The Big Move Home: Day 15

Day 15 Route: None

Pictures: The Big Move Home: Day 15

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Day 15 By The Numbers

	Day 15	Total
Miles Driven	48.2	3,634.1
Time in Car*	2:27	77:17
New State License Plates Seen	0	44
Diapers Changed	8	110
Money Spent on Gas	$0	$585.82
National Parks Visited	0	6

*According to the car's trip computer

Wow, over two weeks on the road, and we're still going. Day 15 was the second of our two weddings that we wanted to hit (this one was for Jess' friend Heidi), and the second 'set' stop of the trip. After this, it's essentially a straight shot back to Cincinnati.

We had a nice list of things to do in Austin while we were here. The first was to get some breakfast tacos. We woke up fairly early to try and get some taco brunch before the 2pm wedding, when we suddenly realized we needed to do some laundry to get through the next couple of days. So I started a load while Jess and Fin got ready for the day. As you can probably guess, we never got any breakfast tacos. Instead, we headed off for the wedding and grabbed lunch along the way.

The wedding was a bit outside of town in 'hill country' at the Chapel Dulcinea. It was really cool to see the hilly countryside from the chapel, and both Jess and I thought it was an awesome location. The wedding was unique in that everyone gathered around the couple in the chapel (there wasn't much seating) as the ceremony took place. A quick 20 minutes later, and we had a new married couple!

After the wedding, Jess and I headed back to our hotel to recharge our cameras for a few minutes (whoops!) and grab her cell phone (double whoops!). We even managed to get Fin a nap, a feeding, and a blowout-induced shirt changing. After that, we headed out to the reception at the Mean Eyed Cat. From what we heard, the bar doesn't normally do wedding receptions, but because the groom's bands plays there so often, they decided to make an exception.

The locale was really fun, the band and DJ put out a great vibe, and the food was delicious. That brings me to another thing several people told us to do: eat some Texas BBQ, specifically recommending the Salt Lick. Well, as luck would have it, the Salt Lick was catering the wedding, so we got that crossed off our list with very little effort. Thanks Heidi! We both chowed down on the food, which was delicious, stayed around for cake and toasts, then headed back to our hotel to meet up with a couple of other friends at Doc's, conveniently located across the street.

That brings me to yet another thing that people recommended we do while in Austin: See the bats. The Congress Street Bridge (about 1/2 mile from our hotel) is home to the world's largest urban bat colony and they supposedly all take flight at dusk, drawing hundreds of tourists each day. Well, it was right around dusk, and we had about 30 minutes to spare before we were meeting at Doc's, so we decided to walk down to the bridge and see what these bats were all about. So we waited. And waited. And waited. Eventually, after almost 45 minutes of waiting (by now it was almost pitch black), we decided to give up and head back to Doc's. There were still hundreds of people waiting, but we figured we'd given it our best shot.

We had a great time catching up with our friends on the patio (and had to make a quick run home for a feeding after Fin wasn't cooperating at the bar). After a couple hours of chatting (and a couple of drinks), we called it a night.

Something else momentous happened on Day 15: we booked the two final hotel rooms of the trip (in Texarkana, AR and Franklin, KY). That means we'll be back home on Tuesday! It looks like Day 18 will mark the conclusion of the Big Trip Home. We should start planning a fireworks display or something...

Tomorrow: Heading for Texarkana, AR