Day 46 - A Better Route to Austin, TX

We were given some advice in Hot Springs by some Texas locals to avoid the interstate between Forth Worth and Austin which is supposed to be a very slow road due to the traffic, boring unless you're interested in viewing trucks and cars and disrupted by a lot of construction. It was suggested that instead we take Route 377 and then Route 281 which although longer in distance, will get us into Austin in about the same time and it is much prettier. This was really good advice.

We got off the spaghetti interstate as quickly as we could and hit a traffic-free, nice easy drive through cute little towns, farmland and lakes.

Lee surprised me with a stop off at a town called Granbury, he saw it on the map and thought it would be a good place to take a break. Granbury was lovely. The town square doesn't look like it has changed much since it was built in the 1900s. You can easily imagine cowboys riding in with their horses for a drink in a saloon and a wagon pulling up to grab some supplies before continuing west. The majority of the buildings in the square are registered historic landmarks and there are information stations all around explaining their history.

After a walk-around, we got back into Fin and continued on towards Austin.

The next town we stopped off in was Hico. This little town also had a historic square but it wasn't a tourist town like Garnbury so it had a more authentic 'western' look.

The real reason for stopping in Hico was not the historic square, it was for the very large Lemon Meringue pies that they serve in the Koffee Kup Family Restaurant! We had read on a number of websites about this place and given Lee loves Lemon Meringue and I am a sweet fiend, we had to stop.

The pie tasted amazing! It was just a shame we couldn't take a whole one with us to eat whilst camping but in our cool box, it would have been squished.

We didn't stop again on our drive to Austin but it went quickly with all the cool stuff to look at as we went along.