Hostels, done right, are some of my favorite places to stay. They aren’t always awesome (see Abominable Snow Mansion), but the ones that have their act together are great places to meet people, live (and eat!) for cheap, and generally get the most out of whatever town you’re passing through.

I’d heard that the Austin hostel was one of the good ones, and as I read more about it, I decided it was definitely worth visiting. I didn’t need a place to stay, thanks to my friend Rhoda Hell’s generous housesitting offer; instead, I just walked down to Town Lake to check the place out. And I’m happy to say that not only is it an excellent hostel, it’s also a great example of a green business. In fact, it’s been designated as a Sustainable Living Center by Hostelling International.

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Read the rest of Austin's Green Hostel (725 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: alternative, Austin, energy, energy-efficient, gardening, green building, hostel, lodging, recycling, review, solar, sustainable, Texas, tourism, travel

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Happy 4th of July! It doesn’t get more American than this:

Related posts:

1. Chicken Shit Bingo!
2. One Million Bats: Austin's Uncommon Nightlife
3. Krause Springs – Austin's best swimming hole

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: animal, Austin, chickens, education, Texas, tourism, travel, wild west

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The bar is small, hot, and packed with Lone-Star-sippin’ Texans. Directly inside the entrance is a pool table with a bitchin’ NASCAR lamp hanging above it, casting its light upon a custom-made chicken coop. The floor of the coop (actually just a sheet of plywood on top of the pool table) has a grid drawn on it, with a number in each square; you pay Ginny $2, and she hands you a ticket with a number on it.

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Read the rest of Chicken Shit Bingo! (263 words)

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Post tags: animal, Austin, chickens, Texas, tourism, travel, video, wild west

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It was a hot day, and the Housewives of Travis County were on a mission. Swimming was the goal, and on a day like this Krause Springs was the perfect destination.

They call themselves housewives, this set, but it’s really a posse of unemployed professionals, welders, artists and cooks (okay, and one real housewife) who were tired of sitting home feeling sorry for themselves, and ready to grab unemployment by the horns and rock its little world. Joblessness in Austin is at 6.1%, and some folks are tired of constantly looking for work and never finding any. Hence, swimming!

Ten of us trooped out to Krause Springs, a huge swimming hole in Spicewood Texas (less than an hour’s drive from Austin). The water there is cool and clear, flowing from deep springs into a shallow, kid-friendly pool. From there it drops over mossy boulders and into the grotto– a deep, shaded pond surrounded by tall cypress trees.

Both pools were full of people: young punks preening on beach towels, college kids with cheap beer, mothers and grandmothers sipping lemonades in the shade, dads with camcorders, kids careening through the air on the rope swing. And us, a bunch of noisy 30-somethings with floaty toys, coolers and face paint (neon pink!).

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Read the rest of Krause Springs – Austin's best swimming hole (297 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Austin, camping, community, ecotourism, environment, flowers, nature, outdoors, photography, starving artists, summer, Texas, tourism, travel, video, water

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Compared to the North or the West, Texas smells. It’s not an unpleasant odor, but it’s unmistakeable: wafting up from the springy earth, a mix of decay and new life. A fertile smell, fecund: the smell of a marshland barely contained. Which, of course, Austin is.

The warm night air, as the evening winds pick up, carries that marshy smell from one end of town to the other. Nights in Austin are vibrant, balmy, full of noise and activity. And so as the sun fades and the unbearable day-heat lifts, the night chorus begins: cicadas, crickets, frogs, mosquitos, gnats, chiggers, snakes, mice, rats, roaches, skunks, coons, cats and dogs all venture out into the dusk to feed. And with them come the bats.

Yes, bats! Austin, as it turns out, is home to the world’s largest urban bat colony. Inside the Congress Avenue Bridge (non-Austinites: the bridge crosses the Colorado River and is smack in the middle of town) lives a colony of Mexican Free-Tailed Bats, 1.5 million strong at its annual peak in September. The bats migrate to Mexico in winter, but spend the rest of the year tucked up under Congress Avenue: every night from mid-March to November, you can count on a spectacle as they take to the sky in search of food.

