. nada! There were a handful of bats that sort of scoped out the conditions, but the masses chose to stay under the bridge. We think it might be because it was really overcast and windy — maybe not ideal conditions for them to be flying around catching insects? Either way, that part of the night was a bit of a bust, but then we went to Austin’s famous 6th Street to a honky-tonk bar called San Jac Saloon. That was a blast! They had a live band playing amazing 90’s country tunes and we found great seats on the second level overlooking the band. They even brought us several free samples of different tequila shots and stuff. It was a fun night and super convenient that we could just walk right back to the hotel!
Because the conference was ending on a Friday, we decided to fly back on Sunday rather than Saturday so that we got a full day in Austin together to explore. We booked a much cheaper hotel in North Austin and purchased passes to Hamilton Pool Preserve. This is a gorgeous natural pool that offers a limited number of passes per day. We were very excited leading up to this trip, but when Saturday came around it was incredibly overcast and rainy. It was even raining on us when we pulled into the parking lot and thunder was rumbling nearby. But…. we paid for the tickets and the rental truck (a Tacoma!!) to make this happen, so we grabbed our stuff and started the 0.25 mile hike to the pool. Luckily the rain stopped and the sun came out for a bit while we enjoyed the scenery and took a dip in the freezing water! After drying off we took the longer hike to the river. It was a really pretty area although the hike was a typical hike — too long and boring for what you got in the end. lol
For dinner we — of course — chose one of the many Korean restaurants in Austin’s asian sector and the food was amazing! After filling our bellies we walked around the nearby massive Asian grocery store and then literally crashed back at the hotel. This was no longer the Four Seasons, but somehow we booked a room with two full bedrooms and bathrooms, so we each totally had our own little caves to sleep in. It was perfect!
