Austin, TX

On my way to San Antonio I stopped at a McDonald’s for some food and to fill up on gas. As I’m waiting in the drive through line my Jeep starts acting up. I hear my cooling fan kick on and start getting louder and louder. At the same time I see my temperature gauge shooting towards the hot. I shut off my Jeep ASAP. This can’t be good.

When the drive through attendant hangs my bag of food out the window I start my Jeep, hurry out of the line, park, and shut it off again. I’m starting to panic sweat. Going through all of the things that I think it could be in my head I’m at a loss. I drive it over quickly to the gas pump and fill up. When I turn it on this time the temperature gauge shoots to the right again, I shut it off immediately, and it makes a weird sound and shakes.

I pull up to a parking spot. Get out my Jeep repair manual. Pop the hood then start poking around. I had engine coolant, it was a bit low but not unsafe.

To make matters worse my phone was acting up too. When I went to make an outgoing call I wasn’t able to get through. I got a weird message that I didn’t listen all the way through. I tried calling my dad a few more times but not luck.

I imagined having to go to the gas station attendant and asking to use their phone to call AAA, where I was going to have to have my car towed from San Antonio Texas to Lakewood Ohio. What a nightmare.

I noticed my engine oil was a bit low, so I added a few quarts. Then I went into the McDonald’s and used their wifi to research all types of overheating issues with my Jeep. I found a wide range of issues: from the radiator getting clogged, a fan clutch going bad, to having debris clogged in the radiator fins.

I also notice that it’s only overheating when idling, but when I’m driving at a constant speed it isn’t an issue. So, I make the decision to drive the remaining few hours to San Antonio where I find another Hampton Inn parking lot to sleep in the back of the Jeep.

In the morning my first move is to go to a self service car wash to spray all of the bugs out of my radiator. Next, I add a bit more oil. Then I head to a repair shop. They charge me over $100 for the inspection.

A few hours later I go back to find that they can’t reproduce the problem. I’m baffled. They added a small amount of engine coolant, but no matter what I try I can’t get it to overheat again. Very frustrating, but I guess it’s a relief. Off to Austin, TX.

Austin Texas – Indiangrass Trail

When I first get near downtown Austin I notice a large number of homeless people. Shirtless men with signs, black guys with “I have weed” written on cardboard. Making a left hand turn towards the Hostel I see a homeless shelter on the right. There are probably a hundred homeless people spilling out onto the curb.

Only a few blocks away I find the hostel that I’m supposed to stay in the next day. Great. Since, I’m a day early I search for a Hampton Inn that’s far enough away from the homeless shelter. Once I have one in mind I head a few miles away to do a quick hike.

The hike is about 40 minutes away from downtown Austin. It’s called Indiangrass Trail. It was a nice little hike of about 4 miles. It was part forest, part grassland. It followed a creek then went to a more remote grass/ranch region.

As I get about halfway done i hear thunder clouds start rolling in. Do I turn back? Or move forward to complete the trail. It seems that moving forward is the better move, based on the way the clouds are moving. I start jogging quickly to try and beat the rain. Not to mention I had to get off the side of this bare hill, where there were burnt tree stumps scattered throughout that were struck by lightening years ago.

I was able to get into some tree cover as it started to drizzle. When I came to the top of the hill where the trails crossed it started pouring. I’m hearing thunder all around me (I guess it didn’t matter if I turned back). I think I’m at a part of the trail that I passed earlier so I think I can take a shortcut. When I get to the bottom of a rocky hill the rain really starts coming down in buckets. I decide to crouch under some small pines (without much cover) to try and wait out the big wave. It starts raining so hard that the tree cover is useless. So, I continue on the shortcut and quickly find that I go in a 300 yard circle back the top of the hill. I go back down the rocky hill and take the correct path leading back.

Running full speed, soaking wet, trying to get off the side of another bare hill the end is finally in sight. I make it back over the creek and into the restroom which is completely filled with flies and mosquitoes. I decide that I’m going to go back to my jeep, grab an umbrella, my sandals, and some dry clothes. I change into them in the restroom and try and stay dry with the umbrella back to the car. That was a pretty intense experience.

As I’m soaking wet and my phone is drying out I decide I can’t sleep in my Jeep tonight, so I find a cheap Motel 6 on the way back towards Austin.

This Motel 6 may be worse than the motel in Tulsa, OK. The surrounding people are definitely more sketchy. There are all types of Ne’er-do-well’s to be seen. I grab my most valuable stuff and cover everything in the back of my jeep up with my black sheet to try and hide anything valuable.

The room is a bit cleaner than Tulsa, but there are some issues. It’s all hardwood floors and the rooms are joined with a neighbor. There is a door in between to rooms and there is a 2 inch gap beneath the door. I can hear and smell everything.

My neighbor must have been selling drugs. There were people in and out every 20 minutes. They were smoking lots of weed. I ended up rolling up a towel and jammed it under the door to try and stop the sounds and smells from making it to my senses.

The bed was pretty comfortable. I ended up sleeping surprisingly well.

Hostel

In the morning I headed to some public library’s where I did a bit of work and downloaded some new audio books. I ended up checking into the Firehouse Hostel, after a painful street parking conversation. I had to pay to park a few blocks away as I got settled into the room, but then the employee was nice enough to let me use it garage parking pass for free.

My room was probably an 8’ x 20’ room with 2 bunk beds. When I arrived, there were two beds claimed but no bodies. I took the far bottom bunk and took a shower. The hostel is a really cool building that used to be, you guessed it, a firehouse. They keep it pretty clean. It has 3 floors and about 20 rooms.

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to wait in the room to meet my roommates or just go venture out on my own, so I did the latter. I headed a block south and walked up and down a street full of bars. There were many places with live music (some better than others). It seems like there weren’t many homeless people near these populated areas – which was a relief.

There was a bar in the ground floor of the hostel. It was a little speakeasy behind a hidden door disguised as a bookshelf. Chatting with the guy next to me at the bar, he mentioned an absinthe bar a few blocks away with some good deals.

I took his word for it and headed further into the heart of downtown. When I arrived I saw what looked like a library of different bottles on the back wall. The bartenders were up on sliding ladders fashioned out of metal piping. It was a relatively busy place with a cool atmosphere.

Finding a space at the bar I ordered a drink and an appetizer.

The guy to my right looked like he was from the middle east. It turns out he was from Saudi Arabia and we got to talking about the election and government and whatever else. He mentioned that there was a time when water was actually more expensive than oil in Saudi Arabia. Crazy.

To my left I met a nice couple. Jon was a man in his 60’s who was from Fort Worth, TX. He is a skin cancer surgeon. His girlfriend Cheryl was from Wisconsin. They had a good story about going to high school together then connecting through Facebook 30 some years later. Cheryl was in town visiting him. I talked with them for a few hours. They were meeting someone at the bar. At one point Cheryl asked if I had a girlfriend. I said “Yes.” and then jokingly “Why are you meeting a hot 25 year old blonde?” Surprisingly they both nodded their heads “Yes”. Haha.

They weren’t kidding. Cheryl’s old co-worker Melissa was a sweet-heart. We all ended up ordering more food and absinthe. It was actually pretty tasty stuff. I didn’t hallucinate like in the movies, just a different kind of drunk.

At the end of the night Jon ended up picking up my entire tab and they invited me to coffee the next morning. I ended up getting Jon’s number and he said to give him a call next time I’m near Fort Worth. They were really cool people.

The next morning I didn’t make it to coffee with Jon, Cheryl, and Melissa I had to get on the road.