Plans and info for meeting Oct 22 - 25 in Austin. Jump in!!

Holiday inn at Lake travis offers 40$ discount on stays over 72 hrs with accompanying room. I think that offer would still apply in October
> just a tid-bit of info that may help <

Is this the one? http://www.hotelaustin.com/

I am probally going to regret this... heheh.. but I will offer my email address to anyone who wants specific pricing , plans , addresses etc. I can also offer to phone in reservations...or at least inquire about them for you since they will all be local phone calls for me.
Send me a PM - who ever wants help - i will send you my email address. Let me know what you need , when and where , and i will do some foot work for ya. I do have some information about hotels now but I have not found one that has a good discount like Holiday Inn. I will periodically post tid-bits of info on this thread as I find it to help keep this thread up and to give general help.

This is the hotelwe all stayed at last year...

It's very centrally located and very reasonable. Here's a map.

Looks like an excellent location. I think our son lives near the UT campus.

Hey, can we stick to one thread or the other? This is getting confusing.

Well, shewolf wanted chaos, so we're obliging. LOL

Chaos is the center of the universe

Count me in but I agree with Mac we need one thread to resolve confusion amongst us.

And to throw futher chaos into the meet I may bring a guest, hehe.

Chaos theory indicates that there will be order soon.
Where ?
Dunno. hehe

That is the hotel I was talking about that has the discount on rooms that share a door or walk way. It was like 40 dollars I think and the stay requires a 72 hr + reservation. It is a nice hotel. Right in the middle of downtown though. If you dont like city noise , you will hate this one.

Oh... one thing i noticed.. this picture just so HAPPENS to leave out , that right to the right of the picture , where it seems to be cut off ?? is highway 35. Literally... that close. This is a great for travel .. maybe not for relaxation?

We weren't bothered by outside noise last year, shewolf; was anyone else who stayed there?

The most important consideration relating to price and availability at the HITL is whether there is a Texas Longhorn football game on the fall weekend we choose.

If we go to Austin for our Gathering then we need to pick a weekend when the 'Horns play out of town. Seriously.

Got the dates: Beginning October 22 for one week. It'll probably take us all day to travel from the San Francisco Bay Area to Austin, so meeting plans for us will need to start from Saturday, October 23.

No UT football being played either the weekend of the 23rd or the 30th.

Check SWA, c.i.; that's how we got there in April. Seems like it was a one-stop flight; you ought to be able to get to Dallas on a non-stop and then to Austin.

So unless we want to spend Halloween in Austin, looks like Gathering dates will be something like October 22-25 (Fri-Mon).

Okay, got a good deal on airline tickets, so I booked it. Now to find that hotel deal.

Oct 22 - 25 it is, the date is confirmed...

Let me ask my husband about football tickets.
< he works for UT >
he may get them cheaper then you can .
I will post my answer about 5pm today when he gets into his office.

As for the hotel... noone told me they were bothered by the traffic noise. I just remember when I first moved here I stayed there and was bothered by it. But I also moved from New Mexico where 5 o'clock traffic consisted of 12 cars... hehehehe. It was diffrent for me .

Oh.. another quick question...
there was something said earlier about keeping the information about the meeting on one thread?? Is there another one I dont know about? I can always post information on that one too to help keep this 'chaos' down to a minimum... :-)

Just to clarify, shewolf:

We picked a weekend with NO Longhorn football game being played in Austin, in order not to: a) fight for a room; and b) pay an inflated price for it.

Soooo, this is coming together easily. shewolf, could you look into a couple of things for me?

--the Ransom Center at UT usually has some good traveling exhibits. What is on for that weekend?

--we missed out on getting to take a bat cruise last year because it rained (for the uninformed, a large colony of Mexican freetail bats spends their winters under the Town Lake bridge, and their exit every evening to forage draws scores of spectators), so I'd like to try again for that. The HITL had a package offered last year that included dinner as well. Could you post anything you find about that?

--what else is going on in Austin that weekend? Since it's so close to Election Day I'll bet there'll be some political goings-on (last year the Greens also had their festival that weekend).

Thanks for your help in coordinating.

BillW, I'm going to research a couple of golfing possibilities and send them to you via PM.

c.i. I will be flying into DFW and driving to Austin. Perhaps we can coordinate.

P.S. Everyone I am in San Diego now, needed some cool down time, hehe.