In the middle of Washington state’s farm country, is a unique dive that I learned about when researching the Valhalla missile silo in Texas. Once I found out about this Titan missile silo dive, I added it to our map and hoped to get to the area eventually. The site is fairly remote from any major cities, but as luck would have it, it ended up being near our route from Portland to Spokane, Washington.

The Titan Nuclear Missile

This Titan missile silo complex is much larger than the Atlas silo that I dove previously. It also had much more of the original equipment inside. I only did 2 dives here, but I could easily do more to explore other areas in the complex. You can even make your way through horizontal tunnels underwater into other parts of the missile complex if you are properly certified and equipped.

This is a painting of the missile complex. We entered through the vertical shaft near the center.

Traveling by motorhome made this dive a lot more accessible. We spent the night in town before the dive and then drove the motorhome right down to the dive site. It was nice to have the AC running and the awning out in the 90-100 degree heat while we suited up into our dry suits for the mid 50-degree water below.

The dive shop has set up some benches and tables on the surface to make it a bit easier to gear up. Here we are receiving our pre-dive briefing before heading down into the tunnels.

The entry down the old emergency escape hatch. This shaft would have been filled with sand to protect the workers inside from a blast above. If they needed a quick escape, it could be opened and the sand would fall into the room below and then they could climb out.

The dive shop rigged up a pulley system so we could easily lower gear down into the staging room below.

I’m heading in!

Here you can see the sand from the escape shaft covering the floor. We made our final gear checks and prep in this room before we headed into the tunnels.  These are the last lights we will see other than the lights we brought with us.

The shop keeps a small kayak in the prep room so we can drag extra gear with us through the flooded tunnels. The tunnel behind the kayak is our entry into the silo complex.

Our group heading into the silo.

The tunnels connecting the silos are all flooded. The metal flooring was salvaged long ago, so we had to make our way on exposed beams and pipes. We kept our BCs inflated so that when we missed a step we wouldn’t fall into an open hole in the floor.

The water became deeper and deeper as we approached the silo. I actually enjoyed this because it helped to keep the weight of the tanks off our backs and the water was nice and cool in our dry suits so we weren’t too hot by the time we reached the silo. When we reached the silo through the door in the photo above, we put on our fins and masks and deflated our BCs to drop down into the main missile silo.

As long as we made sure not to disturb the silt on the beams, the visibility in the silos was pretty great.

The depth of the silo was around 105-110 ft. The water temperature was a pretty consistent 55 degrees.

The entire internal structure was supported by giant springs so that the missile and equipment were protected from shock if a bomb should go off on the surface.

Fortunately for us, these are no longer “hot.”

I like to find all the serial number tags on the old equipment in the silo.

Here, I am looking up toward the blast doors on the surface. You can see the platforms that fold out of the way when the missile would be lifted to the surface to fire.

This was the only bit of color in the silo. I believe these are pressure release valves. They were probably for the fueling of the Titan missile.

The staff would use an intercom system to communicate with various areas of the silo complex.

I think this eye wash station and elevator are a bit redundant now that the silo has flooded.

I believe this interesting looking pipe transferred the liquid fuel for the Titan missile.

I’m glad we don’t have to use the stairs to get up and down in this silo. I’m sure the people working here never imagined a bunch of people swimming around for fun inside their top-secret base.

At one point in the dive, I looked up to find the dive master sitting on a beam watching everyone. It was a bit creepy and cool at the same time.

Verdict: If you are at all interested in diving and cold war era relics, this is a very cool dive! I found the walk in through the tunnels to be just as interesting as the dive itself. If you can only dive one silo, I would choose this one. It has a very authentic feel and there are a lot of little interesting things to look at along the way. If I’m in the area again, I will try to go back and explore some more.

A website with the history of the Titan missile program.

Wikipedia page for the 568th Strategic Missile Squadron that managed this site.

So far, I have been able to dive the 2 known dive-able missile silos in the US. Now I’m hooked and want to find more. There must be more silos out there just waiting to be explored.

Kerensa decided that we should book it to Burlington, Vermont to get out of the summer heat of North Carolina. Of course, the first thing I did was get online to see if it was even possible to scuba dive in Burlington.

It turns out that yes, you can dive in Burlington and it’s pretty damn good diving too!

It doesn’t really matter how good the dive was when you surface to a view like this.

A quick Google search came up with Waterfront Diving in Burlington. Their site contains a list of historic canal boats that sank in the cold fresh water of Lake Champlain. As a shipwreck hunter, the news of well-preserved wooden wrecks really intrigued me. The next step was to find some locals to show me around. I put up some posts on Scubaboard and connected to the Vermont Divers Facebook group to find some fellow divers to point me in the right direction and take me out for some dives. Little did I know this would lead to one of the most interesting dives I have done to date.

An unexpected  dive on a relatively unknown wreck deep in Lake Champlain

I went on nice evening dive with a couple of the locals I met through Facebook. I didn’t realize at the time, but they were testing me to see if I was capable of conducting a dive they had planned later that week. We met up at a location called Thompson’s Point. There isn’t much to see here, but it is one of the deepest places in the lake. From the shore, we were able to gradually swim down past 100′ to cruise along a ledge that drops deeper into the lake. It was pretty dark at this depth, so I don’t have any photos to show, but as we went along with our flashlights we started to find old bottles strewn along the bottom. We collected a few for one diver’s personal collection and surfaced shortly after to the beautiful sunset in the photo above.

