Laura and Peter Down Under: Austin Visit/ Fixer Upper Pilgrimage

As I revealed in my last post, we're officially moving to Austin, Texas on Monday!

In preparation for our move, I visited with my mom and Ali (who is also moving!) on Labor Day weekend to tour the city and scout some apartments. Neither Peter nor I have really been to Austin before, minus a quick drive through for me on a classy spring break trip to South Padre in college. We loved the city and the visit pretty much solidified our hunch that Austin was the right place for us to go. The only downside of our visit was the fact that it was still about ten million degrees in Texas, and our hotel's air conditioning broke one night. Needless to say, it was a really, really uncomfortable night of sleep! Other than that, we enjoyed our trip and can't wait to explore Austin some more starting next week. If anyone lives in/has been to Austin and has some recommendations for things to do/see/eat, let me know :).

There's a Man V. Food episode in Austin that features Round Rock Donuts, so we obviously had to go. Unfortunately, we got there a few minutes after the cafe part closed, but we were still able to drive through. The line was about 20 cars long, but it was worth the wait! We'll definitely be back to this gem.

Another restaurant featured on the episode was Salt Lick BBQ, about 30 minutes southwest of Austin. This place did not disappoint! The BBQ was amazing, as was the entire restaurant, which consisted of about 4 buildings. Below is the outdoor waiting area, where you can BYOB while you wait to be seated. The line seems to be pretty long at all hours of the day, so this area is probably a lifesaver on busy weekends when I can imagine the wait would exceed an hour.

They had freshly-squeezed lemonade for sale, which was a genius idea given the scorching heat. I can't imagine how much money they rake in on the lemonade sales alone.

I ordered this GIGANTIC pulled pork sandwich. I could only eat about half of it, which was annoying because it was amazing.

The barbecue pit. I think there were two or three of these spread throughout the restaurant.

Waco Day Trip

Everyone and their mother is watching Fixer Upper on HGTV these days, so we had to make the trip down to Waco while we were so close! It took us about an hour straight down 35, so it was an easy day trip from Austin. We went directly to the silos, where there's a cute bakery, food trucks, and this warehouse full of Joanna-inspired merchandise. I could have purchased everything in this place.

My mom, me, and Ali outside the Magnolia store. It was HOT on this day and we pretty much melted, but it was worth it! I think being hot is going to be the theme of our lives very shortly.

Ali with this super-Instagrammable sign.

The silos!

We then drove around Waco obsessively trying to locate houses that had been featured on the show. First of all, Waco is pretty small and there's really not a lot there except Baylor. Secondly, we were only able to find one of the houses, but it was my favorite they've done- the shotgun house!!

We then creepily tried to find Chip and Joanna's house (unsuccessfully) and headed back to Austin. We rested up for a few minutes at the hotel and then drove out to Lake Travis for dinner. The lake is more of what we Minnesotans would consider a river, but I suppose in a state without 10,000 lakes you take what you can get. It's really pretty and was a great place to watch the sunset.