An early start this morning. We checked out of the house we were renting about 7ish and drove to Waco, about 1.5 hours south of Dallas. We had a reservation at Magnolia Table, a restaurant owned by Joanna and Chip Gains. They are a couple who renovate old homes in the Waco area on an American TV show called Fixer Upper we often watch. They also now have their own TV Channel called Magnolia TV.
We enjoyed a good breakfast of pancakes for the kids and eggs etc for Mark & I. The biscuits (not the kind of biscuits we think of) were much softer than other biscuits we’ve had previously – almost scone like but really good. We had a look around the Magnolia Table shop after before heading back north slightly to the Waco Mammoth National Monument.
The site has the fossil specimens of America’s first and only recorded evidence of a nursery herd of ice age Columbian mammoths. The kids decided to do the Junior Ranger programme – they have done this on previous visits to the US at National Parks. In order to get a certificate and badge they need to complete an allocated number (dependent on age) of pages in the junior ranger book for the site. TJ and Sophia had to complete 10 pages and Greer 8. They include reading to get information and completing questions, speaking to park rangers, word finds, awareness of surroundings etc. Tbey all really enjoyed it. The remains are quite impressive and they believe there are still a lot more to potentially uncover. When they built the building over the remains to help protect them, they said they hit bones 3 times.
Next we went to look at one of the houses Chip & Joanna had done up (just from the road, but it was one we had seen the show about) called “The Three Little Pigs House”. We had intended to see more but decided there wasn’t a lot of point.
Instead we headed to the Magnolia Silos, another of their ventures. It takes up a city block and includes a coffee shop, bakery, various shops, a wiffle ball (similar to baseball but balls have holes in them so they don’t fly too far) field, food trucks, green spaces etc. We enjoyed wandering through the stores and playing some ball.
Back on the road to Austin, the State Capital of Texas, for another hour and half, we arrived at our hotel about 4:30pm and found the self-parking – still US$50 a night. In the reception there were two nutcrackers covered in 20,000 plus macarons which took over 500 hours of work. Into our room briefly and then we walked to the State Capitol building to look around the grounds. Interestingly they had a huge memorial to the Confederates.
On our way to dinner we came across a TikTok sign but the kids were too embarrassed to have their photo with it, so Mark did ?. Dinner was at True Food Kitchen, a healthy food restaurant which the kids weren’t particularly thrilled about, although they still managed to find a pizza and burger on the menu! I had sea bass which was delicious and Mark had Korean beef. It was across the courtyard for dessert for TJ and Greer consisting of ice-cream sandwiches. You chose the cookies, ice-cream and toppings.
A quick stroll back to the hotel for a little rest and bed.