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Read the rest of One Million Bats: Austin's Uncommon Nightlife (508 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: animal, Austin, bats, buy nothing, ecotourism, environment, freegan, insect, nature, outdoors, river, Texas, tourism, travel, video, wildlife

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It’s beautiful in Austin: Texas hill country, with low rolling treebanks as far as the eye can see. The Colorado River rambles through the middle of town, and scores of springs bring forth cool water even in the hottest months. You can hear great music wherever you go, and there’s art on every corner. But despite all this, Austin is TROUBLE.

This town, you see, is both too easy and too hard. Too easy, with its air conditioning and its liberal, anything-goes attitude; too hard, with the oppressive heat and the vast distances between things.

What I mean to say is that I didn’t get much done in Austin. I had the time of my life, but it was not a productive time. Whenever I stepped outdoors I started sweating; when I wanted to go someplace, I had to find a ride. Too hot to ride a bike, too far to walk. And it was so comfortable indoors, with my fascinating friends and their A/C units and big houses with extra rooms for me to stay in. So, aside from cold-chillin, not much was achieved.

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Read the rest of The Trouble With Austin (617 words)

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Post tags: Austin, bus, community, design, environment, farm, green building, nature, organic, river, Texas, tourism, transportation, travel, volunteer, weather

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According to the neighbors who were out on the porch watching the weather with me, storms like this aren’t out of the ordinary. I’m like, really? Lighting and thunder every couple of seconds, funnel clouds, quarter-sized hailstones, and two inches of rain in half an hour— that’s normal?

But they had a point: this was certainly better than the storms ravaging North Texas, where 260,000 people lost power. I played it cool, and sure enough the storm blew over in less than an hour. The lights only flickered once, and I definitely didn’t get struck by lightning. I did have a chance to take a little video of the storm, however.

Related posts:

1. The Trouble With Austin
2. One Million Bats: Austin's Uncommon Nightlife
3. Krause Springs – Austin's best swimming hole

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Austin, environment, lightning, nature, storm, Texas, thunder, travel, video, weather

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Big Range Austin Dance Festival, originally uploaded by Andrew Baron

Here I am in Austin, Texas, where I’ve just spent two hot&humid weeks traipsing around with a passel of homies, swimming, getting sunburned, eating pizza, watching movies, and being generally irresponsible. But my Responsible Hat has been unearthed from the bottom of my backpack, cleaned, pressed, and replaced on my head. Which means: it’s time to get back to work!

So here’s the deal. I’ll be in Austin for a few weeks. I still have more to tell about Colorado, so we’ll start there; in the meantime, I’ll be researching and visiting some of the better things this city has to offer. That may or may not include: Tiny Texas Houses, the UT School of Architecture and co-ops, Johnson’s Backyard Garden, the Austin HI hostel, and by-gosh so much more. This town is bursting with interesting ideas about sustainability, and I’m going to learn as much as possible while I’m here.

After that, it’s time to head north! Things are getting a little toasty around here, so I’ll head up toward the Great Lakes for a little while before cutting across to New York.

That’s my story, and I can’t stay I’ll stick to it— but hopefully we’ll all be entertained as I try.

Related posts:

1. Addendum!
2. Chicken Shit Bingo!
3. The Trouble With Austin

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: adventure, Austin, Texas, tourism, touristry, travel

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A Bird and a Plane in the Sky, originally uploaded by Kevin Krejci

It’s been six months since I launched this blog, and nine since I started traveling. Time for a sabbatical! And so I’m going to disappear for a week or more, into the wilds of Austin Texas and the Flipside festival. I’ll be back to tell you more about my Colorado adventures, and plenty about Austin too.

Laters.

Related posts:

1. And We're Back!
2. Addendum!
3. On Vacation

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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