Jump to page: << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >>

Monday, 22 August 2016 - Finances still in tact

 
We arrived back from Las Vegas at 1am this morning after minimal gambling, and spending our last day checking out an area that we didn't get time to visit during the road trip last year. While the city is best known for the infamous Las Vegas Strip, this here is Freemont Street which is the focal point of casinos and debauchery in the downtown area. It's more rough around the edges than the Strip, but retains its character of old and is well worth a visit. I also made a friend along here. Too bad I forgot to get her number.

Thursday, 18 August 2016 - Back to Vegas!

 
 
A little under a year ago Kristina and I spent a day in Las Vegas during our big US road trip, and today we're going back for a few more! Kristina's twin brother is getting married later this year, and he and the fiancé are doing a joint bachelor / bachelorette doo here over the weekend. Since we were just there, and because I can't be bothered lugging it round amid the debauchery, I'll be leaving the camera at home for a change, so what happens in Vegas will be staying in Vegas ;)

Sunday, 14 August 2016 - Toot toot

 
 
Ahhh Sunday - the day of rest, for some people. I spent it tearing the front of Kristina's car off hehe. The horn stopped working last weekend and the usual checks (fuses, relays, kicking it, etc.) didn't help. Short of it being a deeper electrical problem, the next course of action was simply to replace it. However, the only way to get to the damn thing was by removing the whole front end of the car, so off it went. The horn works good now (touch wood :)

Saturday, 13 August 2016 - MP and AM

 
Michael Phelps has been the talk of the US so far during these Olympics, adding another six medals (five golds and a silver) to his Olympic haul after coming out of retirement since the London games in 2012. The guy now has 28 Olympic medals to his name, 23 of them gold, since his first Olympic appearance in Sydney in 2000 making him the most decorated Olympian of all time. The swim shop Kristina works at on Saturdays has a big cardboard cutout of him to market his line of swimwear. I couldn't resist.
 

Wednesday, 10 August 2016 - Bats!

This is the Congress Avenue Bridge across Lady Bird Lake (a dammed section of the Colorado River). Austin's downtown core is immediately to my right. Every summer night as the sun is setting, hordes of people begin to gather along the bridge to witness quite a unique sight.

 
Plenty more pile up beneath the bridge for the same reason.
 
Right on queue as the sun meets the horizon, the show begins off in the distance there.

 
 
And this is it - the world's largest urban bat colony taking flight to feed! Up to 1.5 million bats reside underneath the bridge each summer before migrating down to Mexico for the winter. Given Austin's human population is around 900,000 there are usually more bats than people in Austin hehe, and we have them to thank for our lack of mosquitoes and other pesky insects. While their nightly emergence from the bridge shows up on weather radar and attracts around 100,000 tourists annually, it was never the city's intention for the bridge to become a home for the bats. The support structures beneath the bridge are original to its 1910 construction, but when the road was later rebuilt in 1980, engineers included the small gaps running along the length of the bridge's underside which you can see in the shot above. This attracted the bats that already inhabited the drains underneath the north side of the bridge. They remade their homes in the gaps where they are able to stack on top of each other, and their population increased and reached maximum capacity in just three years. Quite the happy coincidence. And with that, I went home to feed as well.

Sunday, 7 August 2016 - Hamilton Pool

 
Another hot and sunny Texas summer day, and we spent it walking through the awesome Texas Hill Country outside of Austin. With sweat pouring from every pore, we eventually arrived at this large puddle of water. This is Hamilton Pool Preserve, centered on this natural pool that was created when the dome of an underground river collapsed due to massive erosion thousands of years ago. Although we would have loved to dive right in, no swimming was allowed this week due to heightened bacteria levels from local farm runoff after a good downpour of rain a few days ago. This is such a popular swimming spot during summer that entry needs to be reserved weeks in advance (for a fee) and is limited to about 250 people per morning and afternoon per day. We first tried to come here over two months ago, but awoke that morning to rain and didn't bother. With no swimming allowed today, most of those 250 people didn't bother either and so we almost had the whole place to ourselves, and my photos are mostly people-free which is always nice.
 