Once we surfaced, they invited me to dive on a wreck that they and a local boat captain had recently re-discovered. The wreck was a steam-powered tug boat that sank in 1931. The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum found the wreck in 1996 and sent a few divers down to verify its identity. Even though the museum identified the as the US La Vallee, the location was not shared publicly in order to preserve the site.

My new dive buddies invited me to dive this wreck with them and be one of the first to see it since the survey crew located it in 1996. As a thank you for the boat captain, I created this video to show the wreck and credit Larry’s Diving Services. The wreck lies at 105 ft near the current Ferry Lanes in Lake Champlain. The water at that depth is very cold and pitch black. Due to the depth, we only had one dive with a limited amount of time. Below is the video we managed to capture during that short first dive. I hoped to get back to it again but the weather didn’t cooperate and we had to move on.

The wheel and rope pulley still intact on the La Vallee

Bottles and other artifacts were still present on deck

You can read more about the US La Vallee on the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum website.

The OJ Walker

In addition to the US Lavallee, I dove a few other wrecks with Waterfront Diving. These were also on Captain Larry’s boat since the shop contracts with local dive boats. One of my favorites was the OJ Walker. The OJ Walker was a schooner-rigged canal boat which is basically a sailing cargo boat that designed to fit through the canals and locks to bring cargo up and down the Hudson river from as far away as New York City into Lake Champlain. The size of the locks determined the size of the boats and because of this archeologists can determine the age of the ship from its size. As time went on, the locks grew bigger and bigger in order to bring through larger and larger ships laden with cargo.

According to the Waterfront Diving website, the OJ Walker went down in a storm in 1895 carrying a heavy cargo of bricks and tiles. Even though this ship has been underwater for over 100 years it is remarkably well-preserved. The cold fresh waters of Lake Champlain serve to preserve these old wooden ships, unlike the ocean where currents and living creatures will quickly eat their way through a wood ship like this.

The Wheel of the OJ Walker: Care must be taken in order to avoid damaging this delicate structure

This wreck lies at a depth of 65ft and is considered an intermediate to advanced dive. Good buoyancy control is mandatory to avoid running into and damaging the fragile structures on the boat and to avoid touching the bottom and kicking up a cloud of silt. Here some light still filters down from above, but a good flashlight really helps you take in the details of the site.

In the gallery below, you can see the deck and mast of the OJ Walker as well as some of her cargo of bricks still resting on deck and one of the brick carts laying on the bottom near the ship.

A dead eye from the OJ Walker: Although these look skulls, they are used in the rigging of the sails

There are many other wrecks in Lake Champlain that all have their own story to tell. The Vermont Division for Historic Preservation puts out a very nice pamphlet that describes the wrecks, their history and gives specific location information. I picked up my copy from Waterfront Diving.

Lake Jocassee is in South Carolina and holds a few interesting secrets. One of which is the Mt. Carmel Cemetery. It was sent to the bottom in 1973 when the valley was flooded to create a reservoir for the new nuclear power plant.

The infamous movie “Deliverance” featured the Mt. Carmel cemetery. As I wound through the hills of South Carolina to the dive shop, I could hear the dueling banjos playing in my head. In the clip below from Deliverance, you can see the backhoe and graves from when they were removing bodies before they flooded the valley.

This cemetery is 130ft deep and lies right at the extreme limit of my training. The dive plan only allowed for about 9 minutes at the bottom to avoid necessary decompression.

Another concern for divers at this depth is Nitrogen Narcosis. This is sort of like becoming drunk from the excess nitrogen in your system due to deep depths. It affects everyone differently and for me it clearly affected my ability to run the camera. There were a couple of shots I thought I captured, but after I reviewed the video on the surface, I realized I turned off the camera when I thought I was turning it on.

Below is the video I was able to capture featuring some of the more prominent grave sites. I saw open graves from where the bodies were exhumed, but unfortunately I messed up and didn’t capture the video.

I hope to visit this site sometime again in the future and explore it further.

If you are ever out this way and want to check it out, head to The Lake Jocassee Dive Shop. They’ll take care of you.

Once I learned that 30 miles off the coast of Morehead City, NC there lies a graveyard of shipwrecks inhabited by Sandtiger Sharks, I knew I had to go. Here the Gulf Stream sweeps warm waters up from the Caribean, bringing with it good visibility and a plentiful supply of food to support a large population of sharks. The sharks congregate on ships, many of whom were placed here by a different type of underwater predator. In the last years of WWII, German U-Boats prowled the deep up and down the East Coast of the United States looking for easy prey in merchant vessels shipping war supplies in the Atlantic.

CARIBSEA

A 8ft Sand Tiger I met above the Caribsea wreck

One of the wrecks I dove was named the Caribsea. It was sunk in the middle of the night by 2 torpedoes fired from the U-Boat U-158. It is reported that the ship sank quickly and only 7 members of the 28 member crew survived the attack. The ship lies in 70-90 ft of water is known for its abundance of marine life and the presence of many Sand Tiger Sharks.

