Small Town Loving

"Gruene, Texas is the place to be!"

(sung to the tune of the Green Acres theme song)

* this song is amazingly appropriate for our visit to Gruene *

My husband and I are sort of in love with Gruene, Texas. The first time we visited Gruene (pronounced like the color green) was last year in the spring. Little did we know at that time, we would visit the small town again within the next year. Our first trip to Gruene began the little love affair that we now have with the small German-settled Texas town that's located between Austin and New Braunfels.

* our favorite coffee shop in Gruene *

This trip to Gruene was very spur of the moment, and it worked out perfectly to stay the night so we could enjoy the town for the evening. Our first stop while driving through town was the Gruene Coffee Haus. Last year there was a really sweet young woman working at the counter who had a conversation with us like we were quick friends, and she left such a good impression on us (amazing what a little customer service can do) that we made sure to stop by again this time. We enjoyed our drinks, used their free wi-fi to access Hotwire and book another discounted hotel room, and then we walked into town so I could take some pictures! Not much has changed in the year since we visited last, and that's very refreshing going from the city to the small town.

* I still need to buy some Fickle Pickles *

After I captured some pictures around town, we noticed big groups of people heading into the famous Gruene Hall (Texas' oldest dance hall), and we decided we could not pass it up this time. Check out this list of very impressive musicians that have played at Gruene Hall. Upon entering the dance hall, we ordered ourselves a couple of beers and found some open seats in the back of the building. The band playing for the evening was a local Austin band called Stonehoney, and we listened to their music for a few songs. My husband and I enjoyed the live music, felt sort of like we were in a scene from Sweet Home Alabama (city kids returning to small town living), and enjoyed every second spent together around a bunch of happy and fun-loving people. With that being said, we're looking forward to our next visit to Gruene Hall.

* Stonehoney playing at Gruene hall *

* Enjoying some brews and tunes *

After leaving Gruene Hall, we walked to Adobe Verde for dinner and, not surprisingly, more live music! Last year a really great musician, Mark Monaco, played while we ate dinner on the covered porch. This time there was a small band playing in the outdoor dining area. While eating dinner, we looked around at the families enjoying their evening out and had such a great feeling of being at peace with the moment. Needless to day, I am sure we'll visit again.

* music at Adobe Verde *

After our short but sweet time spent in Gruene, we hope to visit again. It's really one of our favorite places, even though we have visited few, in Texas. It sort of feels like home, and that's a good thing.

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Have you ever visited a place that immediately felt like 'home' to you?

Second Day in Texas

On our second day/night in Texas, we ended up staying in downtown Austin. This is the way to go if you're visiting for fun and have never been to town before. Staying right downtown enables you to walk to so many things that Austin has to offer! As I mentioned yesterday, we stayed at the Intercontinental hotel on N. Congress Ave. and 5th Street. The location was great for us, and I would definitely encourage staying downtown at least one night if you get a chance. (Again, check Hotwire and Priceline for good deals). Do it.

Before the sun went down on our second night in town, we found ourselves browsing the food carts/trailers on South Congress (aka SoCo). Among the trailers you can find an amazing assortment of foods, snacks, and desserts. We splurged on cupcakes, because we had already eaten lunch and were still somewhat full from that... but not too full for dessert of course! The 'Hey Cupcake!' trailer was a really awesome Airstream with a cupcake on top.

* Airstream with a Cupcake on top *

* The 'Hey Cupcake!' food trailer *

After eating cupcakes, I spent some time photographing the area. I could not have asked for better light or a more interesting place to get some quality shots of Austin. The menus and selections made me a little sad that we had not spent our afternoon eating our way down South Congress, but it will give us something to do next time we visit Austin! If you have not experienced SoCo in Austin, I suggest that you get yourself down there and check it out.

* South Congress Cowboys *

We saw a couple of cowboys riding their horses down the side of S. Congress, and they rode off into the sunset (sort of). I am not sure that it gets any more 'Texas' than that.