 
Swimming aside, Hamilton Pool is also a popular destination due to the uniqueness of this collapsed grotto that encircles half of it. Water seeps outwards from the porous limestone cliffs above and into the pool, and the roof of the grotto is covered with moss and dozens of cliff swallow nests. Also, spot the little waterfall to the left in the shot below-right. Very cool spot!
 
 
 
In late spring and early summer this waterfall is usually gushing, but it's a little tamer this late in the season. Not that we can get in there to enjoy it anyway.
 
And there's us. Another lovely photo taken by my tripod.

Friday, 5 August 2016 - Yelp

 
Busy week this week dealing with home buying malarkey (paperwork, paperwork, inspections, and more paperwork). The couple we're buying the house from own and operate a local irrigation and plumbing business, and out of interest I looked them up on yelp.com - a nationwide review site for local businesses. Well, they've received just four reviews, but all four of them are a dismal one-star rating hehe. The review comments make for great reading - everything from piss-poor workmanship to the wife yelling obscenities and threats over the phone regarding payment. One guy said he "personally wouldn't even let them come flush my toilet" hahaha! Read the reviews here. We've found these people to be perfectly delightful, so far ;)
 

Sunday, 31 July 2016 - Dear diary, today we bought a house
A little earlier than planned, but today our offer was accepted on the house I was staking out yesterday hehe. We now have a lot to deal with before the sale closes at the end of August, after which I'll put up all the details :)

Saturday, 30 July 2016 - Stake out

 
Kristina and I started casually house hunting a couple months ago to get a feel for the market in our target area of southwest Austin. We weren't intending to make offers on anything however until about August or September, closer to when our apartment lease is up at the start of November. One of the houses we looked at about a month ago and really liked was this one on the left, after which it quickly went under contract but this subsequently fell through last week. Several improvements have been made to the house since (including a whole new roof) but the list price was kept the same due to the sellers needing to get out of there ASAP. Given this had now become quite the bargain we made an offer on it yesterday, albeit a little earlier than an intended. There were already two open houses scheduled for this weekend on the house, so I camped out down the street to gauge interest and help us determine whether our offer might be competitive hehe. Two families came to view the house today, one of which spent 40 minutes inside and then another 15 minutes discussing it outside - not a good sign for us. We're expecting an answer tomorrow or Monday either way, so we'll see.

Monday, 25 July 2016 - Help on two wheels

 
 
About 4pm this afternoon my phone lit up with alerts about a brush fire along MoPac within a mile of our apartment that had shut down all southbound lanes. Seemed like a good excuse for a quick bike ride :) This is the view looking north. About half a mile behind me was the road closure. Spot the little yellow car in the middle of this shot.
 
It had its hazard lights on and wasn't moving (not that much else was either but this thing definitely wasn't). I rode down there to see if I could help. The driver, a young chicky, was standing in the shade beneath the overpass and claimed the car had overheated. Being the helpful Kiwi lad that I am I pushed the car off to the side, and considered it my good deed for the day times a thousand for all the drivers stuck behind her hehe.
 
Illegal U-turns. Good call.

 
Further ahead the fire was now mostly out and a single lane had been reopened. The problem with these alerts is that by the time the various news agencies get around to sending them out the action is mostly over (and you're already stuck in traffic).
 
 
On the left is as close as I could get to the action, but a passing motorist (before the road was closed) took the shot on the right a little earlier. That's what I wanted to see!
 
 
The cause of the fire is unknown, but it spread across both south-bound sections of the road and scorched about five acres. It's actually thundering and pissing down outside now as I write this but it's the first rain we've seen in about two months, so all of this stuff is tinder-dry.
 
Now, if you're like me, you try to be clever in these traffic situations and take a scenic detour. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. Today it definitely didn't hehe. T'was a good day to be on a bike!

