stepping off the edge

Well, here we are in beautiful Austin. Our first challenge was to try and gain entry into our home exchange dwelling. I supose it is time to wax poetic on the glory of home exchange. Mrs. T, if I have neglected to mention, is a travel coordinator extraordinaire. To call her an amateur travel agent would be insulting for two reasons; she was, in fact, in the travel business, and secondly, she is a master of working the system. Homeexchange.com, if you are interested, will for the tiny sum of $200 per year, put you in touch with thousands of exchangers around the world. You can do a direct exchange with another person or, and this is the real beauty, have someone stay in your home and receive guest points that you can use for your own future travel. Dear clever Mrs. T has been collecting guest points this last year, allowing perfect strangers to stay in our home to go through our underwear drawers and medicine cabinets at their leisure while we go out of town to visit relatives in Chico or perhaps spend a week or two pet sitting. Oh wait, now this gets a bit confusing so try and follow. When we had an exchanger who wanted to come to our home Mrs. T would scan the pet sitters.com website (yes, we joined yet another little “club”) to see if there were opportunities for us to stay in someone’s home, be in a nice city, and take care of their precious little one (not their children silly, more precious, their dog).

With this convoluted process she was able to amass thousands of guest points, which has allowed us to stay virtually rent free all across the country and later through Canada (well, if they will have us during this ridiculous time in our country’s history).

OK, where was I? Ah yes, getting into the condo in Austin. It was a multi step process involving entering a code at the front gate which looked perfectly medieval in its size and construction. After this we had to search for the key box cleverly attached to some fence work inside the first level of the parking structure. Then the too often task of getting the damn key box open, no mean feat, and retrieving the magic key fob. Who wants some dirty old metal key from the last century when you can have an electronic device to attach yourself to. This handy dandy device allowed us to open up yet another formidable gate, which gave us access to the upper levels of the garage. Now we find the assigned parking space that we were sternly warned should not be confused with any other space or our car would be towed off to parts unknown, leaving us stranded in yet another Texas city. Now the key fob really came into its own. It allowed us to exist the garage into an elevator lobby which then was used to exit the lobby and enter the hall of the floor we were on to then proceed to our apartment. Exit key fob and enter the SIX DIGIT CODE! [Editor’s note: you get a prize if you got all that]

I firmly believe we could have entered the NORAD command base under Cheyenne Mountain with less security. Last note on key fob land, our instructions upon leaving the home were to leave the fob inside the unit and exit the building. What they failed to mention or even consider was to get back to our car we needed the damn fob to go from the apartment back into the parking structure to hopefully exit the building. Thus ends my key fob conundrum rant… sorry, had to get that silliness off my chest.

We were invited by a friend living here in beautifull LAND LOCKED Austin for an authentic Texas treat… a seafood restaurant! I wish I could revel you with the horror of Texas seafood but, darn it, it was pretty good!

The real treat that night was the Uber we ordered. Without realizing it, Mrs. T clicked the Waymo button on the Uber ap, so lo and behold a driverless car picked us up! Mrs. T was quite nervous but me? Well I was positively giddy.

At this time we will go on another little side trip. Lets talk about one of my favorite people, my dear sister-in-law, Deb.

We make it a point to visit her and the rest of Mrs. T’s family every other month for many reasons. It’s is good to see the family but almost as important, it is a rockin’ good time. I mention this because we found a place with a sign that, I feel, perfectly describes her home…

Yes, a bar as well as adult daycare… I will leave it at that!

One evening we decided to venture out to witness one of Austin’s claim to fame besides the best BBQ you have ever had. That would be the nightly swarming of the bats. Yes, that’s right bats, thousands of them like clockwork taking flight from under a bridge and the eaves of the high rise buildings. We will start with the innocent picture of the river with boats collecting for some reason at dusk.

Then came the swarm, from the large buildings on the other side of the river.

Not to be outdone, the bats under the bridge just below where we were standing start their swarming for a dinner snack of every flying insect in the city. Like a flying mammal air traffic control, they waited until the last of their brothers across the river took flight to make a go for it.

And so, after that fascinating yet creepy experience, we head home into the sunset…

Oh, almost forgot. We have the cute little term, and don’t all couples have disgustingly cute terms they use with each other? We call it pigeon walking. It come from a old Chinese saying that to live long you should walk like a pigeon and sit like a duck. Well, the pigeon walk, at which Mrs. T is quite adept, is something I can mostly follow. Tonight on the one mile walk home, let us just say I was struggling. Truth be told I am more of a stroller. This night saw speeds hitherto not seen by my partner. Only when arriving back at our place did she confide that she desperately needed the bathroom! Be honest, you suspected that. Tomorrow, off to San Antonio.