Jacksonville to Austin Road Trip & the First Low Light


We left Jacksonville and headed to our first-month long stop, Austin, Texas! We soon got a taste of the many long driving days we would have ahead of us on this adventure during this part of the journey. We also experienced our first "low light." The initial leg of the trip went smoothly, we got off work at 5 and drove the 6 hours from Jacksonville to Mobile, Alabama. 

We had booked a hotel room with a well-known chain that allowed dogs, and we thought would be in for an easy, peaceful sleep, but instead we were in for a rude awakening! We are by no means fancy-shmancy hotel people, but thinking about this place still makes me cringe. We arrived around midnight and were just ready to crash and get up and get back on the road in the morning. The rooms all had external entrances, and when we drove in there were multiple people sitting outside their rooms just staring at us, that made me feel uneasy right off the bat. When we opened the door to the first room we were given, the TV was on and blasting, the bedding was a crumpled mess, and a cockroach ran out of the door! He was quite the welcoming committee. We returned to the front desk and got a second room. The second room was cleaner, but we just felt icky (and I am terrified of bed bugs).  We needed some sleep, so we grabbed our camping sleeping bags from the car and slept on top of the bed in our sleeping bags for the night. I think we only slept 4 hours. We got up and left as soon as we woke up that day, wondering what we had just gotten ourselves into with this "grand adventure". Today, we laugh about it and are also very diligent in reading hotel reviews before booking.

 Quick tip on this: Our best friends turned us onto La Quinta - nice, clean, dog-friendly hotels. We book La Quinta now whenever we can! 

The next day was a long drive, nine and a half hours all the way to Austin. Neither of us had ever been to New Orleans, so we decided to stop for the morning on our way. We had a wonderful time walking through the city, admiring the architecture, listening to the street performers, and eating beignets. It was exactly the morning we needed and we both would love to go back and spend more time in the city.


At the end of the day, we finally reached Austin. We were very happy to find ourselves settling into our new home for the next month - a modern yet cozy furnished finder on a sleepy street named Goodnight Lane.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Carlsbad Caverns and Guadeloupe National Parks

Image
After we left Austin, our next home base was Colorado Springs. We decided to check out two National Parks on our way from Texas to Colorado: Carlsbad Caverns in southern New Mexico and Guadalupe Mountains on the very western edge of Texas. We rented a small converted garage Airbnb in Carlsbad, NM for two nights. When we arrived, we brought our bags inside, and Tyler went to sit down on the bed. He looked up at me immediately with a look of surprise and shock on his face. I asked him what was wrong. He told me I had to feel the bed because it was a water bed! We cracked up; neither of us had ever slept on a water bed before, unique for sure. A big reason I decided to blog was to help myself remember all the funny little things that happened on our adventures too. The surprise water bed was certainly one of those funny little memories.  We got in later in the day, so after checking in we spent our first evening by the river, letting Bailey swim and play since he wouldn't be allowed i
Read more

Traveling with Tyler

Image
Writing a little appreciation post for Sweet Tyler  to celebrate his 30th trip around the sun! This past trip and a half has been a whirlwind adventure. Reflecting on all our travels, trials, triumphs as well as the SIGNIFICANT amounts of one-on-one time, I am so very thankful that I get to live this adventure life with Tyler. Tyler is the perfect traveling partner. He loves to do the driving, so I get to be the passenger princess 99% of the time. He is amazing at logistics and planning; he enjoys scouring National Park websites to find the right dog friendly hike, Thrillist to find the perfect restaurant with an outdoor patio, and Furnished Finder to find us a safe and cost effective short-term rental. I hate doing all that research; so getting a short list of options to choose from is such a blessing. I think my go with the flow attitude and Tyler’s ability and love of planning (mostly this) has made us a strong traveling pair. Driving with Tyler Tyler is also the opposite of
Read more

What Have We Been Up To For The Past Year?

Image
I have decided I wanted to start a blog to encourage myself to write about this special time in our lives. I want to cherish and remember these adventuring years. Documenting with a blog feels like the perfect way to do so and be able to share our adventures with others. What are we doing and why? Anyone following Tyler or me on social media may have wondered where we are living and what we have been doing for the past year or so. We, along with our dog Bailey, have been digital nomads for the past year, traveling around the U.S., taking in the beauty, while working remotely from furnished rentals. Two main considerations brought us to the adventure we are on now: 1) we have a goal to see all of the U.S. National Parks together, and 2) we really weren't certain where we wanted to settle down long term. In 2020 we started dreaming up a plan of traveling full-time for a year or two, or until we felt ready to settle down. In May 2022 we made that dream a reality! How we got started
Read more