Austin? Home?

For those of you who don't know, Brent and I have been seriously considering Austin, Texas as our new home. Everything we had heard and read about it sounded great, so we decided we needed to visit and see if it was still appealing. I know this trip was a couple weeks ago, but I thought I'd share since we had so much fun.
First things first. We decided to visit at the end of July since that's one of the hottest times of the year, and we wanted to see the weather at it's worst. Well, we did. We flew into Austin, on a small 4 seat across- 18 seat back plane, just as Hurricane Dolly hit the Gulf Coast and traveled inland. That was the scariest landing I've ever experienced. By the time the category 2 hurricane made it's way to Austin it was considered a "Tropical Storm", but I have NEVER seen rain like that!! It was muggy, but not as bad as I thought it would be. By day two, the storm had past through and the muggy air was gone.
Brent rented a Chevy Aveo... need I say more. I was embarrassed at first (sorry if I offend anyone), but after all the driving around we did, I was sure happy to save on gas. Lesson learned; sometimes men do know what their doing (love you Brent). We drove as much of that city as possible in a 3 day period. "But you were there four days.", you say? Yeah, well the last day was spent basking in the sunshine, but we'll get to that later. So business first... we visited 3 chiropractic offices. All 3 were MAXIMIZED LIVING HEALTH CENTERS. One of which was getting ready to have its grand opening. It was great to talk to Dr. Ben Spitzenberger (the one that was getting ready to open) about the process of getting all his equipment, and his 4 month internship in Florida since it was still fresh in his mind. I love the idea of having affiliated doctors so close that you can share information with. That's not common within the chiropractic community... it's generally eveyone for themselves, which is tragic. Moving on, we researched a suburb of Austin called Pflugerville. Those of you that are fans of "Friday Night Lights" might recognize it. They film at the high school there. It's a pretty small town, but it's growing like a weed, so we wanted to check it out and stake claim if needed (Pflugerville High School, pictured to the right).
After a few exhausting days of driving, scoping out good places to open a practice, and the demographics, we decided to let loose and enjoy the city. If you weren't already aware, Austin is the live music capitol of the world so we had to spend time on the famous 6th Street. It has an amazing night life. We got together with the 3 Health Center Doctors and ate at some really good restaurants, including their staple- Chuey's. We loved the heat as well. Most people think Austin is humid; they have obviously never been. It is surprisingly green as well. Side note: they were in the middle of a drought before they got the hurricane rain, so it's normally even more green than pictured. In fact, they have some of the most beautiful trees, rivers, and terrain I've ever seen. Not bad at all when you're expecting to see cactus everywhere (Just ONE of the many parks in Pflugerville, pictured to the left, above).

The Southwestern area of Austin was gorgeous. It was almost like driving through the tropical parts of Maui. I'm not kidding; you'd drive through a mass of lush trees and suddenly these amazing homes would appear through them. It was surreal.
Our favorite part of the trip had to be Lake Travis. It's a damned off portion of the Colorado River (pictured right). The water was so crystal clear, and felt like bath water. Brent and I spent our entire last day floating on it; yes it was amazing enough that we went and bought ourselves a floaty so we could swim and float all day long. It was the perfect way to end our research/vacation. If we don't end up moving there, it will definitely be one of our vacation spots. There is no question as to why it's consistently one of the top US cities to live in.