Thanks to finding the Best Easy Day Hikes: Austin book at a nearby Barnes and Nobles, we were able to start our first full day in Austin with a hike that took us up and along a limestone bluff and then down and along a creek bed, all within a ten minute drive of our hotel.
We began with breakfast in the hotel lobby, which is outfitted something like a lodge, with a pouch wine red carpet with patterns like an old Western blanket:
Elsewhere there is knotty pine paneling, chunky furniture, and even granite countertops. We all enjoyed freshly made, by us, waffles in the shape of Texas and then we trooped back to our room, grabbed our bags, and headed out to St. Edwards Park.
Once in the park, it was Lily who spotted the easier path across the creek, instead of using the dam suggested by the guide book. We took a trail back to where we could climb up the bluff, and I began what became a steady rhythm throughout the morning of calling out strands of poison ivy. St. Edwards Park is fairly heavily wooded, and I guess that makes for a nice habitat for the stuff. I hope we leave it behind when we head west.
Lily’s first few steps along the trail were tentative, and with the abundant poison ivy she often wanted me to go first, but it wasn’t long before she was bounding ahead of us on the trail, occasionally stopping to let us catch up.
It was a great first hike. Only a little over a mile, but lots of changes of scene and terrain. Lots of wild flowers that Yung and Lily stopping often to admire the many colors and shapes. Lily has more photos than I do, but here is a pink flower that we will try to identify later:
After our hike we headed back into Austin proper, or at least the area near the Arboretum which we are calling home for the time being, to find the REI store we had spotted yesterday. Lily still needed a lightweight pullover. We found her one and also picked up a pullover and some tee shirts for Yung.
By then it was quarter to noon and we treated ourselves to lunch on the patio of Z Tejas Restaurant with an incredible view of at least two valleys from our table. (I should have grabbed a photo, but I didn’t.) Then it was back into the shopping area to grab the dock adapter for SD cards for the iPad, and finally home, where after a quick shower to make sure no one had any chance of getting a poison ivy rash, Lily fell asleep in my arms.
Now that sounds sweet, and it was, but she got there because she has immediately adopted the two ottomans in the living room to a play world of hers, and she wanted both of them. I wanted one to rest my feet, and she kept finding ways to ask me or Yung for the second ottoman. Finally, she did it once too often and I told her to go lay down in the bed. I knew she was tired, which was what was making her get so fixated on something — she is ordinarily more flexible — and I hoped that being upset with me might just push her into a nap. She was quiet for a reasonably long time, but it turns out, when I looked in, she was simply rolling about the bed in various ways. I called her back into the living room, put her in my arms, got her to lie still, and she slept.
She woke up around three and we went down to the pool to see if the water had warmed up a y during the day. Slightly warmer than yesterday, but still a little too cold for us. Back up to the room, but with coffee in hand because Yung had looked sleepy and I knew I was feeling it. Oops. Too late. Yung was napping. Sorry!
We slowly gathered ourselves for supper, which the hotel provides free of charge, along with wine and beer. Yung and I both ate light, feeling the pangs of a heavy supper last night and a pretty big lunch earlier. And then it was a quick outing to Crate and Barrell, mostly so Lily and I could trail after Yung and enjoy watching her look around, but lily really got into it and began to discuss swatches with us as we looked at various pieces of furniture. It should make he Nai Nai proud.