Jen’s Journal – December 31, 2019

Day 185: Austin, TX

Cloudy and cool.

We picked up some supplies for a little New Year’s Eve party.

The hotel has a complimentary reception with free cocktails and snacks. We attended the reception and waited for the rest of our family to arrive.

Kelsey and Greg arrived around 8 PM, and Allie around 10. Allie brought some fun games to play and we had a nice little party.

Then the excitement. First off, the city of Austin held fireworks at 10 PM. Our room is on the 10th floor, so we could see them from our room over the city skyline. It wasn’t the best view, but it was okay. Then, after midnight, one of our group noticed that out the east window fireworks were going off from every direction. We could see fireworks all across the east side of Austin and some were very close. Everyone was commenting how cool Austin and Texas are that they have so many cool fireworks at the new year.

After many many minutes of fireworks, we noticed a real fire had started about two blocks from us. Soon there was a blaze.

We phoned 911. Someone else phoned two minutes before us. Soon there were at least seven fire engines at the fire. Some stayed for hours. Now the group was thinking maybe Austin and Texas aren’t so cool after all.

The next morning we walked to the site of the fire to check it out. The site was cleaned up and an apartment employee was keeping non residents out of the complex. We found out on the news that no one was hurt, but four apartments were totally destroyed.