Compiled By Forrest Preece
Changing Scenery During The Pandemic
by Mary Herr Tally
Most unforgettable vacations usually include rooms with scenic views, concerts and shows, and photo-worthy cuisine at swanky restaurants—or the opposite: bushwack flyfishing in remote bear country or a boating excursion in Maui that you just know your guardian angels were working overtime that day.
But our most indelibly unforgettable getaway was in summer 2020 and lasted three years while the world paused due to the pandemic.
Since 2006, our home had been a high-rise condo on Town Lake with sweeping views of Austin, but two months after the city had canceled SXSW, Rusty and I and our pup Annie went stir-crazy and realized that sheltering-in-place would last indefinitely.
So we rented a house we called The Enchanted Cottage, named after the 1945 classic film about the magical influence of place. Our new home was very private, a two-story river-stone situated on a cliff about 30 feet above Lake Travis with a stone pool and expansive views of blue sky and water and sunsets so stunning you couldn’t look away.
But we also experienced the worst Texas storms at the Enchanted Cottage, with howling tropical storms and scary tornadic winds that sent us running to the stone hallway. We also had a ghost downstairs and would hear him during the night moving our kitchen chairs across the floor or messing with the glassware on our bar cart, so loudly at times that we’d wake up and listen. Then during Snowmageddon 2021, when we lost power and water for several days, the ghost appeared one morning. He looked like a man in his 70s with a messenger bag across his chest, either confused or not happy as we’d taken over his downstairs to be near the fireplace.
The pandemic years were truly the worst of times, yet somehow Rusty and I found a beautiful, quirky paradise that turned an uncertain time into a magical adventure.