After taking some time to enjoy South Congress, we checked into our hotel downtown and walked around 6th Street and the Warehouse District before finally spending some time at Six Lounge in the Warehouse District of Austin. The band playing on the rooftop deck lured us up there to see what the place was all about, and we found that it was a great place to relax for the night. Deuce Coupe played some really great music that they describe, on their website, as 'rockabilly'. It was a perfect evening listening to live music on a rooftop deck in Austin. Sometimes the best discoveries are those made without expectations.

Overall, our day in Texas was a great learning experience. We found out the areas of Austin that we liked best, and we also spent some time listening to live music in the 'Live Music Capital of the World'. Thanks Austin, Texas for showing us a nice time.

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Stop by tomorrow for some pictures from the Capitol building in Austin and some good times in my favorite small town in Texas!

More of Our Texas Trip

You might already know that my husband is an airline pilot, so we get to fly for free, or very discounted, on quite a few airlines. This coupled with using Hotwire and Priceline for reserving hotel rooms made for a rather affordable quick trip to Texas. We went to scout out some neighborhoods, take a look at some possible rental properties, and just get a feel for Austin. Currently we live near Denver, Colorado and were/are thinking of moving. If anything, we learned more about where we would like to live, and we also had some fun while we were there!

* Austin, Texas Skyline from the Airplane *

The flights were pretty wide open for us, so we traveled back and forth between Denver and Austin very easily. We rented a car, grabbed ourselves a map, and took off to explore. The night before arriving in Austin, we had booked a 3 star hotel. (*Hotwire and Priceline give star ratings to hotels and they also tell you what type of hotel brands/names usually fall into that star rating, so you can get an idea of where you'll probably end up. You don't actually know the hotel until after you accept and pay for it, so it's kind of exciting... or disappointing.) On our first night in town, we actually arrived around 11pm and only stayed at the first hotel just to sleep that night. (Thankfully because it smelled 'weird' and was located behind a sort of 'sketchy' bar with billiards and lots of people smoking all over the place. Gross.) When booking hotel rooms using Hotwire and Priceline, we typically just book them for one night in case they aren't so nice. We did switch hotels each night, but I don't mind too much... because then I get to try a lot of different places. We also save money. Win, win! We ended up staying at a La Quinta Inn (which was not so great) north of Austin, the Intercontinental hotel in downtown Austin, and the Wingate by Wyndham (which was the cleanest and newest we stayed at during our trip) just north of New Braunfels. We used Priceline's name your own price feature for the Intercontinental and got more than 50% off the cost of a regular priced room. (I felt like we won the hotel lottery, but my husband said he felt sort of cheap... I still say we won). The moral of this story is, don't pay full price for a hotel if you're on a budget. If you would like to stay at a locally owned place they more than likely won't be on those websites, so don't use them in that case. Either way, we were able to visit Texas for a few days for relatively cheap by taking advantage of flight benefits and cheap/discounted hotel rooms.

* enjoying the sun and views of Lake Austin *

Thanks to Jenni @ Story of My Life and Alisha @ Alisha and Brandon  making me aware of a place on Lake Austin called Abel's on the Lake, we spent some time there enjoying lunch and a couple of local microbrew beers. We both had the fish tacos, which I hate to admit were a little disappointing after comparing them to our all time favorite fish tacos from the Gruene River Grill in Gruene, Texas. However, we did enjoy the atmosphere at Abel's, the drinks, the birds flying all around the place, and the views of Lake Austin. Fun time, but I think we're going to try the Hula Hut, which is located next door, on our next trip to Austin!

* we enjoyed some local brews *

After driving around many different areas of Austin, we found some that we liked... and some that we did not like much. The rental market is similar to Denver (the prices and availability are a lot alike), but the house prices seem to be lower in Texas (although Austin is higher than most of Texas) than they are in the Colorado front range. I had been browsing median incomes vs. housing prices between the two, and I found it really disturbing that the median income in Colorado was around 7k more than in the state of Texas... yet the median house price in Colorado is almost twice that of Texas. Not really sure what makes the prices so high here compared to what people make?!

