We had a look around some housing in Round Rock. It was very nice, but it did look quite expensive compared to what we had seen in San Antonio. Oddly enough, the woman who showed us around was related to the guy who owned the restaurant we’d gone to in Lafayette, Louisiana. It’s a small world.
Leaving Austin, we could see its ever expanding path. Things that appeared part of its extended area went on a good 30-40 miles past North Austin. The housing we’d looked at was about 20 miles from Google (which is in North Austin), so it would still be quite the commute in quite a pricey, if nice, house.
We could also see where Austin will mostly likely push out further into the countryside. For miles and miles after Georgetown, land was being bought up and housing developments created.
We carried on north to Abilene. On the way there we had the longest period of no signal whatsoever since Wyoming. This was no signal at all, not just no 4G or 3G. It was extremely remote. We had definitely got to the dry bit of Texas. There were several signs about not burning. We asked a local of Goldthwaite about this, and she said due to lack of services, people would often burn their trash, but this was currently forbidden due to threat of dry grass getting on fire.
We saw a few more nods to the Confederacy, some more dignified than others:
A Wold on a Confederate War Flag
There are actually two flags associated with the Confederacy. The war one, and this one, which was more the flag of the nation, rather than something to carry into battle I believe (though due correct me if I am wrong; I’m hardly an expert):
A memorial with the flag of the confederacy, not the war flag, the other one
We passed several ranches in this 4g-less zone. One of them was especially picturesque, and even had a horse than mozied on over to pose and walked off as soon as we went:
We got a signal again, and therefore, the ability to look up and book a hotel, 15 minutes before arriving at our destination. We were lucky that we found something that was mostly ok. The pool was filthy (there was actually a rubbish bin in it) and there was a chicken bone under the bed, but other than that and being fairly passive aggressive, it was very nice:
We tried out a local supermarket called H-E-B and they made fresh tortillas on site:
Check out the video of very rural Texas: