Yesterday we took a drive down to New Braunfels, a town of about 55,000 people (up from 36,000 in 2000–quite some growth). It’s located between Austin and San Antonio, though closer to the San Antonio side.

The reason for our visit was to check out smaller towns to live in. The cost of Austin housing has been skyrocketing, even during the “downturn”, and it’s too expensive to buy here. Well, let me re-state that. It’s still ok compared to much of Chicago, IF you have two full-time incomes. Making the money we made in Chicago, it would be very do-able. But starting a business and not having full-time high-paying jobs? Forget about it.

That’s a shame, really, and will affect the whole feel of Austin. You see, a lot of the music and art scene is here because it was inexpensive to live. An artist could make a couple hundred bucks and pay his rent, often not needing a full-time office job. But now rents and housing are up-up-up, making it hard for the starving artists out there to make it.

Anyhow, the business that Evelyn and I are starting up doesn’t require us to be close to a major metro area, so we are very fortunate to be flexible in our location. (Thank god for computers, UPS, and high speed internet.) This has led us to search out a possible new place to live.

We had looked in places like Fort Davis and Alpine, which are beautiful areas, but are so far away from anything (the nearest Walmart is over an hour distant) that they become impossible. Retirement, maybe. Running a business, probably not. Bastrop was, and still is, on our short list. It has a nice state park nearby, but it’s a little too flat and a little too disconnected (not nearby an interstate). Though, it is pretty close to Austin.

We liked the idea of New Braunfels for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s on I-35, between Austin and San Antonio. Besides the cities, you have places like Kyle and Buda and San Marcos with all sorts of outlet malls and stuff. They are all sitting on that section of I-35. You have to pay attention to stuff like that, as we found during our time in PR, where it took an hour to get to a Home Depot.

Second, it’s a tourist town. During the summer, you have the water parks and the tubing. It’s a big draw to the area and brings in a lot of money. The downside, of course, is tourists. The upside is critical, though: business opportunities. I’d rather live in a lively town than a dead one, that’s for sure.

The power of tourism is made clear when you visit the nearby town of Seguin (pronounced se-GEEN), which has an utterly dead mainstreet, few people walking around, and feels generally sad. It may be a perfectly good place to live, but Seguin feels locked in the past while New Braunfels feels like it’s moving forward.

Third, we like rivers. New Braunfels has two rivers going through it. The Comal and the Guadalupe (gwad-a-loop). The Comal is the shortest navigable river in Texas and runs only in the city limits. It’s quite amazing, as it begins within Landa Park, emerging at the Comal Springs within the park. You sit there watching thousands of gallons of crystal clear water come up from nowhere, rushing downriver to the Guadalupe. On these two rivers you can canoe, paddleboat, fish, or (the most popular) tube. Neat stuff.

The old main street (San Antonio–because the Old San Antonio road ran through the town) was quieter than I hoped for. It has a good deal of antique stores, but I didn’t see much in the way of cafes or such. This is good and bad. Bad because the old street is a bit dead, but good because it means, again, possibilities.

While main street is quiet, the areas north and east of the old town (along 35) are full of the usual interstate fast food joints. There’s a brand new Target (they opened a larger one) and a Walmart Supercenter and a Kohls and a bunch of other stuff. A fifteen minute drive north brings you to the gigantic outlet malls in San Marcos, where you can find just about any of the usual crap (shoes, clothes, house stuff, etc). “Third best place to shop in the world” according to “The View”. LOL. Thank god I can get my Gucci bags nearby.

Anyhow, based on our initial sneak-and-peek, things look positive. So, we’ll go down there again, this time with apartment rental information and a camera. Our intention is to buy a house soon, but our rule of thumb is to live somewhere for a year before committing to it. It takes that much time to get a real flavor and understanding for an area. After a year, if things look good (money and otherwise), we’ll buy something.