Tag Archives: Austin travel

ACL Rocks!

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Well, we finally did it. We managed to make it to ACL (Austin City Limits Music Festival) and enjoy it without a hitch. My son and my husband enjoyed the Monsters and Men show on Sunday afternoon at the last day of the ACL Festival. Also, if you have a disability, there is an ADA station that you can go to near the entrance to the festival where they have ADA porta potties that are locked and only for people with a disability. They also provide you with an ADA wristband, and if there is room, you can watch some of the bands from an ADA access stage.

The one hiccup is exiting the festival. Once my son is done, he’s done. So, we needed an exit that didn’t require fighting our way back through the huge crowds. To hopefully figure out a solution, I wrote a letter to the ACL festival after we went and asked about next year’s exit plan for people that have autism and need to leave from another exit without fighting through 70,000 people to get back to the one exit gate. The promoters said they would look into this issue for the 2016 concert. So, we’ll see.

I never thought ACL would work, but my son asked to go, he said, “Pretty please, por favor.” So, how could I refuse such a polite request?

My philosophy on outings is…I just try different events with my son and sometimes they’re just not fun and we leave early, and sometimes, with the right supports, we can make it 20 minutes or an hour and that makes everyone really happy. When we left he was very proud of himself and said, “I made it through the whole concert.” Meaning, he made it through an entire act before leaving. We will be back next year!

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

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On Black Friday, while millions were flocking to the malls and superstores for deals, my family relaxed at a beautiful Austin location–The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

famgarden_nowopenImage from Wildflower.org website

The new “Luci and Ian Family Garden” is just wonderful. In fact, my son says it’s like “A Village of Wonder!” He could have stayed for a few hours which is really saying a lot because we normally just spend around 30 minutes at most places due to the usual cuprits–crowds, noise, or boredom. While we were there, he was wandering around and exploring and really grooving on the beauty of this new addition to the Wildflower Center. It’s “autism friendly” because there is just so much space to roam and no prescribed way that visitors are expected to interact with the park. This kind of natural setting + open areas = our most successful outings.

Also, as a bonus for the entire family, the Lady Bird Center boasts a restaurant. It’s small and quiet (perfect for keeping sensory overload at bay) and has several gluten-free options. Nothing specifically gluten-free, but there are options, like baked potatoes, salads and chicken dishes. From this limited menu, we were able to cobble together a very healthy meal for our son who is on the gluten-free, dairy-free diet that many kids on the spectrum live on.

On the Autism Friendly scale: Our family gives this family field trip location a BIG thumbs up for beauty, calm, and best of all, wonder.

Trail of Lights–Better late than never

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trail of lights

Well, I’m running about a month behind on this post, but didn’t want to let the year go by without saying that The Austin Trail of Lights has special needs accommodations and we found the event to be a really great experience for our son with autism and our typically developing toddler.

The event was a success because they had early entry (around 6:15 p.m.) for anyone saying they had a special need, or at least this is what the organization told me when I wrote them an email asking about early entry, or special entry. However, I didn’t take any chances, and went ahead and bought the “fast pass” parking called the ZiP pass and the ZiP pass entrance, which allows you to enter 45 minutes before the big crowds of people and at the same time as the special needs visitors. I highly recommend this ZiP pass if you can afford it. I was told in an email from Trail of Lights that anyone with a disability could enter at 6:15, but when we got there, none of the volunteers were familiar with this, so I’m glad that I bought the early entrance package for $60. (I think that’s how much it was, if it was a little more, it wasn’t much more.)

My son cannot handle large crowds, so I went expecting to just leave right away, but the early entry allowed us to enjoy this experience together and I was so thankful for it. If you have a child with special needs, you know that it’s sometimes hard to find activities that you can do as a family and I was so grateful for the magical experience we had together at the 49th annual Austin Trail of Lights in Zilker Park. We will make this an annual visit as long as their are special accommodations. Without it, I think it would prove too challenging to wait in long lines and be so crowded while looking at the colorful displays.

So, now you’ve got 10 months to plan your visit for the 50th anniversary Trail of Lights coming in December 2014.