Unfortunately, we're not ready to commit to buying a house or we could just go ahead and buy something somewhere. For now, I guess we'll just keep looking and continue renting. Even though we probably won't be moving to Austin any time soon, we did enjoy our time there and had fun exploring the area.

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In the next few days, I'll share more of our trip including:

* snapshots from South Congress and the food trailers
* some live music we heard while in Texas

* our brief but fun visit to Gruene

* a beautiful and historic church in New Braunfels

Also don't forget to check out my picture blog and my Flickr photostream for some more professional pictures of our trip!

Trip to Texas & Home Again

We literally just walked in the door, unpacked our bags, and now I'm writing a quick blog to recap a few things and let you know what I'll be blogging about for the next few days or so.

I also have some serious catching up to do when it comes to reading all of your latest blog posts... got a bit behind while we were gone!

The Lone Star State

One thing that we learned while in Texas is that Austin real estate and rental prices are pretty similar to those in Denver. (aka too expensive for us). However, I am pretty convinced that we could get a little more house in Austin for our money than we could in the front range of Colorado. (Too bad we are nowhere near ready to buy a house). We found some really nice neighborhoods in Austin that we liked and could imagine living... if we had a couple million to spare. We might have expensive taste when it comes to choosing a place to live. That being said, it looks like we are never going to get out of debt and are never moving anywhere. Only kidding... or am I? If anything, we learned a little and had fun doing it.

What I'll be blogging about these next few days:

* our time spent in Texas

* being a tourist in Austin

* feeling at home in Gruene, Texas

* the live music scene

Hopefully you'll join me these next few days as I share our trip to Texas with you! (:

Texas Time Traveling

We didn't really time travel on our trip to Texas, but it sort of felt like it when we stumbled upon the town of Gruene. The town was settled by German settlers in the mid 19th century, and I think my German side felt quite at home for that reason. Setting our sights on Gruene was like a refreshing step back in time.

Beautiful old main street, amazing local shops and restaurants, nice people, and an all around feeling of being transported at least a little bit back in time. Apparently many of the buildings we visited in Gruene were some of the original buildings from the 1800's! Gruene itself is on the National Register of Historic Places thanks to someone who saved it from becoming a ghost town in the 70's. Now how's that for history?! If you want a great small town experience, visit Gruene, Texas! You won't regret it.

I found this image of Gruene's main street on www.texasescapes.com

Our first experiences with the shops and people of Gruene were great. Not only were we surprised to find this little gem of a small town, seemingly located in the middle of nowhere, but the experiences we had there were unforgettable.

The first place we visited was the Gruene Coffee Haus. The girl working the counter commented on my engagement ring and talked to me about her ring too, as if we were quick friends. You don't seem to find too much of that genuine friendliness in many places across the country anymore. The conversation and customer service were a nice touch; not to mention the drinks were delicious! I wish we could have spent every morning there drinking coffee.

Next door to the Coffee Haus was the Fickle Pickle. Nate and I tried a sample of their tasty treats, and both were happily surprised with how yummy they tasted. I mentioned we were from out of town and that it's difficult to pack glass jars in suitcases, and without even asking the man behind the counter told us they ship to anywhere in the country! We just might have to order us some Fickle Pickles. Gruene sure knows how to make people feel special.

This image is from the Gruene Coffee Haus' website @ http://www.gruenecoffee.com/index.htm

To finish off our first day in Gruene, we ate dinner at the Adobe Verde. We drank Dos Equis and ate Mexican food on their covered deck, while musician Mark Monaco (who writes and produces his own music) played live country music. Quintessential Texas! While enjoying our dinner at Adobe Verde, a gigantic thunderstorm kept us 'trapped' on the covered porch for a while. I was actually rather happy about spending a little extra time there.

