Fourth of July weekend - Lake Travis

We had such an eventful fourth of July weekend that I think I may have to divide this into several posts. Scott's longtime friend from high school, John Hammill, invited us to Austin where we had an enjoyable time at John's parents' house with he and his wife, Svetlana. John's parents spend their summers in Connecticut so we had the whole house to ourselves.

We spent a large amount of time near Lake Travis, which is quite close to John's parents' house in the northwest section of the Austin area. Shortly after we arrived on Saturday afternoon we all enjoyed a nice lunch at The Oasis, a restaurant perched high on the shores of Lake Travis. The rock cliffs leading down to the lake were much steeper than I would have expected for Texas, but I suppose it makes sense given that we were in the heart of Texas hill country.

This first shot is taken from the restaurant looking out over Lake Travis. The restaurant has balconies on multiple levels of the hillside, perched high on the cliffs above the lake.


Another shot, looking down below at another level of the outdoor seating.

John had kindly arranged for us to spend the day on the lake on Sunday, where he had rented a motor boat and a jetski. This is a photo of the boat we rented, docked at the marina.
John is keeping watch over the supplies, ready to go on the boat!
Scott has enjoyed the thrill of riding on jetskis since as long as I have known him, and our day on Lake Travis was no exception to this. This photo shows a little of the beautiful homes that line the shores of the lake. We could see them from The Oasis the day before, when we were looking down upon the lake. But what this photo does not capture the lively scene on the lake on Sunday. I am sure that on a beautiful summer day the lake gets crowded with a variety of boaters, but I am sure being a holiday weekend the scene was more crowded than normal.
John and Amelia proudly adopted the fedora hats that John Hammill had brought on the trip. While the kids thought it was fun to don the hats, I think they were also really excited to have the sun out of their faces (finally!) since it was really hot and sunny on the boat. Here we had stopped in a peaceful cove for lunch on the boat. The children refused to get in the water or ride the jetski, which led to Scott accurately concluding "well, you can tell our kids are not from Florida!".



More about the rest of our Austin experience to come...