Kansas to Texas Pt.1

January 30th - February 4th

We decided to take a different route on our way south from Iowa (we drove up through Arkansas and Missouri) so we headed to Kansas! The vast open prairie was stunning, but a little bit too desolate and unknown to try to camp in the van. It would also drop below 20 degrees overnight so we planned to find a motel along the way. Erik found one online that he thought looked decent.

We were pleasantly surprised to be greeted by two friendly cats and a lovely, welcoming woman. She told us that she and her husband had recently purchased the motel and remodeled it..and we got to chatting about how they had spent a few years living in South Africa. Cool!

 

Prairie Lodge Motel in Council Grove, Kansas - this is a great lil place.

 Very homey little cottage rooms with a mini fridge, microwave, and coffee pot. This is luxury!

The next morning we explored the town of Council Grove and then made way toward Dallas. This found ourselves on the Flint Hills Scenic Byway, which took us right by the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. Erik had remembered taking a tour of this preserve as a teenager when his family took a little road trip to visit a farm that had once been operated by relatives. It was fun to stumble on again!

 Erik's friend from college responded to our facebook post and let us know that he now lives in Dallas and to meet up when we got there. We rolled up to Paul's place outside of Dallas and hopped in his car to go to the Legacy Food Hall - a spot that had dozens of food stalls featuring various popular local restaurants. This spot was quite the contrast from the fine dining found in Iowa. We dropped in on trivia night at the Deep Ellum Brewery and then called it a night!

The next morning we drove to the Bishop Arts District and then to downtown Dallas to see the sites. We checked out a local Starbucks (hehe) for a couple hours for planning, blogging, and general web-stuff. 

To Austin - Yippee!!

I found a place for us to couch surf for a few nights in a tiny house just south of town - Alicia and Josh were a super nice vegan couple from Ohio. We nested into our surprisingly spacious loft area and hung out and enjoyed the space for a bit before taking a bike ride around downtown and the Colorado river.

View from our loft (above the bathroom/shower/laundry room/closet) over to their loft, office/living room, and kitchen!

Alicia invited us to their friends house for a potluck that night and we met some more friendly folks and played games.

The following day we did a few hours of mountain biking at Walnut Creek park. Later on we met up with our hosts and friends again for some free drinks at a vegan food truck's anniversary party that shared a food truck park with an awesome frozen banana stand. This was our first experience at a food truck park on the trip. We started seeing them all over Austin.

Bistro Vonish. Alicia writes a vegan food column for the Austin Chronicle and had written an article about the opening of this 'elevated vegan cuisine' food truck and had become friends with the chef.

Afterwards we went to a free showing of Groundhog Day held at a little outdoor theater at Community First Village, a community of tiny houses and RVs that are given to the chronically homeless. There are also several residents, called missionals, that relocated there and that act as regular volunteers. A friendly couple who had relocated to a tiny house in the village ended up having us over for drinks.

Some examples (out of over 200) of housing at the Community First! Village

We spent a good chunk of the next day exploring the East Austin neighborhood. Then we ran to Trader Joe's and walked right past Trevor Noah who was performing in Austin that night. We had just watched the episode he's in on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Turns out tickets for his show were almost $200.. too bad.

We picked up ingredients to make pineapple curry and went back and Erik cooked us all dinner!

We spent our last morning getting wifi time in and doing some laundry before we packed out of the tiny house. The four of us headed to the History of Texas museum downtown for their once/month free Sunday event.

Erik got a photo lesson from Alicia.. I was their subject

Alicia and Josh -we left mustaches and chocolate to say thanks

Next up Erik will write about his favorite spot along the whole trip - Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park!

Thanks for reading along :)