We went to church together when we were both young couples with growing families. Since they moved away from Oklahoma, we've exchanged Christmas cards for almost 30 years. Their three sons are about the same age as our two boys, and we have watched each other's children grow up via Christmas letters. So we were so excited to see them after all those years! They suggested meeting at Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, Texas. This place can seat 1,200 people at one time, but the wait is often two hours long for one of those seats on a weekend. We're glad to report that lunch during the week in January requires no waiting! We all enjoyed our barbecue, and ordered extra to take home.
Their main advice for beating the traffic was to limit our time in Austin from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. With no rush-hour traffic, we made our way to a free parking spot at Zilker Park. From there it's a short walk on the hike and bike trail on Lady Bird Lake to get to this pedestrian bridge over the Colorado River.
The river is dammed on both sides to control flooding in downtown Austin. This wide part of the river is now called Lady Bird Lake. We were surprised to see roses still blooming in January in the planters on the bridge. Here in the capitol city, that must be the yellow roses of Texas!
Speaking of the state capitol, that is first on our list of places to visit. We walked up Congress Street, to get our first view of this massive building partially hidden by the trees out front.
The largest state capitol in the United States, it just can't fit in one photo frame. But those beautiful Texas blue skies show off the dome that is even taller than our national capitol.
Inside, we could look straight up to see that famous Texas lone star way over our heads at the top of that tall dome.
Even more interesting, standing at the very center point of the rotunda, right under that lone star, gives a very interesting experience. Even a quiet whisper gets magnified back to the speaker in a loud way. Interesting acoustics!
We arrived just in time for a capitol tour. We got escorted to the Senate chambers, which is still outfitted with the original 31 walnut desks from the 1800s.
A few changes had to be made in those old desks. For example, the ink well has been changed to a wireless microphone holder.
Our tour guide pointed out the massive wagon wheel light fixtures high overhead. Her favorite part was that the five letters of the word "TEXAS" are lit up in bulbs in the wheel.
This is the first week of the Texas legislative session, which meets every other year. When we visited the House of Representatives, we watched as two legislators were debating on the floor. You can see them facing off in the center aisle in the picture below.
But we think we were the only ones listening as we looked around the room. Representatives were chatting, checking messages, taking pictures, and basically ignoring the amendment's debate.
But when there is a call for a vote, everyone raced to their desks. The board at the front of the room lit up with red and green lights to indicate each representative's vote. All those red lights meant the amendment failed, so we didn't see a Texas law in the making. We would actually watch two more debates, only to see all of them fail.
An easy walk from the capitol brought us to another of Austin's iconic buildings. We are in the lobby of the Driskill Hotel in downtown. Besides enjoying all the fancy columns and the stained glass, we had read that we should see "the widow maker." We didn't know what that meant, or what that would look like.
We got directions to the second floor bar, where a statue of "The Widow Maker" was on display. We were glad to read the explanation posted beside the statue. We learned that when a cowboy falls from a spooked horse and catches his boot in a stirrup, it usually means his horse will drag him to death. The second cowboy is attempting to shoot the other horse in order to save his friend's life and prevent another "widow maker."
We are still walking, and now on our way to the University of Texas campus about a mile away. We were greeted by an over-sized university seal. We guess everything is really bigger in Texas.
We enjoy visiting college campuses all over the country, and we almost always visit the football stadium. Welcome to the Darrel Royal - Texas Memorial Stadium. We were expecting a busy campus with 51,000 students enrolled here. But then we realized that all of those students were still enjoying the Christmas break, and we had the place to ourselves.
A walk to the older side of campus brought us to "The Main Building." The tallest building on campus, it's an icon of the Austin skyline.
As we walked back towards the Colorado River, we had to admit that our legs were getting tired. We would log in over nine miles before we made it back to our free parking spot back at Zilker Park. We stopped for a late lunch at a recommended Korean cafe, and then ate an ice cream cone to give us the energy for the rest of our urban hike today. We checked the time, as we hurried to get back by just a little after 3:00. That was good local advice! As we looked back to Austin's sky-line we felt good about our day--visiting Austin like the locals.
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