My dad, AVI, came down for a coupla days, so he and my brother and I all took a trip out to Austin for a day. It was not necessarily a full-on success; we mostly just wandered looking for interesting shops, and never found any. Even after purchasing a gigantic map of the city, we never found our way around until we finally dropped AVI off at the airport, our only success.

In between a somewhat unnecessarily roundabout 5-hour drive to Austin and seeing every UT-Austin campus from every approachable angle, we stayed at a Rodeway Inn that was... memorable. Keep in mind that my dad chose this hotel online.

Here's the night check-in window. They ran our credit card through, even though we'd already paid:

The first room they gave us had pizza boxes everywhere, beds messed up, and wet towels on the floor. I didn't take any pictures, but I did take a couple of the second, better room that we got, which you can see here, with everything you could ask for. Half a coat of fresh paint...

And freshly made beds!

It was midnight, so we gave up and turned in, sleeping fitfully in our clothes on top of the covers (Chris slept in the car). After an early rise - we didn't want to spend more time in those beds than absolutely necessary - we started a drive into downtown Austin. About three or four miles on our way, it suddenly occurred to me that our hotel was supposed to be much closer to downtown than we currently were.

We had stayed at the wrong Rodeway Inn. The night clerk had neglected to mention that we didn't have a reservation when we checked in, so we'd paid two motels for the privilege of having one uncomfortable room we were too scared to shower in.

Next time, we're bringing someone who knows the city. And our own bedding.