Three Hours in Austin

Russ and I have done our best to see the most of Texas we could in two days. Not only did we go to a lovely rehearsal dinner Friday night in the hill country, see the highlights of San Antonio yesterday, buy all our Safari clothes along with some cute Tori Burch shoes and other fancy clothes for a song at the biggest outlet mall that just happened to be next to our hotel in San Marcos, go to the most beautiful wedding and spend quality time with out friends Jan and Rex, but we ended with a whirlwind tour of Austin today.

I had quizzed the Austin Bridesmaids about what we should do with our limited time. Not only did we get the skinny on the cool places to eat, but they told us what the highlights were for tourists our age. That was really helpful since neither Russ nor I were in the need of tattoos, guitars or cowboy boots.

We made the drive from San Marcos to Austin faster than we thought so we had an hour to kill before our brunch reservation. We wandered over to the Texas State capital building which was hard to miss since it is a large prominent building, just the way Texas thinks of itself. As we meandered around the really beautiful grounds we noticed people going in a door so we followed them.

Lo and behold they had just started giving tours of the capital building for three hours on Sundays and we joined the first tour. We had a spunky tour guide who proudly gave us the history Texas statehood. She took us in the representatives chambers where they had big ass photos of the sitting members that looks like a fraternity or sorority photos, you know, all the head shots in ovals with the name underneath. As I was looking more closely at it I noticed that there were photos of about thirty children in the center. I thought it was amazing how young they elected their officials. Upon further study I discovered the children were the honorary mascots of the legislature and also grandchildren of the members of the house. Only in Texas.

After our running tour of the capital we headed out to the hipper area of town to a great restaurant called the Odd Duck. We were probably one of a handful of people without tattoos or large pierced hoops in our earlobes, the X games were in Austin this weekend so I don’t know if this was typical. It was a communal table type place and we were seated at the bar with a very attentive bartender who took extra good care of us. The menu was cool, but not figure friendly. The good news was the plates were all small and our barmaid suggested we get three or four to share. We solved the fattening problem by just getting two.

I had a soft shell crab with a scrambled egg and veggies and a really spicy virgin mary, oh so good. Russ had goat hash with homemade tatter tots, poached egg and hollandaise. Decedent, but small enough that he did not feel guilty. We withstood the up sale of the all house made baked goods. The most outrageous being the zucchini bread French toast with buttermilk peach ice cream. When I come back to life as a different person I want to have a metabolism that could afford me to at least taste that.

After coffee we went to the University of Texas and walked around the campus. Sunday in the summer meant we were practically alone. It is a big place and they are serious about their core values because they were engraved, sculpted, written or placed in multiple areas around campus. They were your typical higher education values like learning, discovery and leadership, but the most Texas core value was “freedom,” no kidding, it’s Texas. Off to the airport with great memories, lots of pictures and overstuffed suitcases. I can hardly wait to get home to see our sweet girl and her puppy and out fridge full of fruit and vegetables.