When I reached the wreck, I had my first encounter with Sand Tigers. I have seen a few sharks before, but they were all nurse sharks and one small reef shark which are smaller and not as imposing as a full grown Sand Tiger. Fortunately, the Sand Tigers look menacing, but actually have a very mellow personality. I had to keep repeating this to myself as I was passed on both sides by Sand Tigers as big as me. It is definitely an interesting experience to realize you are no longer the top of the food chain. On this dive, I saw over a dozen individual sharks. They would cruise by with their snaggly teeth overcrowding and hanging out of their mouths. They didn’t seem to be bothered by the divers and would just glide past as their dull black eyes kept a watch on these noisy bubble making primates flopping around beside them.

I’m sure the wreck is interesting, too, but my eyes were fixed on the predators encircling me. I don’t really have much of a recollection of this wreck as it was my first time in water with large sharks!

More info on the Caribsea wreck from NC-Wreckdiving.com

AEOLUS

Life inside the Aeolus

My next dive trip was a bit farther out to sea. The hope was to actually dive on one of the U-boats that prowled these waters. A depth charge sunk the U-352 in this area in 1942. It lies a bit farther out than other wrecks and can have some very strong currents on it. We were trying to dive the U-boat, but Neptune didn’t want to cooperate and we had to divert to a different wreck in the area.

More info on the Aeolus wreck from NC-Wreckdiving.com

If you choose to visit Morehead City to check out some of the awesome wrecks in the area, be sure to bring your Dramamine. The typical boat ride is 30 miles and takes about 3 hours in the open sea. The benefit of this long ride is much clearer water and some of the best wreck diving in the country.

I used a dive operator called Olympus Dive Center. They are one of the best in the area. They operate 3 boats. Two of the boats are nice, large ocean-going boats that are pretty comfortable for the long ride out. The third is a smaller boat used for inshore diving.

Olympus Dive Center
713 Shepard Street
Morehead City, NC 28557
252-726-9432
info@olympusdiving.com

Hanging out with Barracuda during the safety stop

Yes, that’s right; I have packed my belongings and thrown them in a truck 10 times. You would think I would have it perfected by now, but something new always pops up each time. I have moved from small places into larger homes and from houses into small apartments. This last move into our motorhome was the most challenging. We downsized more than we ever had before and we really had to think about exactly where objects would fit. All 10 moves have produced a few things I have found to be true.

On the road again

1.  Most of us own more than we need.
There are those people who truly live minimally and with only what they need, but most of us live in consumer mode. We fill the space we have. When we exceed the space we have, we look for more space to fill like a garage. When you start packing you should always take a hard look at each item and decide if you really need it or if it’s just taking up space. Use every move as a time to de-clutter. I’d even suggest setting aside some time every year to do this anyway before it gets too overwhelming.

2.  I hold onto too many things on the “round tuit” list.
You know the list, the one with all the jobs that you’ll get around to when you the time. Do you ever get around to it? Once I actually got into my list, some of these jobs were faster than I expected. Some had changed by the time I had gotten around to them. Review, evaluate, and prioritize. Maybe something is no longer needed or is now a quick fix. Dedicate some days for turning in your “round tuit” tokens. How long do you want to carry this stuff around?
Unfortunately, I can’t even claim to have actually gotten rid of everything on my list. I have a box of photography prints from my college days that I’ve been meaning to go through since I graduated…over 10 years ago. I peeked at it and got a few things out, but this job didn’t get finished before I hit the road and is now taking up room in my mom’s extra closet.

Kona and Lucy finding the only soft places left during a move

3.  It’s best to make multiple passes when drastically downsizing.
When we moved from our house in Dallas to an apartment on the Hudson River, we had to downsize some, but not as much as you might think. The choices were easier, too. Get rid of my old bedroom set and keep the waterfall vintage set. Ditch the old futon in the extra room and only keep our newer couch. We even had a lot of closets in our apartment, so clothing was not an issue. Moving into the RV, though, was a different beast.

The motorhome is much smaller than any apartment we’ve lived in and our lifestyle would change. We started out on this journey when I was working full-time in Manhattan at a corporate job in the fashion industry. I needed clothes that reflected that. When we packed up to spend a year in Indiana freelancing from home, I kept a lot of my dress pants and other work clothes. I thought I may need them to meet clients or to dress up. I didn’t need them. Well, I didn’t need all of them or even most of them. I kept a few basics or pieces I really liked and got rid of the rest. The same goes for the rest of my wardrobe. Every so often, I would re-evaluate what I kept to see if I still thought I needed it. I was able to cull more every time. I still need to go through everything again, especially after being out on the road for a while.

The same theory goes for everything else, too; kitchen wares, tools, etc. If you have the time over a few months, weeks, or even days, make multiple passes over your inventory. It can be overwhelming to go through everything at once and you may be prone to hang onto things you don’t really need.

4.  Most storage items are never looked at again.
I’ve read about multiple RVers who put things in storage and then have to come back a year or two later to clean it out and get rid of everything. Even boxes that are put in closets or garages after a move can be ignored until the next move. What does that say about the contents?

