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!!!!!

Texas Vacation: Day One

Well, day one consisted of Ken getting off work at 10:30pm and us having dinner (yep, that's right) at 11pm. Then we packed and got everything situated in the car and headed out around 1am. We dropped our garage door opener off (in a friend's mailbox), dropped some bills in the mail at the post office, fill-up with gas....and had to go home b/c sunglasses were forgotten. :) So we didn't really manage to get out of town until about 2am. Ken was taking the first driving shift and I was going to finish...we were driving my grandmother's Honda Accord....which she so graciously let us borrow, so we weren't travelling in one of our gas-guzzling trucks. I slept for a few hours and then was WIDE AWAKE at 5am. We had just hit Denton, TX. We ate the sandwiches that I had prepared and stopped for gas and continued south-bound!

We arrived in Round Rock, which is just north of Austin around 8am. It was too early for anything to be open, so we headed on to San Marcos, which is about 45 minutes south of Austin. They have a FABULOUS outlet mall there....filled with Kate Spade, Michael Kohrs, Betsey Johnson, Ralph Lauren, Victoria's Secret, Banana Republic, Pottery Barn, Williams-Sonoma, etc. Its a girl's DREAM!!!! :) However, my husband was the only one who bought anything. Fortunately, for him (not for me), I was not in a spending-money-kinda-mood. I didn't even want to try anything on...I wasn't tired or anything, just not in the mood to buy anything. He got some really great clothes at Banana...his new favorite place! :)

After shopping for a little while, we headed into Hill Country...to Gruene, TX! Gruene is know for its red-dirt music and is where Pat Green started singing a lot. The Gruene Hall is famous for their live music! We were also told we needed to eat at "The Gristmill". And it did not disappoint! Its a really cool, renovated cotton gin. Everything is wide-open. All their "windows" are actually huge glass doors that they open up and turn on fans. There wasn't one room that was closed off. It was really cool!Towards the end of lunch, we BOTH were started feel the night's drive catching up with us. So, we headed back north into Austin....me driving. As we entered the Austin metroplex, we came to a complete stand-still. I thought it was just due to downtown traffic at first, but then we quickly realized that it had to be wreck of some kind. We finally made it to an exit that was close to our hotel and thought we could make it from there. However, we were at another standstill. As we moved forward on the side-road, we see 4 Austin Police SUV's blocking all 4 lanes of traffic. We were thinking this is a HUGE wreck!!!! Ken called his cousin who we were meeting that night, who then informed us that President Obama was in town speaking at The Four Seasons Hotel and then at the University of Texas. NICE! So, we were behind his motorcade. GREAT! After patiently waiting (not so patiently), we finally made it to the hotel and got settled. Ken was in HEAVEN b/c our window over-looked a hospital where he could see the Travis County EMS (I think) helicopters land and take-off from their helipad. This was very entertaining to him. We could also see I-35...now that doesn't sound thrilling, but it really was b/c it gave us a PERFECT view of the President's motorcade as he was leaving Austin. I've never seen anything like it! No matter what you think of the President in office, it was pretty cool to see all the emergency vehicles close a major interstate, more emergency vehicles, then LOTS of all black vehicles...and then one trailing black SUV with the hatch up. I asked Ken why....oh, its just hold a machine gun so if anyone tries to follow them.....well, the President is protected! :) Then a huge white tank of a truck and more emergency vehicles. It was really an interesting thing to see. Not only was town bustling with Mr. President, BUT they were also having AMERICAN IDOL try-outs!!!!! We got to talk to so many contestants and hear them practicing in their hotel rooms. It was really cool!!!! I loved getting to WATCH, but I'm so thankful I didn't try-out!!! What a process!!!!! There are at least 3 auditions before you get to see the celebrity judges or Ryan Secrest!!! They were getting bracelets on Monday/Tuesday so they could audition on Wednesday/Thursday....which was the FIRST auditions...can you imagine???? If you made it, then you have to plan another week around more auditions!!!! CRAZY!!!!! But, it really was fun to meet and talk to some of the contestants. I SOOOOO badly wanted to take pictures of all the contestants we talked to....just in case I could have met someone famous!!!!! But, I refrained....I was afraid my husband would be embarrassed. :)

After taking a nap, we got dressed and headed out to meet Ken's cousin, Chris. They haven't seen each other since they were kids, so it was a fun reunion!!!!
We had dinner at a fun little Tex-Mex place called, Guero's Taco Bar. It was YUM!!!! I had some really great Fish Tacos and Ken had enchiladas!!! From there, we headed to the famous 6th Street!!!! Chris was kind enough to feed my celebrity craze by taking me to this guy's... bars (Molotov and The Dogwood....both VERY cool)! Do you remember Brad Womack from "The Bachelor"? He's my favorite of all time....He's beautiful!!!!!!!! :)
Sadly, I never saw the Bachelor....just his little brother, Wes, and his twin brother, Chad....but that's okay. I'm sure I would have embarrassed myself by taking MANY pictures! :)

We also went to a few places that had some great music! And, of course, had to get a HUGE slice of pizza on 6th Street at Roppolo's! Around midnight, we headed back to the hotel! More vacation to come!!!! :)