Itasca Travels 2017: Austin, Up Close & Personal

The photo is deceiving - this little
grouping was maybe 8" square.

Friday, Feb 17…
Off to the city! First we visited the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, just south of Austin. February’s not really a great time for wildflowers, but the park was still lovely and obviously very education-centered. Then we drove into the city proper, stopped briefly at the Visitor Center and had lunch at Moonshine, which turns out to be one of most popular eateries in Austin. Lucky us! The place is always busy, but we avoided a 30-minute wait by grabbing the last 2 bar seats and thoroughly enjoyed watching the bar guy (who was literally in constant motion) and other servers who came to the bar. The camaraderie and courtesy of the wait staff were impressive – these folks obviously love their job.

(Next time I'm tryin' the skillet apple pie!)

(Wildflower Center) I thought this was
hilarious - a traditional energy producer
grouped w/ half a dozen fully functional
exercise machines.

After lunch we walked off a few calories by trekking north to the state capitol building (largest of all the states). When we walked into the Senate Chamber, I was surprised b/c it seemed smaller than ours (and this is Texas – everything should be bigger, right?). Later research confirmed that Texas has 31 districts, while Washington has 49. OK… why? Texas must have more people. Yup, it does (20 million more); each legislative district has a population of about 800,000. In Washington, each district has only about 140,000. I’d say Washingtonians are (or at least should be) getting a better deal!

Dome, from Rotunda

Capitol (as big as Texas!)

Rotunda (kinda looks like a pizza)

From the capitol we drove south across the Colorado River to the SoCo (South Congress Ave) District, which “oozes homespun character and boasts the story of Austin’s yesteryear in its boutiques, eateries, galleries and music venues.” First stop: Amy’s Ice Creams, where I had to try the local fave, which began w/ a reasonable-size scoop of Mexican vanilla and ultimately incorporated a googolplex of calories (hot fudge & pecan pralines were involved). Greg had a scoop of fresh strawberry. (The line at Amy's stayed steady at about 20'.)

Energized with all that sugar, I was ready to stroll SoCo, but Greg (who still deals with remnants of plantar fasciitis) was not similarly inclined. So, he wandered into the Continental Club (a small, but historic, dive bar where Stevie Ray Vaughan got his start) and nursed one beer for an hour while I walked off the ice cream. Later we both enjoyed music by the Blues Specialists. Great day – especially b/c we hit 3 iconic places, 2 of which were just by chance. (And I racked up 15,000⁺ steps on my FitBit.)