Sunday, 24 July 2016 - Not for hire

 
Four months ago I started driving for Uber in Austin, primarily to help familiarize myself with my new city (not least of all because Kristina and I are looking to buy our first home here very soon), and secondarily to earn a little pocket money on the side. Two months later, Uber packed up and left over a row with the city. They were almost immediately replaced by new ride-sharing startups that I in turn signed up to drive for instead. Well, after four months, 300'ish rides, and a lot of cigarettes and hair clips that somehow get left in the back of the car, I've decided to throw in the towel. I've had people cry, fight, and sleep in the back, and others who either talk to themselves or tell me the same story over and over again because they're wasted. That's entertaining and all, but my primary goal of learning the city has been met. I now know all the arterial routes, main roads, and various suburban areas of Austin, all of which has greatly facilitated our house hunt (more news on that soon). That just leaves the pocket money aspect, which frankly, for me and my situation, isn't worth the time and effort, nor the risk of dealing with mostly drunk people given I only work the high-demand weekend nights. One of my last rides last night was particularly memorable. He was an Indian guy who I picked up downtown at 2:30am, and was going to a strip club 20 miles north. "Do you live up north?" I asked. "No, I'm just drunk and feel like going to a strip club [alone]." Fair enough. There is one much closer, but I have a feeling there was more to the story and hey, whatever - I'm happy to take your money. A few minutes into the trip, he started making weird noises for no apparent reason while staring down at his phone. Various grunts, groans and flatulent sounds with his mouth, before escalating to talking to himself and then slapping himself hahaha! I was dying to laugh and ask what the fuck was up, but instead I stayed silent so my dash cam could record all of this. We eventually reached the club, at which point he capped of his weirdness by informing me of something that I'll leave for the dash cam footage to show here (you'll need to turn up the volume to hear him since he was in the back seat). They walk among us. So that's that, fun though it was.

Thursday, 21 July 2016 - It's official

 
This guy might be the next president of the United States. Donald Trump was officially nominated by the Republican Party tonight to be their candidate for the general election in November, amid much controversy given how little is he liked by his party peers but that's how the people voted. Next week Hillary Clinton will be officially nominated by the Democratic Party, and then three months of fighting words will commence until one of them takes over from Obama. Of the two, I'm not yet entirely sure who I'm in favor of, not that it matters - I can't vote (yet).
 

Tuesday, 19 July 2016 - I pledge allegiance to the flag, etc.

 
A small tree needed to be sacrificed to provide the paper, but today I am lodging my (30-page) application for naturalization to become a citizen of the United States of 'Murica. The prerequisite in my case is to have been a permanent resident (i.e. to have had a Green Card) by reason of marriage to a US citizen for at least three years, although the application can be lodged 90 days in advance of that three-year anniversary which for me is today. The timeline for addressing these applications isn't exactly a quick one, but eventually I will be hauled before the immigration department to be interviewed, tested, and to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. After all said and done however, I'll still be a New Zealand citizen given both the US and New Zealand allow for dual citizenship, otherwise I wouldn't bother with this - I'd just stick to permanent residency. Never will I ever renounce my citizenship to God's Own Country :)

Sunday, 17 July 2016 - Bathing in the creek

 
This is the MoPac expressway, a major arterial route through west Austin which runs past the entrance to our street (I talked a little about it here). The existing side walk here is part of a trail that will eventually run between downtown and Austin's southern suburbs. It's nowhere near completion yet, but we thought we'd go check out what's been done so far.
 
I have two motors, one attached to each hip.
 
 
A short distance south of us is Texas State Highway Loop 360 (or simply "360" for short), a 14-mile (23km) scenic highway that winds through the hills of west Austin.
 
And a short distance south again is another section of the Barton Creek Greenbelt, about three miles upstream from where it winds past the back of our apartment. The higher overpass in the background is MoPac, and in the foreground is the trail we're following.

 
 
But this is about as far as the trail has come so far, so that ended up being a short ride.
 
Keen not to waste the rest of the day however, we cycled back home and then drove back down here again to explore some more of the Greenbelt and cool off in the water.
 
