More Texas Next Year

 McKinney, TX

We booked Austin for next year!

Future Planning

Yesterday I talked about our planning process a bit because we were actually planning yesterday.  We both wanted to check out Austin (it's been high on my list since going there for work back in the day) so we were looking at Airbnbs and it is surprisingly expensive there.  It's cheaper if you stay in the outskirts but our stay in McKinney has shown us that we really want to be in the middle of things and have good access to transit. A few days ago we found a place that looked great but during the booking process we found out that our van wouldn't fit in their parking spot because it is too tall with the car top carrier so that one fell through which was disappointing.  The next morning I put together 5 or 6 places that looked okay-ish to me but as Donna dug in she found problems with them that we didn't want to try to overcome.  One of the problems we can overcome is being a little over budget especially since this stay is in January.  We can always find a cheaper stay at some point and even the overage out so that is what we did.  We booked a great place right in the middle of everything and very near transit.  Today I will be looking at reserving camping in Big Bend National Park because we will be fairly close when we are done with Austin and camping at a National Park is really cheap, $16 a night cheap.

Downtown McKinney

After doing some planning we ran an errand to get a car key made and then picked up Erika (our niece) from an appointment while Sharon (Donna's sister) was wrapping up another appointment.  Erika brought her Switch and let me play Hollow Knight.  I had watched some play online but hadn't had a chance to play it.  I really liked it and will probably pick it up so I have something new to play when things get slow.  Recently I have been replaying Spyro The Dragon which is also great.

After Sharon's appointment, she and Erika took us to dinner in downtown McKinney.  We went to Mellow Mushroom, one of Erika's favorite places.  It's a pizza place with a vegetarian slant and a strong stoner hippy vibe.  One of the employee shirts said, "We wake and bake so you don't have to".  

The Ace Hardware we visited to have a key made had all of these idols for sale out front.  

The sign on the back of Mellow Mushroom

An old sign or is it fake?  Not sure.

Us walking down the alley to get to pizza.  I tried to recreate this photo from this post that I took in LA but didn't have quite the right angle. 

Strong stoner vibes from the beginning

I wasn't open or closed carrying.  

The place also had a strong automotive / road sign collecting vibe

The psychedelic menu

We got a half Holy Shiitake half Peperoni and Black Olive pizza

They had a pretty good beer list.  I got a local Dallas Beer with our pie.

There was a bench made up of highway signs.

Between this pizza place, all of the "busted for pot" lawyer signs, and heavy CBD advertising, it feels like The People really want their mamajuana.  I wonder if the elected officials are serving The People or themselves?  Texas keeps screaming that they are the Freedom State but I am not seeing it yet.

After dinner Sharon and Erika came over and we played Qwirkle.  It is one of our favorite easy games.

Qwirkle, check it out!

That's it for today.  If you missed yesterday's deep dive on our travel planning process, you can see it here.