This morning I had to get up and work for the office for a little while. I put in a few hours of work then it was time to get on to the road. It was just after nine thirty when we were loaded up into the car and headed out the door to take Oreo over to Ft. Worth to visit Maggie for the weekend.
Maggie has a border collie and two pugs so Oreo is going to have a dog party weekend. He really like Maggie and he likes having dogs with whom he can play so we are hopeful that he is going to really have a good time over there for the weekend and not really miss us. It has been a long time since we boarded him at Doggie Paradise but we are hoping that he gets a similar feeling and is happy there and does not really notice that we have been away for any length of time. We are so thankful that Maggie is able to take care of him – what a difference that makes in us being able to travel.
It was around ten thirty when we managed to pull out of Fort Worth and hit i35W South down towards Waco and points south. We were originally supposed to meet up with someone from Rackspace in Round Rock at noon but they ended up needing to cancel so our scheduled freed up and we had a lot of flexibility on the day. It was good that we had that on our schedule, though, or we would have probably been running much later.
We had just missed Andy and Miranda for a late breakfast so we just grabbed fast food on the road and checked into our hotel in Round Rock. I got my laptop online and put in a few hours working on papers for my class while Andy and Miranda were still downtown Austin sight seeing. It was a good use of time and I managed to actually get a lot of work done this afternoon which made me a lot more comfortable for the rest of the weekend.
Once we were able to coordinate with and get together with the Wests (how weird is that – this is our first time seeing them since the wedding in Las Vegas) we just went out for a drive to see the area. They are already pretty happy with Round Rock and they like Austin in general. They are, like us, mostly interested in areas in which to actually live, not touristy type stuff, so they’ve been looking at Round Rock, Cedar Park, North Austin, etc.
We started by hitting Round Rock Donuts which is, of course, the biggest selling point of the Round Rock area. They were pretty full from dinner but once they tried Round Rock Donuts they both stuffed themselves anyway because they are so awesome. It was pretty late in the evening when we got over to RRD but there was still a decently long line at the drive up window so they got a bit of the impression as to how popular these donuts are around here.
We drove out to Pflugerville so that Andy and Miranda could get a feel for the area where we are hoping to be able to buy a house sometime in the next year and to see how close that is to Round Rock itself. If Andy and Miranda really do get a place in Round Rock and we get a place in Pflugerville it will be only ten minutes, at most, in between them.
From there we drove down to Austin proper as Dominica had never actually seen the city. So we did some driving through downtown and down to SoCo. We cruised Congress which gave them a good idea of the cultural life of the south side of the city which they had not seen during their own adventures. From there we drove out to West Lake Hills, the exclusive area on the west side of town where people like Michael Dell live. What a beautiful area that is!
We decided on an early evening. Everyone wanted to get some sleep. So back to the hotels on the early side. I managed to get some more of my papers written after getting in for the evening so I am looking like I am good shape to be able to have them done for Monday when they are due.
We have a lot of stuff planned for tomorrow in Austin. It is going to be a busy day.