Something about the night felt very "Sweet Home Alabama" to me, and I got a little teary eyed thinking about how I was born in Texas and a little part of me felt at home there. I didn't live in Texas long as a child, but it was long enough to make me feel like a part of me still belongs there when I visit.

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** Here are some links for more information on Gruene, Texas: **

http://www.gruenetexas.com/

http://thegruenescene.com/

http://www.gruenehall.com/

The Great Water Park Debate

The "Master Blaster" at Schlitterbahn

We recently visited the Schlitterbahn Waterpark Resort in New Braunfels, Texas. Years ago I spotted the Texas water park in the #1 spot on the Travel Channel's best U.S. water parks, and I've been wanting to visit Schlitterbahn ever since! I've always had a minor obsession with amusement parks and water parks, and I was really looking forward to visiting the #1 water park in the country. Amusement Today Magazine voted Schlitterbahn the #1 water park in the country for, I think it was, 12 years in a row. We thought, who the heck is Amusement Today Magazine anyway? Upon returning home, I did a little bit of online research to find that AT Magazine is located in Arlington, TX. That might help explain Schlitterbahn's #1 US rating for so many years, because, to be honest and frank, we were really not that impressed with the water park. Compared to other parks, especially Denver's Water World, Schlitterbahn didn't seem to stack up. I am sure the fact that the weather was sprinkling on us and that it was a chilly 78 degrees (it was forecast to be 95 degrees before we left Colorado) were not enough to make us dislike Schlitterbahn, but I think the hype and our expectations combined with a lack of real thrills left us a bit disappointed.

Have you ever heard of a water coaster? Well, that was one of the things I was most excited about experiencing on our trip to Schlitterbahn. They have a water coaster called the Master Blaster, and it was supposed to be thrilling and one of the most popular rides at the park. No one warned us that you should lift your butt high off the bottom of the raft to avoid the plastic bumps where the water shoots out to propel you up the hills. Would have been nice to know. Nate bruised his tail bone a little bit on their most popular "thrill ride" in the park, the Master Blaster! To top that off, the ride really wasn't all that thrilling. Master Blaster ended up being rather disappointing in our books.

While at Schlitterbahn, we experienced some very poor "special effects" on the Dragon's Revenge and Congo River Expedition rides. We dubbed their Raging River ride the "Not So Raging River", because there were few locations with a thrill and many spots where the current caused you to be stuck in place until someone came along and bumped into you or you freed yourself by standing up off of your inner tube. Not to mention, we ate some of the worst pizza we've ever had for lunch. Things weren't exactly going well for us at Schlitterbahn, so we left a little after lunch time and relaxed in our comfy condo.

Amusement Today magazine may have been a bit biased. I do get that some things are bigger in Texas, but the water park thrills are not one of those things. For goodness sake, Schlitterbahn had signs warning you what the thrill level of each ride is, and they rated their Lava Lagoon hot tub as a moderate thrill. We both laughed at the sign located beside the hot tub, and here is the description for the Lava Lagoon hot tub on Schlitterbahn's website: "Warm, soothing water, relaxing bubbles, and a Volcano fountain make this pool a great way to spend an afternoon." Does that sound like a moderate thrill to you?! It surely was relaxing, but not so thrilling. And who would want to spend their entire afternoon in a big hot tub at a water park? Oy vey!

It you're looking for a great water park, visit Water World just north of Denver! (Typhoon Lagoon at Disney World is pretty great too!) I've been to Water World multiple times, from when I was in 4th grade up until my 20's... and it's fun at every age. After our Schlitterbahn disappointment, we're really looking forward to a Water World visit this summer.

Here's a picture of the Ragin' Colorado River ride at Water World:

Other than our water park blues, the rest of our Texas trip was fantastic! We spent a little time in Austin and accidentally discovered a great little historic town called Gruene (pronounced "green"), Texas. Our rooms were nice in both Austin and New Braunfels. We ate delicious food in lots of local places, and we both want to tube the Comal River next time we visit New Braunfels. We'll be back again, but we'll be better prepared.

More from our Texas trip later....