Anyone interested in a Austin gathering in early September?

I am trying to get my bearings on the geography of Austin. May I ask where you booked at?

Sure, I booked at the Marriott Austin South between the airport and downtown. I booked it through Priceline for $60/night plus all them taxes that adds 18.5% to the base rate. That's still about 30% cheaper than the lowest rate I found for that hotel at other travel sites. You might be able to get it cheaper if you bid lower.

Austin is more of a North-South based geography, with "the river" dividing North and South.

The 3 major highways that run north and south are IH35, the most eastern most, which should be avoided at all costs.
Mopac, aka Loop One which I mostly use, more or less runs up the center.
360, aka Capital of Tx Highway, is more west, I use portions of it at times.

The biggest issue I had with learning to navigate was that there aren't many roads that are direct routs between these 3 highways. Literally putting you in a position of "you can't get there from here"

East Austin for a long time was a higher crime area. Now, it is becoming quite fashionable to live there.
North to me is white bread city. nuff said.
West has the moola.
South is quickly being built up with lower and middle price housing.
Central is funky and eclectic.
Condos of 600K and up and being built all over downtown.

So far ordinary hotels for too much money, on a favorite site.

http://www.booking.com/searchresults.html?sid=057e87f0a5ae9826d2d0c2c2c489e551;checkin_monthday=4;checkin_year_month=2009-9;checkout_monthday=6;checkout_year_month=2009-9;city=20126394;class_interval=1;si=ai%2Cco%2Cci%2Cre;radius=0;class=2

I give up, I'm out of my zone. One last link -
http://www.dealbase.com/Austin-hotel-deals-discounts-711, which I haven't really stared at yet. CI's place seems like a grabber.

I can find thirty charmers in Rome for under a hundred dollars/night, sometimes pretty far under (not to mention the convent, which is waaaay under), but I'm out of my league here.

Wow, that's like $75 after tax. I see several Marriott properties. Can you retrieve the address? Thanks.

Here's the Priceline link, but you'll have to input your own dates. Good luck!
http://www.priceline.com/

NOTICE: I'll be out of town from July 2 to July 5, so if I don't post, it's because I don't have access to a computer in Northern California-Southern Oregon.

Nice area, heh.

rjb, The address for the Marriott Austin South is 4415 South Ih 35, Austin 78744.

Keep in mind that all Marriots are now nonsmoking. Don't know if that matters to you, but it would be a dealbreaker for me.

I remember there's a nice huge bookstore out there someplace. Maybe someone from that area knows the name and address of that place.

I meant about northern california/souther oregon. Not to be nosy, just a favorite of mine.

I went to the Priceline link and saw $129 before tax. What did you do to get it down so far? Did you bid?

Yes. On the initial web site for Priceline, it shows a box that says "Bid your own price" or some such. Access that link, then name the hotel and your price. Good luck.

rjb, I just realized what the problem is; on Priceline, you don't name the hotel. You just tell them how many star (mine was 3) hotel you're interested in and bid the $ ($60 in my case). Within a few seconds, they tell you which hotel and location with a confirmation #.

You'll have to forgive this old geezer for being so forgetful.

rjb, Any luck with your accommodations? T.

there are several here.
Half price is enormous.
We have many borders book stores as well with coffee shops in them too.

That's the one! Half Price; it's huge, and if I recall correctly, their prices were pretty good too!

The hotel thing looks great, Tak. The cost of air fare is also fine. The issue for me is getting the right flights. Cville is a small city, which means we have to fly first to DC or Charlotte (NC) or Atlanta. The best thing I have found is a total trip duration of 7 hours, including layovers. The worst is 11 hours.
Alas, the shorter ones leave Cville at 5 or 6 am, which even for this farm boy is a bit early.
7 hours is okay. On longer layovers I walk and walk, dragging my little suitcase on wheels around the airport. Round and round, but my back starts to complain.

Been there, done that! I'm talking about walking around the airport waiting for my next flight; I usually have a meal at one of their restaurants, and sometimes even sit at the bar for a beer (not often).