Day 16/17...Austin/San Antonio

Little behind on the blogging, so two days in one today:

We made it to Austin late Friday, so we didn't get to see anything, but we were up early Saturday.  We stayed with Kristi (and Isaar and Mish Mish, her dog and cat) at her apartment in Austin and she was lovely enough to be a great hostess and tour guide.  She works at the University of Texas campus there, so that was our first stop.  The campus is huge and has a lot of pretty buildings, fountains and statues.  It seems Austin is all about their university and, most of all, their Longhorns.  One of the nice things about the campus is that they have a few different museums open to the public.  We went to the Lyndon B. Johnson museum after walking around for a while.  It was free and had a huge of collection of pieces from his life.  Interesting to head there after recently visiting the 6th Floor Museum, like moving right along the timeline of history.  The only disappointment was that they claimed to have an animatronic LBJ that told jokes and it was nowhere to be found (perhaps someone found it inappropriate...who knows.)

It was our little friend Eve's birthday and we wanted to get her a cool postcard birthday card, so we went to the U of T Co-op (school store) and picked one up (no, it hasn't been mailed yet) and checked out the incredible variety of burnt orange items you can buy, from standard t-shirts, to Tiffany lamps to sundresses and even prom dresses...insane.  My school did  not have that kind of spirit (go JWU!)

Anyway, after that, we were getting hungry, so Kristi took us to a nice little bakery/cafe, Mozart, on the river, where we had amazing desserty items and iced coffees.  Of course, they have outdoor seating, so we were able to relax in the sun on the edge of the river...lovely day.

We decided to head back to her apartment to take care of the pets and relax a little before meeting Jeremy and Kim for dinner.  So, around 6:00, we left to head back into town to find parking and walked over to Iron Works BBQ (more BBQ...heaven), another place where they tell you what sides you'll have with your BBQ'ed meat...that's how you know it's good.  We had some Texas beer, ribs and brisket, again, outside along a creek.

We learned about Austin being "batty," so we headed to the Congress Street Bridge, where Mexican free-wing bats sleep all day long and fly out at sundown to find dinner.  So, the whole sidewalk along the bridge was lined with people waiting and then, like clockwork, thousands and thousands of tiny bats flew out in a stream...it must have gone on for 15 minutes, that's how many bats their were.  Creepy as it may sound, it was actually really cool to see against the backdrop of the sunset on the river.  If you look closely at that top photo with the deep blue sky, you can see the faint parade of bats.

After the bats, we walked a loop from one side of the river bank to the other to see the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue...yes, that's a thing.  We actually got a kind of cool picture in the dark because there were some people lighting him up for a photo shoot for some reason.  From there, we headed back to the car to head "home."

This morning we got up and Kristi joined us in San Antonio for the day.  It's only about an hour and a half from Austin, so we were able to get in some sightseeing before we say goodbye to Texas tomorrow.  Luckily for us, we arrived on the last day of Fiesta San Antonio!  It's a crazy 11 day festival that has been happening since the 1800's here...one of the biggest in the country.  The bulk of the festivities seem to be happening right outside our hotel, so it was nice to just leave the car and walk.  Not sure how official it is, but it seems at least during Fiesta, drinking is quite okay on the streets...so, there are happy, drunk people everywhere.  Not to mention the never-ending scent of amazing Mexican and Southwest food being offered from a hundred different booths lining the streets. 

We took our first walk through the festival and went over the The Alamo.  Unfortunately, there isn't much left of the actual structure, but they do have some artifacts in the remaining shrine, as well as a large diorama of the original mission which they have a guide explain, which was nice.  Outside of the shrine, they have some really nice gardens with a path you can follow.

San Antonio has a really nice area called Riverwalk (like many cities, actually), so we went over that way for a bit.  It's a stone walkway on either side of the river running through the city, with stores and restaurants and a boat tour.  We stopped for lunch and relaxed for a while in the shade of the trees...it's below street level, so it's quieter and cooler because of the tall trees lining each side.

We weren't able to get into our room when we first checked in, so we went back to LQ and got our room and unpacked our car and then took another walk through the Fiesta to get some margaritas (for Andy and me) and chocolate-covered strawberries (for Kristi) and then Kristi left us to head back to Austin.

We relaxed in the room for a while, while Fiesta played on and then headed across the street for dinner at Mi Tierra for some delicious and fresh chicken fajitas for two and some homemade lemonade.  Check out the crazy white Christmas situation...yes, that's how it's decorated inside.  Good stuff.  Hopefully we can eventually get to sleep...Fiesta wages on until midnight, though it seems our hotel room neighbors will be more annoying than the party.  On to New Mexico!