Home in Austin...for a Minute

Houston just vibrates differently.  My old buddy Ryan told me he could always tell when he was close to Houston because everybody on the freeway would collectively accelerate to 80mph and start shifting lanes.  It's the true melting pot of Texas, built on industry and over the last 20yrs has made significant investments in parks and quality of life.  

When I'm home in Houston I vibrate differently.

After working remotely from the front room at Liz's, I closed up shop and we started to pack.  Before leaving we all went downtown to drop off my Niece Jordan at the Houston Ballet and walked around Market Square, my favorite place downtown (La Carafe, Scotch at Charity Bar, Critical Mass, Liz/DK's wedding and my favorite birthday bike ride to Market Square Grill).  We all grabbed a slice at Frank's, then said our goodbyes down by the Buffalo Bayou.  I pointed the truck West and we headed home to the hill country. 

Our stay in Buda didn't start until Tuesday so we needed a place to crash.  I had an early morning meeting in downtown Austin so we booked a suite at the Holiday Inn Express "near campus" as Kim put it.  "Near campus" turned out to be a block from the ARCH, a particularly rough part of town. 

After checking in we drove into the parking garage and the canoe on the truck just happened to be about 1" too high.  We moved the boat to the back rack and cleared the garage safety bar by about a quarter inch.  I figured they set those things a couple inches low to be safe.  They do not.  I hoped they would have parking on the first floor.  They did not.  

We made it down to the 3rd floor slowly, scraping the ceiling as the angle of the truck changed going down the ramps.  As I unloaded the truck the kids were literally standing everywhere I needed to be and when I made them stand aside they started wrestling, Henry got popped in the mouth (accident) and started bleeding.  Wounded, tired, adrift...we took the elevator up to our room.

Prologue:  I popped out for a bottle of wine from a corner store a few blocks away.  Downtown Austin is beautiful and mostly quiet at night.  I had the late night traffic on I-35 at my back and the muffled cacophony of 6th street two blocks to my left as I wove my way through homeless campsites.  I made my way past the federal building where LBJ kept an office during and after his presidency, past the Omni to a corner store right around the corner from the Bike Austin office near the capitol.  

As I walked the same route back, a bottle of wine in hand, I thought of all the great memories literally everywhere I turn.  I was making good pace back up the hill and excited about a glass of wine and crappy cable TV when a homeless man noticed me, stopped peeing long enough to expose himself and give me the finger. 

We are living in chaos right now.  I keep thinking to myself, "This isn't normal..."  It's hard and exhausting but we are living out of principle, breaking through every obstacle because it's not "if" we will get where we are going, it's "how" we will do it.  In all this chaos, I genuinely believe that years down the road (possibly after a bit of therapy), I'll walk past 8th and Neches I'll laugh and retell a few stories from our big float. 

Floating Further Out

 Our time at the big pink house came to a close on Friday and we took my sister up on an offer to come stay with her in Houston.  The idea was to check out in the morning, I would work from the hospital while Kim spent the day taking kids to class and well...floating until I got off work. 

There have been very few houses coming online in San Marcos and all of them have 1-2 dealbreakers.  Too small, too expensive, too close the I-35.  That literally sums up the three houses that came online, so we started to look farther afield and that's how I came across the A-frame.

I was hooked on the description of the place.  "The patriarch of the Patterson family had traveled the world but said his favorite place on earth was the corner of the deck overlooking the beautiful oaks of the Texas Hill Country. For four generations, this home made forever memories for the Pattersons."   It needed a lot of work of course, but to me that just means there's more value on the flip side. The big downside was it was so far out west and I wasn't sure if that was too far to drive. 

We got all worked up on Friday and decided to delay our trip to Houston by a day so we could go to the open house.  Erik once again let us crash with him in East Austin.

Before we even got to the property I knew it was too far out.  Too far to drive to the hospital.  Too far to drive to the airport for PatternShifts.  Too far to drive to the bloody grocery store.  The place was awesome with three huge bedrooms, two workshops and a garage apartment.  The Guadalupe river was less than a mile away!  But our search afar had met it's limit. 

We drove straight from the lake to Houston and were greeted with the usual smorgasbord from Liz and a chiminea fire from DK.  Sunday was an easy day relaxing at the house.  Kim and I got to break away to eat the world famous Tommy's tacos (my all time favorite), the kids played in the park.  That afternoon we went down to Discovery Green to let the kids run wild and grab some specialty foods from Phoenicia, and that evening we set up the big screen in the yard and watched The Dirtbike Kid.  The days spent with the Kilgores are always full of adventure. 

I worked from Houston on Monday and Kim booked our next spot in Buda, TX.  

Alright, already, we'll all float on

No, don't you worry, we'll all float on 

Alright, already, we'll all float on 

Alright,don't worry, we'll all float on...

Trial Run in San Marcos

We asked for two weeks with Erik and we wanted to honor it lest we wear our welcome.  So we packed our things and moved into an Airbnb in the heart of San Marcos for the week. 

What we ultimately dubbed "The Pink House" is a two story historic house two blocks from the Square in San Marcos, and we stayed in the two bedroom apartment on the upper floor.  The owner did an excellent job decorating in style embracing a midcentury modern theme, and it even had an old clawfoot bathtub...something I look for as we house hunt.  

Even though we are in a smaller town, our wrap around windows overlooked one of the busiest streets in San Marcos so it had a city feel.  Everything was within walking distance, including an HEB and Zelick's, a new favorite pub.  

Due to the tight space, I went into the hospitals on days the kids weren't with their homeschool groups so that Kim didn't have to spend the entire day keeping voices down.  It's November and temps are cooling, but it didn't stop us from walking down to the river each night for a swim.  The kids are impervious to cold, but my hands were numb by the fourth or fifth float.  

It was great to be "right in the guts of town" as my old Aussie coworker would say.  We had a better lay of the land but it doesn't matter much, because there are now new houses on the market.

We start the week with our heads down, trying our best not to scan Realtor.com.  By Thursday we are glued to the app hoping somebody will list.  Friday just know there will be a house coming on the market but they don't, Saturday all hope is lost and we start again Monday.  

There is always an end state...I just don't know how we'll get there.