Three Days in Austin @ Emma Long

Our visit to Austin, TX and Emma Long Metropolitan Park

Our first stop after visiting relatives (Deb & Kerry - you'll hear about them later) in May, TX and picking up Minnie was Austin, and we found a great park just outside of the city, Emma Long Metropolitan park.  We were finally starting our first non-Minnesota winter in our lives!  

Site 9 at Emma Long Metropolitan Park

Emma Long has a limited amount of sites for RV's and Camper Trailers, so book ahead. During the pandemic they were only allowing campers in every other site, but the sites are pretty spacious.  At the time there was no tent camping allowed, and several areas were under construction.  Once the park is at full capacity, I imagine this place is quite busy.  You'll get a sense of this in Tim's Emma Long State Park video here. 

We had a site right on the Colorado River, and yes there's a Colorado River in Texas.  Across the river are many nice homes and there was a fair amount of boating activity, wake boarders and water skiers, and even a few hover glides, which was fun to watch.  And we enjoyed some amazing sunsets, one of my favorites, of course.  We took advantage of a couple of really nice hiking trails in the park, however parking is very limited and fills up early on the weekends with locals.  I would say about 75% of the people on the trail had a dog.  The most dogs I've ever seen on a trial.  There was also a trail just for motorcycles, which I had never seen before.

Hiking the Turkey Creek Trail

Tim has been to Austin for work several times but never made it to this side of the city. Definitely some wealth on this side.  As we made our way to Oasis Texas Brewing Company, we wound our way through several amazing neighborhoods with some very prestigious homes.  The Oasis complex has several shops, restaurants and bars and is a great place to see a sunset.  The night we went to the brewery it was extremely windy and the outside patio is perched about 200 feet above lake Travis, so was a little scary to be outside.

Since we were in the Austin area we had to check out some of the tourist areas, so we made our way the Rainey Street Historic District.  We arrived around 2pm on a Saturday afternoon and were surprised how many people were there, mostly college aged kids.  Rainey Street is known for its quaint early 20th century bungalows that have been converted into bars, restaurants and places to enjoy live music.  We enjoyed drinks at a couple of different places (Stagger Lee and Craft Pride) and was nice to be able to people watch; most people were still wearing masks as they walked around and social distancing was still the norm at the time.  Definitely a place to visit.  We didn't get a chance to see more of the live music scene, we just don't stay out as late as we used to!  For us, nothing is better than ending the day with a beautiful sunset.

Sunset along the Colorado, Austin, TX

Note:  We did not include Emma Long in our evaluation of places to stay longer as the maximum stay is 14 nights, as is the case with all Texas State parks.

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