Life In Round Rock (and Austin)
I currently live in Round Rock (Texas). I moved here in 1995 as part of a job relocation. I still have
trouble believing how the area has changed since then. I sometimes wonder if there are any
controls on what can be built where.
If you are not familiar with the area, Round Rock is located in
central Texas, about 25 miles or so to the north of downtown Austin. Round Rock is a
rapidly growing city. It used to be the case
that people living in Round Rock needed to travel into Austin for many things, especially
to find a variety of shopping and entertainment. These days Round Rock is rich in places to eat and shop. Sadly,
all of this comes at the price of a lot of construction. There are major, multi-year, road
construction projects underway as well as a lot of commercial and dosmetic building. As a
consequence, getting about has become quite difficult and I spend a lot more time in
traffic jams than I would like. This is one of the reasons I work from home as much
as I do these days. On a brighter note, the opening of several new toll roads in 2007 has greatly eased several journeys that I make regularly.
I hope to post some more Round Rock and Austin here soon as time allows.
Round Rock Weather
During the Summer months, the weather in this area is hot with temparatures ranging
from the high eighties to the low hundreds Farenheit. Things cool off during the
Winter and we do get some freezing weather every now and then but in general
this part of the World remains fairly mild during the Autumn and Winter months. You
can certainly plan to do things outdoors all year round. I'm including some links
to the current weather in the area below along with the some current imagery courtessy
of the Weather Channel.
Area weather information is available from
The Weather Channel and from
wunderground.com
Round Rock Area Maps
You can find a Google map of the Round Rock area here.
If you want to get an idea of what the are looks like, try playing with the satellite image.
Here's a map of Austin and here
is the corresponding satellite image.
If you zoom in on the satellite image of Austin you can clearly see the Texas State Capital
building and also in the upper right of the image you can see some of the the University of Texas sports
facilities.
Round Rock Express Baseball
From April until early September, one of the most popular ways to spend a few hours
having fun is a trip to the Dell Diamond to watch the Round Rock Express play
baseball. The Express are the triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros. There
is a lot to do at the ballpark for kids and adults alike.
The Dell Diamond has become a Round Rock landmark
Game on! April 13th 2005
Austin sights
I have a fairly large selection of photos that I have taken over the years of the Austin
area. As time permits (seems I say that a lot about the seciotns of this web site!) I will
add more of those photos here.
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The Frost Bank Tower, located at
401 North Congress, was a recent addition to the Austin skyline.
Construction was completed in 2004. I took this picture of it on October
21st 2004. I am not sure if, at 515 feet (33 floors), it is the
tallest building in Austin but I suspect that it is. You can see it from
just about any direction. This picture does not do it justice as it
really is a very attractive building. The top of the building (to my
daughter's eyes) looks like the open mouth of a giant fish. Consequently,
in our house this is now known as the "fish building"! If you
are interested in reading more about the Frost Bank Tower, I found a lot
of interesting statistics and also some nice photos
on this web page.
Another popular place to spend time in Austin is Zilker park. The park is quite
large and just outside the downtown area alongside the Colorado river. The picture
below was taken from Zilker park looking back towards downtown on a clear
Saturday morning in October 2004. Zilker park contains numerous soccer pitches,
a rugby pitch and a large number of walking trails. There is also a steam train,
a frisbee golf course and a large play area for the kids. The Barton springs (natural
spring) swimming area is also located within the park. You can also rent canoes and
small boats at the park for a relaxing trip along the river and it's estuaries.
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| Frost Bank Tower |
Zilker park |
As the state capital of Texas, Austin is home to the Capitol Building.
The Texas State Capitol
Local Web Sites
Here are some links to a few web sites local to the Round Rock/Austin area. Over time
one of my many goals for this web page is to add more links here.
