For our second summer vacation trip, we tried something we haven’t attempted before — a joint vacation with another family. In this case, it was my brother and his wife and two young children (ages 4 and 5) — I might collectively refer to them as ZJVA. The idea worked itself up between the two wives over the past couple of months, with Austin chosen as the destination. Though Austin is close enough to us that we could have experienced each day as day trips rather than a destination, the idea of staying in the same hotel as the other family appealed to us — and our children are often more enchanted with the hotel itself than other vacation sites.

It worked out better than I thought it would. Both sets of kids, I think, benefitted from the presence of the others. RnB seemed to behave better around their younger cousins, acting almost as mentors or extra guardians, perhaps due to their greater recent experience with touristing and staying in hotels. And the younger set of cousins (VnA) enjoyed having their slightly older cousins around as both playmates and role models. The rest of us (the four adults) mostly just shelled out money and acted as drivers and overseers of the younger activity.

Monday, July 5

I won’t describe the trip as I usually do in vacation entries, since for us it was a very short jaunt that has become relatively routine.

We met ZJVA as planned at Inner Space Cavern (also known as Laubach Cave) in Georgetown, but the place was jam-packed and we learned it would be 90 minutes or so until the next available tour. We didn’t think VnA would be able to wait that long (and we were iffy about RnB on the same topic), so we switched that activity to Wednesday.

Though it had been raining on and off all day (both June and July have been startlingly mild and rainy for our region), we chose to visit Round Rock’s amazing Play For All Park, located within Rabb Park. The rain let up just as we arrived, and the four children played there for about two hours. (The playscapes are extensive and varied, intended for children of all ability levels.)

Next was checking into our hotel, the Homewood Suites at TechRidge in Austin, a relatively new and well-appointed mid-range hotel. Both our families got rooms on the fourth (top) floor, though ours wasn’t quite ready when we arrived — the dishwasher (yes! there was a dishwasher!) was still running and the room was missing its desk — but they let us in anyway. ZJVA’s suite was on the same side of the hall as ours, so the rooms were identical (the children thought this was amazing) except for one having a desk. I was impressed with the hotel’s extensive covered patio area in a semi-enclosed courtyard within the building’s U-shape. In addition to lots of indoor and outdoor seating, there was a fire pit, a mini-basketball court, and a pool. Parking was on three sides of the building, with a sidewalk circumnavigating the entire thing. To the east was a lagoon (swamp?) and there was a large grassy area to the west.

We ate supper at Mod Pizza, which was maybe three minutes away by car — none of us had eaten there before. The service was quick and accurate, the food was on our table within 10 minutes, and the pizza was amazing, if just a little pricier than I’m used to. Rain poured while we were in there, but stopped by the time we left.

Everyone but me swam in the hotel pool after supper. (I brought a suit but didn't feel up to swimming in such “cool” (80°F) weather, under cloud cover.

Tuesday, July 6

Tuesday morning, after complimentary breakfast in the hotel, we had planned to visit Austin’s Alliance Children’s Garden, but it was raining again, so we went to Mt. Playmore instead, maybe four minutes from our hotel. (Just after we went inside, it stopped raining.) The children played happily there for more than an hour.

Feeling adventurous, or emboldened by our experience the evening before, for lunch we ate at Inka Chicken, another place none of us had tried before. This was well worth it. (I am not a foodie, and almost always prefer tried-and-true food sources, but if you’re ever in Austin, I recommend Inka Chicken.) The service was again quick and the food amazing. The only issue here was that Google Maps told us to get there through the parking lot of a Bill Miller’s Bar-B-Q, which wasn’t possible. I have a strong suspicion that someone at Bill Miller’s pestered Google to include this mistake in directions, in order to drum up business for that particular location. No one else would have any incentive to give such stupid directions.

Then we made it to The Thinkery, Austin’s “premiere” children’s museum, for which we had paid in advance to enter at 13:00. M and I had been there once before (in 2015) when RnB were much younger; now the surrounding area is crazily built up and still under construction. We found a parking garage that was surprisingly affordable ($1 per hour!) and validated for three hours by the Thinkery. We used all three hours because all four children enjoyed the children’s museum quite a bit.