5.  If you do move a lot, it’s worth keeping a few moving items.
With all this talk of paring things down, I did keep a few things I only used during moves. If I knew it was temporary, I kept some boxes in the garage. But even in our apartment in NJ, I used the extra closet space to hold the dishpak from moving. I knew us and wasn’t sure when our next move would be. After a few failed attempts at moving, it ended up being the home we lived in the longest, but the dishpak came in handy when we did move. I hate buying these specialized moving helpers, so I saved myself the trouble and money.

6.  Estate sales can help liquidate large amounts.
We usually hold a garage sale before a move to get rid of the things we don’t need to move with us. These can be great in some parts of the country (Dallas, I’m looking at you) or hard to do and hardly worth it in others. In NJ, we combined our sale with a friend living in a house (our highrise was not sale friendly) and still had multiple boxes to get rid of at the end.

By the time we were ready to make the move to being nomads, we had a lot of stuff we couldn’t take with us. Namely furniture, kitchen items, and a bunch of other odds and ends. We would look at the pile we were creating and think about having to sort through and price all of it. Could we do multiple garage sales? Sure, but did we want to do multiple garage sales? We decided to look into using a professional estate sale service. This allowed us to have one sale where we got rid of almost everything (there are always a few stragglers) and not have to deal with set up or buyers. Have you ever been woken up at 4 am by the early birds demanding to see items for sale? Not fun.

We should note that we did not make as much as expected by us or our estate sale professionals at the sale. Maybe the timing was off, maybe our goods didn’t mesh with the customers, who knows. It was still nice not having to do it ourselves.

The view outside The Thing in Arizona during our move to San Diego

7.  Get paid up front.
You know the old adage that family and money don’t mix? I think that can be applied to friends and neighbors, too. They can mix, but when it comes to selling your belongings, do yourself a favor and get your money before handing over the item. We held items out of our estate sale for a lower price for what we thought was a friend and neighbor. We have never seen the money and missed out on selling some big-ticket items.

8.  Something can and will usually go wrong.
Just know and accept that things will not go perfectly. Here’s a few of the problems that have arisen during our moves:
– Our belongings were held hostage for more money once they were loaded on the truck. Being an interstate company, the cops couldn’t help us, so we had to let them leave not knowing what would happen on the other side. Happily, the movers on the delivery end never received the memo to extort us and we handed over a check for the original estimate.
– The truck carrying our belongings had a large hole in the roof and it rained while it was on the road. Thankfully, we had put plastic bins of holiday decorations on top, so the water was mostly contained. It could have been so much worse.
– Superstorm Sandy hit the day before our move was scheduled. If we were in a house, we would have just left earlier, but in a highrise building, you must stick to your time. We were delayed for a week until the power was restored and we were rescheduled.
– We got a flat tire on the new U-haul we rented just an hour or so from our new home. We had to wait for someone to come out and change it.
– We were trying to move into the RV and leave when snowstorms and the polar vortex hit. Another delay and then it became just throwing things into the RV instead of actually putting them away.

One of our water-soaked boxes from the leaky roof incident

9.  Experiences are better than things.
There has been research that people remember experiences more than they do objects. Something to remember for your next gift giving occasion. For us, that’s why we are doing this. We want to see and experience all we can. For our milestone anniversaries, I choose travel over jewelry. We stopped collecting typical souvenirs a long time ago. We have our photos and we will pick up local delicacies that we can consume along the way. We do allow ourselves a smashed penny collection and stickers for the car. We figured out long ago these didn’t take much room and were fun reminders of our travels.

10.  Cats can hide anywhere.
Here are three examples of when I thought I lost Dylan, our cat.
– He crawled on top of the fridge then on top of the soffit and stared down at me while I frantically searched and called out to him.
– Before moving into our empty apartment, I let the cat out of his carrier (silly, I know) and went to pick up the truck. When we came back, we could not find him anywhere. It was an empty apartment! He had managed to crawl into the kitchen cabinets and into a drawer at waist height. He’s a big cat, too.
– When he first got into the RV, he did his normal exploring and found his spot in the closet that we had created for him. All good. Then one day before leaving, we went to find him to no avail. It’s a big RV, but not that big! Finally, we pulled out the drawer under the couch to find a curled up cat. Anywhere.

I’ll admit it.  When we used to make the journey from Dallas to Austin, we would stop for kolaches, but we would always just go to the Czech stop right off the highway and get back to driving.  When we made our trek from Austin to Dallas this time, things were different.  For one I wanted to get kolaches to send to my future sister-in-law for her birthday.  She grew up in Houston before moving back to Pennsylvania and loves kolaches.  We had already stopped at the Bluebell factory and picked up some paraphernalia all wrapped up in a Bluebell container (so cute!), but I couldn’t actually send ice cream.  I had added some Lammes pralines and kolaches would round out the Texas themed birthday gift.  I could have gotten some in Austin, but if I was going by West, TX why wouldn’t I stop there?  This is the heart of Czech country in Texas.  So in a fit of insomnia, I researched the best kolaches in West.

