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This is continuation of last week’s blog post about the start of our spring break trip to Texas.

Now on to the chronological recap:

Day 4: Cave Day
There a number of caves around the San Antonio area. There was a big tourist-trap one that I avoided due to cost reasons, and I ended up picking Cascade Caverns.

It’s a smaller affair, so if you like a low-key tourist event, I’d recommend this one. The lady sold us our tickets, then locked up the building so she could be our tour guide, then went back to the building after the tour and we bought souvenirs from her. And we were the only people on the tour.

Here are some photos. First up, the gift shop:

We had a few minutes between the ticket purchase and the start of the tour, so we went on a short (1/2 mile?) hike in their trails on the grounds. Not much notable on that hike, other than some informative signs about native fauna. Plus we saw cactus growing wild. That’s something of interest to a Michigander who sees cactus only in special buildings.

We met at the 6 flagpoles out front. I didn’t recognize most of the flags, so that was curious. Then our tour started. We had to walk a little ways to the cave entrance, which was scenic enough in and of itself.

Of all the cave tours I’ve taken, this had to be the shortest. Not that it was bad. The local information was interesting, about the topography and the native critters, but the cave itself isn’t awe-inspiring. It is a little more natural than others, such as in certain sections if you’re not shorter than 4′ tall you need to crouch and walk. And seeing all the soda straws was fun.

The prized possession of the cave has to be the bats though. As someone noted, they’re the size and shape of chicken nuggets.

And the tour guide doesn’t point them out until you’re on the way out, on purpose. Most of them were within touching distance. In fact, if you weren’t looking for them and lost your balance or stood up too far in a section where you were supposed to be crouching, you could easily squish one of them accidentally.

And here we are on the way out.

Then for lunch we stopped at Blanco BBQ because it was on the way home. There were two things I wanted to have at local restaurants in Texas – one being Mexican and the other being BBQ. One thing I didn’t want was what our friends had done on their earlier trip to Austin – pick a BBQ place with an hour or two wait in line and hope you got to order before they ran out of brisket or ribs.

Blanco was good. It had the right atmosphere. Josh at the counter had quite the personality. Pick your own table, serve yourself as many drink refills and take as many condiments/toppings (pickles, onions, spicy carrots, etc.) as you want. Food was as expected.

After lunch, we headed back to the house for the standard afternoon activities.

Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.

Day 5: Austin Day

This was a partial travel day. We spent the morning cleaning up and packing. Most of the laundry was set the night before, today was mostly food and non-clothing items.

We had packed lunches for the trip, and a convenient stopping place to eat was San Marcos, which just happens to have a large outlet mall. We just ate in the van after shopping at a couple stores there.

After that, we went straight to the capitol building. I don’t know that our kids had been to any other capitol buildings, so it was a good introduction to capitol buildings in general. Here’s the outside:

We were able to go inside with no problems – just go through a metal detector similar to the airport. The floor of the rotunda, along with some of the pamphlets describing the capitol, explained what the 6 flags were at the caves – all the nations whose flags have flown over Texas.

We got to go up a few flights of stairs. The representatives were not there at that time, so we could look in on their room. Or chamber, whatever it’s called. The Senate was still in session, so you couldn’t go in there without jumping through some hoops.

After wandering around a bit, we then went outside. There are some sculptures on the grounds, and also the visitor center was on the way back to our van, so we stopped in there. They have a pretty decent Texas history mini-museum, along with a gift shop.

One thing to note about the capitol complex in Austin is the parking – it’s free! The visitor’s parking garage is a block away from the capitol and there was plenty of room and no cost if your visit is less than 2 hours. Very convenient.

Our next stop was my nephew’s apartment. He lives in Austin, about 15 minutes from the capitol. We had planned on stopping by and seeing his apartment; coming from San Antonio, the capitol building was the first thing we came to, so that’s why it was first. And we had to kill time before we could check into our Austin hotel.