This is Twin Falls, so-called because higher water levels create two small waterfalls here. The water level has steadily dropped over the last couple months however since all of the spring storms ended, so no waterfalls right now but plenty of people (and their dogs) enjoying the creek before it dries up again later in the year. Good way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

Friday, 15 July 2016 - Local victims in Nice attack

 
Of the almost 100 dead after last night's terrorist attack in Nice, France (where I visited almost eight years ago), it has since been revealed that a family from Austin were in the middle of it all while vacationing around Europe. The father and his 11-year-old son were killed, leaving behind the wife and two older children. The shot of me above shows the road along which the truck (driven by another Mohamed of course) plowed through the throngs of people celebrating Bastille Day. Given the whole area was closed to traffic, I'm surprised police didn't make more of an effort to stop the truck as it tried to enter. Anyway, interesting world we live in.

Wednesday, 13 July 2016 - Blues on the Green

 
Rush-hour in Austin, but a lot worse than usual due to road closures up ahead.
 
And this was why. Austin's official motto is the "Live Music Capital of the World", a reference to the variety of live music acts that take place here pretty much constantly. Today we had the annual Blues on the Green. Now in its 26th year, BOTG takes place in Zilker Park just a couple miles up the road from our apartment, and is split into four separate sessions occurring once per month between May and August. Even better, it's totally free.

 
 
I have no idea who any of these people are on stage. Local Texas groups I believe.
 
Our neighbor told us this event used to consist of a few people sitting on deck chairs, but has since grown to attract a crowd of thousands of people, hundreds of dogs, and, based on the constant odor in the air, a lot of marijuana.
 
Ok then.

Friday, 8 July 2016 - The wild west

 
Two separate police shootings of unarmed black men in the last two days in two different parts of the country have triggered more protests and rallies in major US cities (such as this one that took place in New York for the same reason shortly before we left). One of those cities was Dallas, Texas where a peaceful march became the deadliest day for police since the September 11 attacks. A group of three snipers armed to the teeth ambushed police with assault rifles in separate locations in the city's downtown core, killing five and injuring a further seven. This all took place in an area where Kristina and I were wandering through just a month ago while we were up there for a few days, and just a block or two from where JFK was assassinated. Of the three snipers, one was killed by police (with a bomb delivered and detonated by a robot no less) after he was cornered and negotiations failed, and the other two are in custody. The reason given for the ambush: hatred of white police over the recent slayings of unarmed black men. More info here.

Thursday, 7 July 2016 - My famous Ford

 
 
During the road trip last year we visited this tree in California with a hole in it, which I then drove the car through. Kristina put several of my photos from the trip on her Instagram, including this one of me in the tree. Given the car is a Ford, she tagged Ford in the photo and they quickly reached out for permission to use the shot for marketing purposes, which was fine with me.
 
Well this appeared on Ford's Instagram feed this morning hehe. 20,000 likes - nice! They also asked for permission to use a couple of other photos I took of the car during the trip, so I'll see if they pop up in due course.

Monday, 4 July 2016 - Independence Day

 
Independence Day here in the United State of 'Murica today, commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring that the thirteen American colonies regarded themselves as a new nation, the United States of America, and no longer part of the dirty old British Empire. Lovely. Just along the highway from our apartment are a couple of office complexes with multi-story parking garages. While I was Uber'ing someone a while back who used to live in this area, they suggested setting up camp atop one of the garages to watch the 4th of July fireworks downtown. So we did! It sure beats dealing with the throngs of people who crowd the riverbank to watch the show down there. Before we could get into the parking garage however we were intercepted by security (a bitter old man driving round in an electric golf cart) who told us we were trespassing and to leave immediately. So we walked off, snuck around the back of the garage, and went up that way. Ha!

Friday, 1 July 2016 - Road trip anniversary

 
Exactly one year ago today, Kristina and I said our goodbyes to an awesome three years in New York, and set out on an even more awesome four-month road trip throughout the United States and Canada. This had long been a dream of mine, and it will forever be one of the most amazing trips and adventures I have personally done! As much as I wish we could do it all over again, there is still a lot of this continent we're both yet to visit, so stay tuned :)
 

Jump to page: << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >>


Page Comments


The only "energy" in the back of the car was that clown slapping himself, and the energy I expended trying not laugh and piss my own pants.
- Aaron

I got a vibe........ I've pissed my pants........ Can you pick me up in an hour buddy?
- John Humm