Czech Stop savory kolache case

Czech Stop fruit kolache case

Czech Stop/Little Czech Bakery

When we got to West, we did our customary stop at Czech Stop and picked up a couple of kolaches to try and compare.  As always, they were good and I particularly liked the poppyseed flavor.  Then we drove into town to find The Village Bakery.  We parked across the street and made our way over.  Sitting on the bench outside the bakery was an old-timer in a cowboy hat.  He said, “Howdy,” as we approached.  We felt as if we had just entered the “real” Texas.  We made our way in and perused the goods.  The Village Bakery is known as “The First All-Czech Bakery in Texas” and I learned a new word, klobasniki.  This was actually a twist on the kolache created by The Village Bakery by substituting the usual sweet fillings for sausage.  This is what you now find labeled as kolaches in doughnut cases across Texas.  Brandon selected a klobasniki and I chose a prune kolache.  The traditional fillings are things like poppy seed, prune, apricot, and peach, but they have added strawberry, raspberry, cream cheese, and even chocolate over the years.  The kolaches were lightly heated before serving to enhance their texture.  The dough was a little lighter than Czech Stop and oh so good.  Kolache dough is lightly sweetened yeast dough and the perfect accompaniment to the fruit or sausage inside.  I was sold.  We placed an order for Katie’s kolaches to be picked up on our way back and bought some for our trip up to Dallas.  My friend and host in Dallas wanted a chocolate kolache, so we got one for us, too.  It is filled  with sweetened cheese, drizzled with chocolate, and delicious.  It is now one of my favorite flavors.  Also to note, I had read their Texas Twists were excellent and picked up a couple of cinnamon twists (they come in many fruit flavors) for later.  I have to agree with the posters, they were excellent.  As I write this, I’m starting to crave kolaches and twists and wishing I was back in Texas.  The good thing is that you can now order their goodies and have them shipped anywhere.  Hmm…I am in one spot for a while…

Kolaches at the Village Bakery

Sausage and Prune kolache with a bite missing

Cinnamon twist

Photos from the planned train wreck at Crush, TX

The Village Bakery
113 E Oak St
West, TX
(254) 826-5151

Starting off on our new life adventure was an adventure in itself.  After spending the holidays with my family, we thought it befitting that we leave to start our new journey on January 1^st.  It would be a poetic way to start the new year.  That was not in cards, though.  A delay in getting some of the parts needed for our being-built-in desk would delay us for a couple of days.  This was ok with us; we’d roll with the punches.  The biggest punch came when we were hit with a foot of snow, then a few more inches, and finally a polar vortex so none of the snow could melt.  The mini we bought to tow behind the motorhome wasn’t even able to get out of the garage; we were completely homebound.  We tried to focus on work, so when we could leave, we could just pick up and go.

Finally, it looked like we’d have a break in the weather for a couple of days.  Our first job in getting ready to load our new home was to dig out a spot next to the house for it.  The neighborhood roads had been roughly plowed, but not enough for our motorhome to be parked and leave room for people to go around it.  So we cleared a 40 foot long spot all the way to curb; this wasn’t what we expecting as full-timers.

Thankfully, the roads were cleared enough that we were able to take the mini out and go pick up our motorhome with our beautiful new desk installed (From Trees to These was nice enough to keep it through the storms).

We came back and just started throwing stuff in.  Our new mattress was a little awkward, especially trying to keep it clean on the way out, but it made it in along with everything else.  It was too cold and time crunched to put away everything properly, that would have to wait until we got to Texas.

Getting to Texas was our next goal.  Initially, we had of ideas of stopping in Kentucky to visit Brandon’s great aunt or stopping in St. Louis for a few days.  We had planned on going to Dallas first for a visit and had reservations in Livingston and Austin based on this plan.  Everything was thrown out the window and getting to Livingston quickly and by interstate before any more storms hit was our only goal.  We did have to stop for the night and did so in Nashville, TN.  Brandon’s parents were able to meet us in the morning and we handed off some family heirlooms that weren’t going to make this journey with us.  Somehow we didn’t think antique Japanese glass and the RV were a good fit.

Finally with a little more rain, we made it to Livingston and once again became Texas residents.  Our spot at Rainbow’s End was right across from the showers which was perfect as I wasn’t waiting for our water heater to heat up when we pulled in.  I strolled over and took a nice long, hot shower.  The next couple of days were spent registering the car and rv and fun things like that.  Then we headed off to Austin a little late and worse for wear, but we made it and we were happy.

We made Austin our first long-term stop after setting out on our full-time travels.  This made sense for a variety of reasons:  it’s close to Livingston, TX where we had to stop and set up residence, our good friends Sarah and Brian are there and I wanted to visit them for an extended period, Brandon needed an airport close by for some work travel, it was winter and this was Texas (who knew we were in for crazy winter across the whole country), it’s super dog friendly, and we love Austin as a city.  Austin gave us a place to acclimate to RV living.  We were able to put away everything inside the RV that we had thrown in during the rush to leave the snow and storms and do some roof maintenance.  Although not a scenic resort, we stayed in a place that was in the city and close enough to our friends and downtown to not be a hassle.