I think our kids have only ever seen or visited people who live in houses. I thought this was a good opportunity for them to see an apartment, and what their life might be like when they reach adulthood. Plus, we wanted to bless our nephew with food (i.e. get rid of all the stuff that we couldn’t take on the plane) – some fruit juice, yogurts, a cantaloupe, some produce, etc.

After that quick tour of his apartment (quick because it’s not that big), we were off to the hotel. I had picked the Staybridge Suites Austin Airport hotel because it was one of the places that could accommodate a family of 6 in one suite. Some of the other hotels could have, but those involved a pull-out couch to fit those. This one had 3 real beds to fit 6 people. And when we got to the room, it was even better. There were 2 full bathrooms, and 2 bedrooms (one with 2 beds and one with 1), with their own doors, separate from the kitchen/living area. A lot of times we get the family suite and it’s 2 beds and the couch all in one big room.

As an added bonus, this place had a pool. So the kids got to blow off some steam after a day of travel and sightseeing.

Another added bonus, this place had free laundry. We didn’t have a ton of laundry, since we did a lot at the rental house, but we had one load worth, so we figured why not do it here and come home with all clean laundry?

For dinner, Alpha wanted to try Whataburger. I don’t mind eating at local chain restaurants (stuff we don’t have at home), so that was fine. We were able to order online (no one wanted to go back out) and I drove 5 miles (about 20 minutes with traffic) to get it. The burgers were fine, bigger than expected. The only problem with the order was they didn’t give us ketchup for our fries.

Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.

Day 6: Travel Day

Another benefit of this hotel was the free breakfast. Due to Covid protocols at the hotel, you couldn’t wander around the breakfast area and get whatever you wanted. You had to tell the lady what you wanted and she would put it on a tray and hand that to you. Food was okay – breakfast sandwich was much better than the breakfast taco though, in case you are ever faced with that decision there.

We had breakfast, then cleaned up and packed up and were out of there around 10:00. We were supposed to meet my nephew and his fiancee for lunch at 11:30, so we had to kill over an hour and had chosen to do that at Barton Springs. Originally we had thought of including Barton Spring on our itinerary as a place to swim. But, being all packed up for the flight home, going swimming wasn’t practical. Plus it was 10am and still kind of chilly, so I think it wouldn’t have been fun.

We did not pay to get into the actual springs, but we were able to watch the people swimming there.

Then we hiked around a little bit. Just past the end of the pool is the dam that helps keep the pool level, and that part was free to hike around or go kayaking or whatever. We just walked. They had a playground that we skipped. There were sports fields – we saw people playing rugby. Then it was 11:something so we headed two blocks down the road to Chuy’s.

Chuy’s was my nephew’s pick for lunch. It was a good place – decent options, decent prices, tasty food, attentive waiter. Only complaint was from the boys who used the bathroom said it wasn’t the cleanest.

Then it was off to the airport. There were a couple of gas stations on the way. I stopped closer to the restaurant rather than closer to the airport, filled the rental van up, then we were off. Not too much later, we were at the rental car return. That was fairly painless – just pulled into the parking lot, the lady walked around the van while we unloaded our luggage, she handed me a receipt and that was that.

It’s a bit of a walk from the rental car lot to the terminal, but we had plenty of time and it was nice weather, so no problems there.

We made it through security (kids 12 and under can keep shoes on, also kids 12 and under and their accompanying parents get to go through the metal detector rather than body scanner) and got to the gate. Then it was time for bathroom breaks and filling up water bottles.

The flight was unremarkable. I got some reading done, and the boys enjoyed having screens in each seat so they could play games or watch something.

Here is Austin as we’re leaving.

We landed, got on the shuttle to the offsite parking, got in our own van that had been patiently waiting for us, and Beta drove us home so he could have more time on his drivers ed permit. Then people got dinners and somewhat unpacked and then to bed.

The End

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