keep Austin weird?

Well we are back from Austin. We had a great time despite the train/bus ride down there. To make a very long story short we were scheduled to leave Dallas at 12:20, but did not leave until 9:00pm. We were supposed to arrive in Austin around 7:00pm, but did not arrive until 2:00am. We were supposed to travel by train from Dallas to Austin, but due to an electrical short in both of the engines we traveled by charter bus.

After finally arriving in Austin we caught a cab and headed to our room at Austin's Inn at Pearl Street (a bed and breakfast) for some much needed sleep.

On Tuesday morning with just a few hours of sleep we set off on a "weird tour" of Austin. We took a tour of downtown Austin on Segways with a tour group named Segcity on 6th street. We had a great time learning to ride a Segway and learning about the capital city of Texas. Thanks to our friends Jerry and Brenda Ballew for recommending the Segway tour it was the highlight of our trip.

After lunch we took advantage of the Capital Metro transit system and went to North Austin to visit Carolyn my step mom in the hospital. My dad and Carolyn were in Austin for a friend's wedding and unfortunately had to extend their stay in Austin with a trip to the hospital. Carolyn is fine now and they are back home recuperating.

After our visit we headed back toward downtown and had dinner at Kerbey Lane Cafe. It was great food and a fun environment, this was one of the two restaurants recommended by our friends Jeff and Leslie White (former Austinites).

On Wednesday we slept late since we did not get much sleep the night before. Our first order of business was to find the 2nd restaurant recommended to us - Castle Hill Cafe. Again we took advantage of the Capital Metro system. With Misty's master navigational skills and the "Dillos" we found the cafe with no problem and very little walking. Again the food was great... no it was awesome. Thanks Jeff and Leslie!!!

Next, we were off to the Texas State History Museum. We have been wanting to visit this place since we first heard they were building it. It was really a lot of fun. Even if you are not a history person this is a great place to visit. We spent about 5 hours there and still did not see everything - they actually had to kick us out at closing time.
The next item on the agenda was of course dinner. We did not care where we ate, but wanted to find Amy's Ice Cream for dessert. So after much deliberation and walking we began to head in the direction of where we thought Amy's would be. We were hungry and decided to break our rule of no chain restaurants. We ate at The Melting Pot (a fondue restaurant). This was probably the most expensive meal we have ever had, but it was a really neat experience. Of course the best part of the meal was dessert - the flaming turtle. The flaming turtle is milk chocolate, caramel, and pecans flambeed at your table. With the flaming turtle we got strawberries, bananas, brownies, pound cake, marshmallows, and cheesecake to dip in the sauce. To say it was awesome would be an understatement. Unfortunately, we were too full for Amy's which was our original destination. So we went back to our room and crashed. Oh I forgot to mention we walked back to our bed and breakfast. The trip was about 25 blocks and according to Yahoo maps it was about a 2 miles. We did not intend to walk the whole trip, but the "Dillos" had quit running, we did not have change for the bus and we were too cheap for a cab - especially after the meal we just had.

On Thursday we had our final breakfast at the "bed and breakfast" and headed to the train station. The train ride home was much better, mostly because we were actually on a train and not a bus. The train was only 10 minutes late and we arrived back in Dallas only an hour late. To those who must have a strict schedule, traveling by train is not for you. If you have nothing but time and patience it is a fun experience.

I am not sure that I quite understand the whole "weird Austin" thing. We saw a few weird people, but they are in every large city. Overall we really enjoyed Austin. I wish we had taken the time to visit more often during the 9 years we have lived in Texas. I am sure we will be back one of these days.

Well I hope you enjoyed this long winded summary of our vacation to the capital of the Lone Star State. I figured it would be ok since this is one of my last posts for a while - I ship to Army BCT next Tuesday.