Blogs from Llano, Texas, United States, North America

I'm pretty sure I have a Travel Blog post with the exact same titlefrom 2017. In fact, when I'm done writing this blog post, I should compare the two. I suspect they'll be very similar! Just like in 2017, we hopped in our car to chase totality. We're staying in Austin, Texas. Our original plan was to watch the eclipse from the hotel to avoid having to deal with traffic afterwards. It was a great plan except for the clouds. Today, Austin is forecasted to have almost 90% cloud cover. I scoured the weather reports for nearby towns. Things are worse to the south and southwest of us. Cloud-wise, it's about the same directly west. North is slightly better. But northwest... northwest is where it's at! We decided our best bet was to head to a ... read more

Geo: 30.7592, -98.6747Back from our trip to Africa and Switzerland and a little warmer weather. One of the things we enjoy doing while here in Llano is paddling on the Llano river. We have spent many an early morning watching the sun rise over the river and enjoying the birds and other wildlife we may happen upon.Friend Jerry had come to visit us and we all decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go for a paddle at Robinson park. Laura is still in the inflatable cast and so we put together the Sea Eagle kayak and took one of our smaller one man kayaks for Jerry.It was a great day and we had found a good place to hold the boat steady to allow safe entry cast and all! Paddled across the river ... read more

Geo: 30.7593, -98.675Finally we were all packed up and ready to go. The packing, as usual, took longer than we ever anticipate and we were finally on the road by 7 pm and planned to camp at San Angelo State Park.We have found that it takes us 12 to 16 hours to get to Santa Fe depending on the route and how many rest stops. We like to break the drive up into two days and camp one night along the way.Got to San Angelo that night and following the GPS instructions, we headed out toward the San Angelo State Park. Alas, we arrived too late and were out of luck and the park entrances were closed and we had no where to go. Pulled out the big atlas and saw there was a rest stop ... read more

We are on the road and headed west. After traveling completely around the world last year we are exploring the US this summer with the Great American Road Trip. We spent a wonderful week in LA, that's Lower Alabama for you neophytes. We attended a family wedding in Satsuma, Alabama and then spent 7 wonderful days on the beach in Orange Beach, Alabama. Now, we are working our way west and trying to stay off I-10 and follow the back roads. Yesterday we were in Austin, Texas and it was booming. The downtown was alive and we ate lunch in the gorgeous old Driskell Hotel built in 1886. The food was great and the locale was fabulous. After lunch we took a long hike around the Town Lake. Formed by the damming up of Barton Springs, ... read more