We looked forward to visiting with friends and visiting favorite spots along with finding new places to go.  As far as food goes, Austin is one of the best places we could be.  It’s all about barbecue which makes Brandon happy and is also super vegetarian-friendly which makes me happy.  After living in my Austin bubble for a few months, I forgot that not all restaurants have extensive veggie options and was shocked backed into reality.  Austin is also known for their tacos, especially the breakfast variety, which makes both of us happy.  You can read about our experiences in our taco, barbecue, and pizza round ups.

It was great to hang out with Sarah, Brian, and their girls while we are there.  We haven’t lived near each other since we were 18 (even then Sarah was 2 hours away), so it was nice to have all of us in the same area code.  Sarah is a great artist (SarahRuhArt.com) and terrific web designer (SarahRuhDesign.com) and Brian just had a new edition of his book Stray Dog of Anime on Mamoru Oshii released.  We got to act like the old friends we are just hanging out at their house or our RV talking, playing games, and watching the shows the girls would put on.  I even got to see Frozen in 3-D; although after being there for a while with 2 girls, I had already heard most of the songs … multiple times.

The second gathering of NüRVers in Austin.

From old friends to new, Austin ended up being a great place to meet other people like us out on the road full-time.  I was already following the Democratic Travelers online when I saw they were heading to Austin.  I wrote them and we met up a little later at a great Austin bar called the Easy Tiger with a large patio, so we both brought our dogs to meet, too.   It turns out we lived a neighborhood over from Laura in Dallas.  Another couple was starting out from Austin a few weeks after we landed there.  We met Eric and Brittany of RV Wanderlust online first, so they came and stayed at our RV park before heading out of Austin.  When SXSW started, it brought with it a plethora of NüRVers.  We had met Kristin and Jason of the Snowmads online also, so it was great to meet them in person.  They helped organize a get together with some of the other RVers including Gone with the Wynns, The Roaming Pint, Living Learning Mobile, and the Democratic Travelers.  Meeting all these other people doing the same thing as we were was a great reminder of why we chose to do this.  It also helped to show that we were not alone; we had a great new community!  They just happen to usually be in different places.

The Shaun Peace Band was staying in our park for SXSW and played a few impromptu shows for everyone.

Barton Creek looking rather pitiful from the drought

Bluebonnets in Austin

While in Austin, we took advantage of our surroundings.  We stopped at the Bluebell headquarters on the drive there, hiked at McKinney Falls State Park, and took day trips to surrounding areas.  I took the Modern Homes tour with Sarah and saw some of the best Austin has to offer.  We had a quintessential Austin experience when we ate at Tacodeli and then walked across the street with the dogs to walk the trails at Barton Creek Greenbelt.  With the ongoing drought in Austin, the creek bed was so dry, you could walk it.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as if it’s going to get better anytime soon.  Another Austin experience is the Alamo Drafthouse.  Although it has opened posts in other cities, it is still essentially Austin.  Once we went with Sarah and Brian to the 90s sing along and played along with the blow-up guitars that they handed out.  Green Day and Kriss Kross were the highlights of our night.  Another time I took Sarah with me to see North by Northwest on the big screen, fabulous! Oh, and we did get doughnuts at Gourdough’s.

McKinney Falls State Park

Brandon took advantage of being in one spot to take some more scuba classes on sidemount and wreck diving in preparation for the Florida Keys.  I took the plunge and got certified while I was there, so I could dive with him in the Keys.  Lucky me, my check out dives were in the newly reopened The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Spring Lake in San Marcos.  Brandon had wanted to dive this while in Austin until he found out it was closed.  They had just reopened it, but only for classes, so I did Brandon’s dive for him.  In the fifties, the place had opened as Aquarena Springs and had mermaids and a swimming pig named Ralph!  They were actually removing some of the old stage for the mermaids during the closure, but they left the giant oyster shell that I saw during my dives.  They still run glass bottom boats around the lake and Brandon did this to appease his appetite.  The lake is spring fed and they told him that once Johnny Weissmuller, the original Tarzan and Olympic swimmer, dove in to take a sip from the spring and was thrown across the lake from the force.

Kerensa completing her check out dives.

All in all, we had a great time in Austin and felt it was a great place for us to get set up and acclimated.  The only bad thing was leaving such a great city, great food, and best friends.  And for as long as we stayed, there is a lot we didn’t get to do, so we will be back.  We hope to see you there!

You can read more about our Austin experiences here:
Taco Round Up
BBQ Round Up
Pizza Round Up
Brandon’s Texas Dive
Kolaches in West, TX

You can’t go to Austin without eating a taco.  Taco joints are all around the city and heated discussions can arise on which one is best.  Below is a rundown of the taco joints we made it to while in Austin.  This is by no means comprehensive as we’d have to eat tacos every day for years to hit every taco place in town.  It does include a few city favorites.  We’ll have to go back soon and add more to the list.

