Day 21 > 25 - Familiar Faces

DATE: Sunday MARCH 20TH

TIME: 10:12am MST

LOCATION: lafayette co

I’ve got to get back to writing nightly, this is gonna be another long one.

So last we talked we had just arrived in San Antonio. By the second full day my sunburn was much more manageable so we took the drive into Austin TX to check things out. Our first stop was at this river walk trail in a public park on the outskirts of the main city. We walked a couple miles along this path to get into the city proper and it was lovely. There were a lot of people jogging and biking, lots of animals, kanoon rentals, lots of great recreational activities. The river itself was beautiful, check the photos below for that. We saw some turtles sunning themselves on a stick, pretty neat!

Once we were parallel with the main city we dipped off the trail and started walking in the city. I really liked this place, very open, no major crowds, clean air. All in all super nice place to walk around. We didn’t walk down the streets by the buildings because Deniz wanted to find this graffiti park, but our path took us past some really nice shopping centers. While on the way we saw an ice cream place and we stopped in there for a snack. It was similar to cold stone, but rather than just scooping the ice cream up after mixing they let it freeze on the stone then scrapped it off in the form of rolls. Super tasty, definitely a good place to stop if you’re in the area, name is below in the images. We continues our walk to the park but unfortunately the area was under construction so there wasn’t really anything to see. Since we had been walking for a couple hours now we decided to UBER back to the car and drive around for a bit.

Once back at the car we drove across the city area and visited the BioWare Austin offices. I actually saw someone who worked there walk out in one of the BioWare team hoodies which was so fucking cool. I took a pic next to the sign. BioWare is pretty high on the list of companies I would want to work for, so I was happy it was in an area I liked so much. I could definitely see myself living in ATX. After the offices we drove out and tracked down a Texas BBQ place which was very tasty, then headed back to San Antonio.

The next day was pretty uneventful since we were just driving from San Antonio to Dallas area, but became much more enjoyable when we arrived. When in the Dallas area we stayed with one of my Guildfriends Jlaw and Stacy. I had never met them in real life so I was super excited to meet them in person. Both were such lovely people to hang out with and I got to meet all of their animals. They live on a beautiful 34 acre ranch around an hour our from Dallas, no neighbors to be seen and complete silence outside. Such a great place. I spent a lot of time playing with the dogs Fromer and Coco, both total sweethearts, and talking with Jlaw and Stacy. I also got to meet their horse and donkey who are both pictured below. I have never been that close to a horse so that was super cool.

The next day we went out to explore a bit. We didn’t do much since Deniz’s back was especially bad that day, but we got to see the city well enough. We went to a small airsoft shop and talked with the people there, then took a drive around the city to see some of the sights. We found this really cool statue garden in the city with a ton of bronze Texas Longhorns. You could just walk among them and it was super cool. We then went to lunch at one of the places our friend Maya recommended called Snuffers. It was a pretty awesome place, I would definitely go back there. After eating we headed back home and spent the rest of the evening with Jlaw and Stacy.

The next two days were both big travel days, around 6 hours at minimum each. What’s worse was that it was a drive through Kansas, which we quickly discovered is the most boring place we have ever been. You could look down at your phone for 30 min and then look around and it wouldn’t look like you have gone anywhere. Just nothing but crop fields. Leaving from Dallas we made a stop to eat IHOP since we had been craving it for a few days, then got into our hotel around 9pm. We stayed over in Salina KS then got up early in the morning and finished the last 6 hour leg of the trip to the Boulder CO area which is where we are now. We are staying with the daughter of my dad’s cousin, we aren’t exactly sure what that makes us in relation to each other, but family is family :) We had a really lovely evening together at a cider brewery. The brewery was a pretty ingenious place, they had all of this outdoor seating with lots of fires to keep you warm, along side this huge playground. Parents can pretty much just drink in peace while their kids wear themselves out, pretty smart. Food was pretty good too. It was funny watching Meghan and Zach get summoned one by one by their two boys to go play. Pretty much just tag team. Not to mention that this place had an insane view of the mountains in the distance. All in all a great evening. Deniz and I went to bed very early around 8pm local time (So 9pm for how we are tuned right now) which was honestly needed after all of the driving.

Today we are going to go out to the Rocky Mountains and do some hiking, see some vistas and get out passports stamped. Looks to be another good day

Thats all for now, stay safe

Signing off

-H