Feeling a little sleep deprived and hitting up another city, we booked ourselves into a motel in Houston. My days it was awful. Our non smoking room stank of cigarettes. I found cigarette ash on the bathroom floor. The bathroom towels were folded up neatly but had stains on and the bed had crumbs in it. Vile. I couldn’t help but tell the owner he needed to change it all. Awkward. But I wasn’t in the mood after such a long drive. And whether it’s cheap or not, clean towels and sheets are the bare minimum!
Anyway, Houston was a quick stop, purely to visit Nasa. James is a bit of a space geek so loved seeing the various rockets and even got a glimpse through the window at the astronaut training centre, where we watched someone in a space suit try to acclimatise to their new outfits. It was a cool stop but unfortunately we didn’t get to see the main city.
We had booked a couple of nights in Austin where James had been for work a few years back and loved it. I was promised lots of bbq food and bats….Austin delivered the first one. Bbq houses were everywhere and we really loved eating all the meat and creamed corn. Despite the cost of it all. We deserved a treat right 😜
However, the bats. Austin is known for the biggest urban bat colony which lives under this bridge in the city. At sunset every night, over a million of them fly out to go find their food before heading back to sleep at sunrise. We arrived at the bridge for a good spot about 45 mins ahead of sunset. It was at least 35 degrees and I was sweating in places I didn’t know I could. Finally the sun made its final descent below the horizon and the heat became a little more tolerable. However we were standing there for 2 hours. And still no bats. In the end it was too dark to see them, even though they had started coming out slowly. I guess you just can’t predict nature sometimes!
Our final day in Austin, we went tubing…essentially you float down the river in a rubber ring and a shuttle bus picks you up and drops you back to the start. We took snacks, drinks and our music and loved being cooled down by the water. What better way to spend a day in stifling hot Austin. Even better though, the river was full of turtles so we got to see some wildlife too!
Overall, the vibe in Austin was great, even if we struggled with the heat a little.
We were heading off to our first Texan National Park nearer to the Mexican border before heading North. Along the way, James got to make a very exciting stop (for him) at the world’s biggest petrol/service station ‘Buccees’. With over 100 pumps and the store also huge, it was hard not to be impressed however time was ticking so we pushed on.
Our first camp stop allowed us to get familiar with taking photos and videos of the night sky and we even came across an Armadillo on our walk. They look so weird and unreal. I loved it.
And on our second night we were excited to give the astrophotography another go, staying in a town called Marathon, which is known for its dark skies. However on check in, we saw a party being set up for and we witnessed our first ever ‘quinciñera’….basically a birthday party for a 15 year old where they go all out, wearing prom like dresses and there is even a formal sit down meal and a daddy daughter dance. The disco lights and noise were enough to stop any night sky photography that night, but we enjoyed listening to the somewhat eclectic playlist of country music with a bit of reggaeton.
