Sunday, April 10th – Waco to Austin, Texas – Day 61
First thing in the morning, Gen ran out to do laundry and a light grocery shopping. The kids and I, ate oatmeal, cleaned our dishes, packed up the trailer, played some baseball and waited for Mom to come back. She arrived after a while and off we went.
Our first stop was to drop off the trailer at our next Harvest Host, Dell’s Favourite Texas Olive Ranch. Frank met us as soon as we arrived and gave us a tour. Unfortunately, most of his trees had been severely affected by the terrible cold snap that Texas received in 2021. All his trees needed to be cut down to the ground to have a chance of survival. He had replanted the ones that didn’t make it. Now, he was in the process of identifying replants that didn’t make it and replanting again. We visited his shop where we bought a pack of spices, a bottle of olive oil and paid $5 for electricity. I was excited since we now had fresh bread, olive oil and spices for an appetizer.
Once we had set-up and completed some light organizing, we decided to make a run into Austin. A small business organization came up with unofficial slogan for the city “Keep Austin Weird”. I enjoyed the city. We entered along a strip with coffee shops, restaurants, murals, and other eclectic businesses. The houses and buildings were painted in bright colours. We stopped to take a picture with an Austin mural. It looked like a fun neighbourhood to spend some time in. As we approached the downtown, the skyline came into view and the city looked beautiful.
We decided to stop at the Yeti headquarters. Gen had wanted to purchase a Yeti cooler before we left but we decided on the $30 Canadian Tire cooler instead. It advertised that ice would last three days and it didn’t come close. We have planned to do a lot of primitive camping in the near future, so we needed a way to keep our food cold to keep it from spoiling. We bought a very expensive cooler. Hopefully it will be worth it. On a brighter, less expensive note, there was a stuffed bear in the store that the kids loved. On a dimmer, less expensive note, John kept disappearing to go outside and climb on the stairs, gardens and garden walls. A meltdown and timeouts ensued.
Austin is the capital of Texas and hence, has the capital buildings. We parked beside the capital and took a walk through the grounds. There were memorials to lives lost in the civil war, the Texas Rangers, the Tejanos (original Indigenous and Spanish people in the area) and African Americans. The most shocking thing from these memorials was that after emancipation ended slavery, Texas enacted a law that made it a crime for a Black person not to have a job. If they were found to be without employment, they were arrested, thrown in jail and then crews of inmates were hired out, essentially for free, to work for Texan businesses. Way to go Texas, keep slavery alive!
The gates to the Olive Oil farm were closed at 8pm so we returned to the car to head back. Upon arrival we didn’t feel like having a big dinner and we had this delicious bread and olive oil spice mixture so we ate a charcuterie of cheese, roasted red pepper, bread and assorted other finger foods we had on hand.
The night was windy again and there was a lightning storm in the middle of the night. The trailer started rocking back and forth again with the high winds. Luckily we were under a metal shelter so we could leave the windows open and not get too wet.
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