TWO PEAS AND THE POD: GOOD NEWS WHILE IN AUSTIN

SUNDAY

TRAVEL DAY
YEAR #3 - STOP #12

With such a short travel day we arrived at our new campsite just after noon. Tomorrow we have an appointment at the Airstream Dealership in Austin so we went today to scout out the best route to get there while towing our home. I'm glad we did because Apple Maps had us going down a couple of narrow streets with sharp turns and uneven terrain. There is a much better approach if we just go another exit farther down the Interstate and make a u-turn to get back to the dealership.

After figuring that out we were ready for some lunch. A bucket list meal for while we are visiting Texas is to sample some authentic Texas Style Chili. I figure what better place to do that than at a place called the Texas Chili Parlor. It is located in downtown Austin just one block away from the State Capitol Building and the Supreme Court of Texas.

It's just another little hole-in-the-wall kind of restaurant that we love to visit. There is no dedicated parking for the small restaurant/bar but we were lucky to score one of the two on-street parallel parking spots directly across the street. Texas style chili has no beans and is made with sirloin tip beef. It's more like a stew than a chili, but I loved it just the same.

The rather laid back exterior of the restaurant

The entrance of the restaurant is behind the only tree in the downtown neighborhood.

Oops! One chili sample is already gone and so is most of the salad.

MONDAY - This morning we were up bright and early and arrived at the Airstream Dealership 30-minutes earlier than our 9:00AM appointment. Once all the paperwork was taken care of we left to go shopping. Directly across the Interstate is a Cabela's and we were actually able to walk in and out of the store without purchasing a thing. I did have two samples of their homemade fudge, but they were free!

After Cabela's we went in search of some inexpensive gasoline. We found $1.98 gasoline at Murphy's (Walmart) at the other end of the same shopping plaza. They also had partnered with a nearby car wash so we finally got a much needed wash for ROVER. He, unlike THE POD, was still coated with thick sand and salt from our two weeks on the seashore.

Which brings up the question, "Did we really save any money by camping on the beach for 17 days at a total cost of $77.00"? Or should we factor in the cleaning bills for ROVER and THE POD into the cost? I'm not sure, but either way we still had a memorable time and met some new friends during our visit.

Around 2:00PM they were done working on the trailer and I'm happy to say our door is working better and our TV reception problems seem to have been solved. Our issues with the stereo however are still ongoing.

WEDNESDAY - We got a phone call this morning from the Austin Airstream Dealership with some good news. The front window of THE POD is made out of tinted glass, much like a car's windshield. In order to protect it from rocks and flying debris while traveling down the road Airstream has placed a hinged plexiglass window over the top of it. Our plexiglass window had a small dimple in it when we took delivery in April of 2018 and but we weren't to concerned.

With a little over 12,000 miles on THE POD now the dimple has grown into a full sized ripple. Between the heat and the air pressure pushing on it while traveling down the highway it's really starting to concern us now. We mentioned it to a dealership back in Ohio and were told they all end up doing that, it's just NORMAL wear and tear, like your tires.

I'm a pretty easy going kind of guy so just accepted that as fact. Only as of this April 13th we will no longer be under warranty, so I once again voiced my concern over the condition of our window to the new dealership here in Texas. They took some photos and sent them to Airstream requesting a replacement window be sent under warranty.

It's kind of hard to see in the photo, but trust me, it's warped.

Guess what? Airstream approved us for a new window, so two weeks from now we will be getting a brand new window installed. Hopefully it will resolve our NORMAL wear and tear problem with the front rock guard window once and for all.

THURSDAY - After a couple days of some mildly rainy weather there is finally some water going over the rocks here at McKinney Falls State Park. You didn't think we were going to leave here without sharing a couple of photos of the falls did you?

Upper McKinney Falls near the picnic area.

Lower McKinney Falls about a quarter mile downstream.

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