Torchy’s Tacos
4.5 stars:  Yes, please! – Eat until the end of days

Torchy’s started out as many restaurants in Austin do, in a small trailer on 1^st.  New they have many locations across the city and have expanded to Dallas and Houston.  Torchy’s became a go-to restaurant during our stay.  It helped that it was on the path directly between our park and our friend’s house.  So what about the food?  One word: queso.  If nothing else, get the green chile queso.  This is the stuff of dreams and some of the best queso either of us has had.  The cheese itself has a smooth, creamy taste and texture, but then it’s loaded up with green chiles and topped with guacamole, queso fresco, cilantro, and diablo sauce.  I love the diablo sauce and sometimes we’d get an extra squirt on top to swirl into the creamy goodness.  You can buy a bottle at the restaurants, too, and it has held a place in our fridge for over a year now (it helps to have a local friend who knows just what to get you).  The chips that come with the queso are crisp although they can be a little greasy.

A trio of meaty tacos including the Green Chile Pork

This hot mess was Kerensa’s – Its fun to watch her eat it!

We tried many of the tacos on the menu and even the sacred/secret menu while in town.  The tacos are stuffed; you could make a meal with just one although we often got one and queso or two tacos for dinner.  I like to get one taco on corn and one on a flour tortilla, but I have found the flour holds together better.  One downside of the veggie tacos to me is that every option has a fried element; there are no all fresh options.  Somehow I got over that in the course of our stay.  My favorite by far is The Independent; fried Portobello, refried black beans, roasted corn, avocado, and escabeche carrots.  The carrots are a highlight for me as the spicy pickle flavor cut through the heavier flavors in the dish and lightened it a bit.  The other veggie options on the regular menu are the Fried Avocado and the Dirty Sanchez which is scrambled eggs, fried poblano chile, the aforementioned carrots, and more.  I like it light in the eggs (1 egg instead of 2).  You can find the secret menu by searching online, a redditor made sure to compile it when they announced each taco on facebook and it was posted on many different sites.  The veggie option is called the Jack of Clubs and is an overstuffed indulgence.  It is composed of a fried egg topped with grilled potatoes, black beans, tortilla strips, cheese, cilantro, sour cream, and diablo sauce.  Can’t finish…arteries clogging…still smiling.

Brandon’s favorite is one of their originals, the Green Chile Pork.  Let’s be honest, anything with carnitas is hard to beat.  He did like the standard better than the secret Missionary Style Green Chile Pork which included both kinds of tortillas, guacamole, and cheese.  The trailer park is a popular option with the locals.  It’s a fried chicken taco with green chilies, pico de gallo, and cheese.  What combines Southwest and South better than that?  Get it trashy by removing the lettuce and adding queso on top.

The real reason to go to Torchy’s!!

Tacodeli
4 stars:  Yes, please!

Tacodeli is often named as one of the top taco joints in Austin and their breakfast tacos are brought to meetings around the city.  Their original Spyglass location is across from the Barton Creek Greenbelt making for a great Austin experience.  We took the dogs, sat outside to eat, and then walked the trails.  The queso isn’t as heavy-duty as Torchy’s, but no less tasty.  The chips are extra light and crunchy.  I liked my Space Cowboy taco with a yummy grilled taste to the portobellos (although they’re oven roasted), grilled corn, caramelized onions and peppers, guacamole and queso fresco.  It all came together nicely.  The Papadulce was a little too sweet for me with the roasted sweet potatoes.  The next time I went, I tried The Heather as recommended by a friend.  The grilled queso fresco, refried black beans, and guacamole hit the spot.  And I love sautéed fresh spinach, so the Florentino was a no brainer for me.

Veggie tacos

Some of the meaty tacos

Brandon thought his tacos were good, but the descriptions didn’t match the flavors.  This threw him off a bit as his Puerco Verde didn’t have the tomatillo taste he was expecting.

Papalote
3 stars:  Nom Worthy

The huajillo sauce was the winner during our trip.  I had this on my Tortas De Coliflor tacos; little cauliflower cakes covered in the sauce topped with cabbage and avocado.  Brandon had eaten a bite before he realized it was my taco and wished he had my sauce.  He thought his chicken tacos were bit plain and the carnitas were good, but had room for improvement.  My other choice was one of their corn specialties, a tlacoyos.   Described as oval-shaped black bean corn masa cakes stuffed with potato, covered in red and green sauces, and topped with cheese, cilantro, and onion, it doesn’t look like much on the plate.  The green sauce is surprisingly spicy and good (spice addict here).  I had actually started to tire of it and feel full before I even hit the potato in the middle.  I had forgotten about the potato, in fact, but the new flavor was a nice change even though the potato itself was a little bland.  We didn’t get back on this trip to try again, but I would like to go back and try something else.

Papalote’s tlacoyos

Papalote’s chicken taco

Maria’s Taco Xpress
2.5 stars:  Edible – Nom Worthy

Maria’s Taco X-Press patron saint

This funky lady welcoming everyone with open arms has a fantastic patio with an upper deck.  I just wish I loved the food as much as the atmosphere.  My Nopal Taco with potato had a good zing, but the Verde filled with many vegetables was bland.  The Queso Fresco Taco with black beans, guacamole, and usual toppings was just ok.  Brandon felt the chicken tacos had an overwhelming amount of onions, but he did enjoy the enchiladas.  Although they close early for a place with live music and other entertainment, it would be a nice place to sit outside and watch a band while noshing on some of the better options.

The Queso Fresco taco

The Verde and Nopal tacos

Guero’s
2 stars:  Edible

The Salsa Bar gave us high hopes.

