October 2014 our lives changed forever. The voice said it was more than just a game, of course that’s what a programmer would say. We dutifully read what each side stood for – the green Enlightened and the blue Resistance. And we chose. Drives to town and trips to the Little Big City became hunts and supply runs in more than one way. The abundant XM chased, portals began to be hunted down to be hacked, destroyed and taken ownership of. Ingress determined the route we would drive to get to the destination, based of course, on portal density. This “game” that Ada had spoke of – a mashup of geocashing and capture the flag – we learned was more than just a game. The rabbit hole goes deep and we were just at the beginning. It was a community. A solo game with collaborative effort when desired.

An Anomaly is where this solo-meet-community game becomes most obvious as you battle it out, doing your part to win the day for the larger team. That’s what this trip was. It also happened to be Mr’s Birthday weekend!

We stayed in a 2 floor suite at the Habitat Suites in Austin. Amaze!

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Not only was it landscaped not like a hotel, a lot of the plantings were edible and free for the picking. You know, had it not been February and had I actually desired to cook a from scratch meal…

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Sorry for the blurry pics. Frankly, it was 9 am, after we had driven all night long. Leaving about 8 hours early to miss the ice storm that was just an hour behind us. They were kind enough to let us check in at 9am instead of noon. All I cared about at this time was taking a shower and getting some sleep. 😉 It wasn’t until I was uploading these that I realized I didn’t get a pic of the master bedroom. The 2 bathrooms were nice but typical hotel bathrooms. The couch folded out for a full bed.

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How fitting that we stay in a hotel that has reminders of home 😀

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The walk to the lobby and dining room for breakfast.

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It’s FEBRUARY yall!

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The Lobby

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The breakfast was good. The service was wonderful! The first morning was biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage, turkey sausage. Cane sugar for your coffee, organic milk and OJ. Cereal, fruits, gluten free bread available (with its own toaster for no cross contamination!). The server was so sweet and helpful, we enjoyed talking with her. At the end of the meal she asked if we would be there the next morning and said she would ask if the cook would make pancakes – chocolate chip pancakes! – but only if the children would eat them. Of course for my crew that is a non question 😉

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Yes she’s talking on her banana phone…

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The pool area was pretty. And swimable. You know if I would have wanted to add in “swimming” to our busy weekend.