Texas Vacation: Day Two

Day two was ALL AUSTIN! We slept in after late night out and were out the door by 11am. We skipped breakfast and were ready for lunch!!!! We decided to walk from our hotel, which was downtown, to wherever we decided to go. Downtown seems VERY big when its blazing HOT!!! We were at 11th and I-35....and our first destination was at 2nd and Guadalupe. I think it was about 13 blocks of walking. We were sweating like crazy when we got there!!!! However the food was GREAT! We ate at Lamberts. Its an upscale BBQ restaurant in the 2nd Street District. We both got a 2-meat lunch. We were afraid that it was going to be WAY too much food, but we each got different meats so we could try more. Their proportions were perfect! It was just right! The meat was so good and flavorful that we forgot to use their homemade BBQ sauce sitting right in front of us. :( Iwish we had thought of it....AT LEAST before they took our plates. Neither of us even thought about it until they had cleared the table. It was that good!

From there, we headed to a coffee shop near by called "Austin Java". Ken was needing some coffee....but I was holding out for a cupcake from "delish". On our way to finding "delish", we shopped and took in as many of the sights as we could. We walked down to "Lady Bird Lake" and went to a pet-toy-store. And, finally found the yummy-ness of "delish"!!!!! I had their chocolate cupcake (with mini chocolate chips in the cake) with mexican vanilla frosting! It was SOOO good!! Even Ken liked it and he's not a cake-person (he loves the cheesecake....and speaking of cheesecake....there is a place in Austin that we missed. Its called "Katz". We kept meaning to stop in there, but no such luck. They have a cheesecake milkshake. Two of Ken's favorites....ice cream and cheesecake. They make it with vanilla ice cream and an entire slice of cheesecake....we will definitely be heading there on our next Austin trip. AND, the other place we missed was "Amy's Ice Cream"...its unique to Austin and has crazy flavors! We will be going there next time too. Okay...back to what we DID do). We continued to walk and just sight see, taking "pit" stops to get some air-condition and water. One of our stops was "The Driskill Hotel"! BEAUTIFUL!!!!!! I had seen it online and sadly it was out of our budget, but its AMAZING!!!!!! We went to their second floor, which had lots of seating and a bar. We sat off in a cubby and talked, cooled off and used their restrooms.Now, I bring up the restroom b/c it was SO nice! I know, it sounds ridiculous, but I'm the person so impressed with the bathroom that takes pictures. Yep, I did! No one was in there at the time, so I didn't make a fool out of myself until now since I'm posting pictures of it. :)Our last stop was the Capital. It was beautiful....even despite the construction that was going on right now.I wish we had gone when we had time to actually go through it, but again, we will have to come back. Here we ran into some more American Idol contestants. These two girls are super sweet! I really hope they did well!!!!! Ken and their dad really hit it off and swapped business cards....I need to remind him to email their dad to find out how the girls did! PLUS....we saw the Trave County EMS helicopter right overhead! :)From there, we started heading back to our hotel....but taking a scenic route through the famous 6th Street. There really isn't anything fancy about it during the day...its much nicer at night. Once back to the hotel, we cooled off and changed clothes b/c we were meeting Chris and Deborah for a concert and dinner.....and the BATS!!!!

Chris and Deborah picked us up and we headed to see Waylon Payne. You might remember him from "Walk the Line" where he played Jerry Lee Lewis. After the concert, we headed to see Austin's famous BATS! They live under the Congress Bridge and every night around sunset, they head out to eat! :) Its the largest colony of bats in the US. I was VERY excited, but sadly the bats decided not to come out until after dark....so no picture. :( If we had stayed in Austin longer, I would have made Ken take me back the next night....but there's always next time!

After the bats, we were STARVING and read for dinner!!!!! He went to Hut's for hamburgers....and were they ever good!!!!! After dinner, we hit a few clubs before heading back to the hotel. (I learned as we were driving around by 6th Street that there are some very COOL shops that I want to go back to. They have an actual "west elm" store. I get the catalog, but haven't been to a store and I would LOVE to go).

As you can see, there were A LOT of things that we didn't get to do...I would also like to tour University of Texas and go to Barton Springs Pool and Zilker Park and shop at IKEA. The Governor's Mansion was under construction and will be for the next two years. We also missed The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum and the LBJ Library. There were MULTIPLE places that we would like to try their food. And there is a farmer's market that I would LOVE to go to!!!! Plus, we both have family and friends there that we didn't get to see. So much that Austin has to offer. It wasn't really one of our FAVORITE places, but we still very much enjoyed our time there!

From Austin, we headed out to Hill Country!!!!!