Another place with a fantastic patio, it’s right on South Congress, so you can walk to Hey! Cupcake for dessert.  They also have an extensive vegan menu which I was eager to try.  We were excited when we saw the salsa bar and were seated next to it.  The salsa was good and we looked forward to the rest of the meal.  Unfortunately, nothing else lived up to the salsa.  You can make better queso with velveeta and can of Ro-tel.  All our tacos, veggies, al pastor, and steak were bland.  How can you not have some flavor in Austin?  At least add some salt.  Suffice to say, we’re not going back.

Brandon’s meaty tacos

Kerensa’s veggie tacos

Keso’s
2 stars:  Edible

This place opened while we were there, so we thought we’d give it a try.  They hadn’t even had the grand opening yet, but I hope they worked out a few kinks before they did.  Since they are in Austin, I think they would benefit from more veggie taco options.    There is one, the Botanical Garden Taco, and it is nice enough, but another option would be great.  I accidentally ordered the Capital 10-Kay Burrito because I was just looking at ingredients and saw “choice of meat” and thought it could be veggie.  They do put their “Keso’s sauce” on everything, but with the name and logo, we thought we should order a bowl of their namesake.  I don’t know if I completely threw them off after I came back to correct my order (I ordered steak instead of barbacoa for Brandon), but we never got our queso.  We ended up taking it to go.  When you eat it there, they serve it in little crocks, but we had the to-go styrofoam.  The queso itself was a little salty; the rest of the food was just alright.  As I said, it had just opened, so it may have found its groove better by now, but it wasn’t the best impression.

The people here were really nice, but this wasn’t.

Another meaty option, it’s got cheese buried under there too.

I like pizza.  Brandon LOVES pizza.  So when we got to Austin, he compiled a list of pizza places for us to try based on his research and opinions from local redditors and others.  We didn’t make it to all of them (I wish we had gotten out to Pieous because they have other types of pies, too), but we did make it to a lot of pizza places in a city not known for pizza.

Homeslice
4 stars:  Yes, please!

Homeslice is a well-known Austin establishment serving up NY style pizza.  We chose to go at lunch time to the take-out counter and bring the dogs.  The slice options are limited, but they always have veggie slices, so fear not my veg-head friends.  We tried one slice of each offered: pepperoni, sausage and garlic, margherita, and a white pie with spinach and mushroom.  They did NY pizza justice with slices that were large with a nice NY style crust, thin and not too chewy.  The sauce was also a typical NY red sauce.  Brandon thought the cheese was a little light, but it was just right for me.  The toppings were fresh and I love a good white pizza and this one hit the spot.  The ricotta was nice and smooth and since I love spinach and mushrooms, I chose the perfect day to go.

Little Deli & Pizzeria
3 stars:  Nom worthy

Little Deli was a little out of our way being on the Northside, but we stopped by on our way back from Dallas as it was mentioned quite a lot in the forums.  It’s a small place with a bunch of outside seating and they serve both pizza slices, pizza made to order, and sandwiches.  Oh and the pizza is New Jersey style.  As Brandon says, we did a nickel in NJ (we had a view of NYC on the Hudson), so we’ve eaten a lot of NJ pizza.  The crust was blistering, but a little thin and chewy.  The toppings were fresh and nice and Brandon loved the pepperoni.  The sauce is what threw us off.  It tasted heavy and over seasoned.  It was like the whole jar of oregano and other spices fell in.  Overall, it was good, but not worth the drive from our Southside location.

Via 313
5 pizzas:  Eat until the end of days!

Who knew there was Detroit style pizza?  We didn’t.  And we didn’t expect to find it in a food truck parked next to a bar in Austin.  But boy are we glad we did.  This little truck bakes all their pizza in square automotive parts pans like those used on Detroit assembly lines.  It is basically Sicilian style with a Detroit flair.  The toppings go from edge to edge and so the cheese bakes up into crisp, caramelized edges.  I actually managed to order a cheese-less pizza the first time we went, but it took me a while to notice.  The sauce topping the thick focaccia-like crust was so delicious I didn’t need cheese.  Brandon had The Detroiter with two kinds of pepperoni, smoked and natural casing and loved every bite.  The next time we went (yes, we had to go back it was that good) we ordered the Four Cheese to spilt.  The thicker cheese was a little too much for me and I think I would have been better with the Classic Cheese.  Brandon had no issues with the cheese whatsoever, so it’s all personal preference.  This is definitely our recommendation for pizza in the Austin area.

I wish we had better pictures to entice you.  The first time we went, we sat in the adjoining bar and it was too dark to get a shot.  The second time, we got a little anxious to eat as you can see below.  It just means it was good!

East Side Pies
4 stars:  Yes, please!

Another Austin pizza institution, we picked up slices at their Anderson Lane outpost before my scuba diving class.  The selection is creative and varied.  Along with the standard red sauce pies, you’ll find ones built on black bean sauce or spinach curry.  We picked a couple of slices out of the case from the ready-made pies and sat down in the tiny space to wait for them to be heated up.  When the paper plates arrived, we each took a bite and agreed this pizza made the cut.