Afterward, we visited the Halcyon Coffee Bar and Lounge next door, which seemed to please everyone but me — I’m the only one who ordered traditional coffee, and it was neither hot nor tasty. (I later made up for this by visiting a Dunkin Donuts near our hotel.)

And somehow we managed to find time to visit Covert Park at Mount Bonnell before supper, which provided a nice calf-working hike (M and I visited here, pre-parenthood, in March 2010).

For dinner, we partook of the hotel’s complimentary “evening social”, which served enough chicken tenders, fries, and salad to make a meal. And then all eight of us went swimming in the hotel pool. We had it to ourselves for at least 90 minutes. (I went this time because it was sunny when we started, but clouds soon rolled over and kept it from getting too hot.)

Wednesday, July 7

After another hotel breakfast, we packed up quickly, vacating our rooms in time to get to Inner Space Cavern when it opened. (We didn’t want a repeat of Monday.) We needn’t have worried; we were the first family to park and the second family in line, and therefore part of the first tour group at 09:30, which only had about 15 people in it.

RnB did better with this tour than they did with Natural Bridge Caverns for Spring Break. Maybe it was because their cousins were with them, or maybe it was because this tour guide was actually interesting; I’m not sure which. The tour was just over an hour, and then we bought a few small trinkets for the children in the gift shop.

For lunch, we once again tried a place none of us had visited before, the Monument Cafe in Georgetown, which has only been around since 1995 but was designed to “be reminiscent of the Texas roadside cafes of the 1920's (sic) to the 1940's (sic).” As we walked up, I made a photo of MRB in front, and an older woman asked us: “Oh, is this your first time here? You’re gonna love it!” She was right; all of us greatly enjoyed the food and service, though again it was a little pricey (especially given the bustling diner motif).

And that’s where our two families parted ways; ZJVA northward to Flower Mound and the rest of us northwestward back home to Killeen (less than 40 minutes).

Evidence Of The Pandemic That Was

All during this trip, we saw bits of evidence that there had once been a pandemic. At about half the businesses, some or all employees wore masks. At almost every business or location, we saw at least one or two customers wearing masks, sometimes just one member of a family, sometimes an entire family group. (I wore mine once when an elderly Black couple wearing masks offered to share an elevator; I had the mask in my pocket anyway and figured “When in Rome...”) Some businesses still had the social distancing marks or dots on the floors, or old signs in the windows; others had already removed these. There were hand-sanitizer stations everywhere — I imagine most of these will remain for quite some time (until they wear out or staff gets tired of refilling them). At one business (Mt. Playmore), employees asked if any of us had recently had any symptoms of Covid. But these were all remnants, leftovers so to speak. For all practical purposes, it looked like business as usual. (The only true exception was at the Thinkery, where mask-wearing was required for everyone throughout the entire visit.)

Conclusion

As with almost every visit to Austin, it did remind me that I don’t like driving in Austin. The lights are too long, the roads too narrow, the parking lots too small, and most of the signs aren’t soon enough to give drivers any warning. (The “lane ends” signs are always right there where the lane ends, which makes the signs pointless.) In other words, it’s not the normal “heavy traffic” complaint of the hick coming to the big city; it’s that the traffic problems are caused by idiotically obvious poor design. However, I was mentally prepared for it this time so it didn’t assault me quite like times past. (And my brother and his family drive in and around Dallas-Arlington quite often so they’re accustomed to traffic silliness.)

Otherwise, almost everything was fine — the downsides were so minor as to be barely worth mentioning. Based on this experience, I would be very willing to do a joint vacation again, at least with my brother and his family. The four children, though ranging in age from four to 10, complemented each other nicely and gave them someone to talk to besides us boring old farts. I also liked that it wasn’t terribly far from home — it was close enough that I could have driven home to pick up something if we’d forgotten anything (we didn’t).

And when we did return home, it was so close that we weren’t exhausted just from the drive — though my legs complained of the previous days’s long walks.