Austin City Limits - Day 3

On Monday we drove into Austin to check out the capitol city if Texas.

As we were driving away from our hotel we came upon a fine family of deer and Alex stepped out to feed them.

When we got to Austin we headed straight into downtown and had a peek of the Longhorn stadium at the University of Texas before stopping for a visit the Texas State History Museum.

We thought the giant star in front was just to coolest!

Actually, it was cooler inside since the AC was wonderful after being in that high heat and humidity.

The Texas State History Museum is very nice! We figured that it was a good idea to start our trip to Texas by learning a little history about this great state. It is a terrific - full of interesting multimedia exhibits and presentations. We began with a multimedia presentation in the theater about Texas history that was very impressive. I walked out thinking that I wanted to be a Texan! Then we looked at the exhibits. It was three floors, the bottom was about the Indians and the Spanish and the early history of Texas, the second floor was all about the fight of Texas Independence and statehood, and the third story was all about Texas today, and the industries here.
We all really enjoyed it! What a great way to start our visit.

We brought our lunches and decided to have a picnic on the beautiful grounds of the state capitol, but the heat was so sweltering that we were miserable - as you can see by looking at Luke above. Does he look hot or what?

So we ate fast and headed inside the capitol building to experience Texan air-conditioning.

The Texas state capitol building is HUGE, supposedly as big as the US capitol. Would you expect anything less from Texas?

After a sufficient cooling off period, we ventured outside to the enjoy the beautiful grounds again.

We worked our way over to the Texas State Capitol Visitors Center, which had more state history, though there is more hands-on exhibits, and though we got there just before closing, the kids had a fun time playing with everything.

And dressing up in period costumes.

Derek was Davey Crockett, Dylan was a farm boy, and Luke was, well, a pretty country maid. Hey, that is what he wanted to wear, OK?

Of course, he also climbed into very manly cowboy chaps and a leather vest. Cool Hand Luke!

More pics with the capitol. I accidentally overexposed that picture of Nate, but I still thought it looked pretty cool, so there you go.

When we got too hot we trudged back to the car to explore Austin from the comfort of our air conditioned car. We had some time to kill before sunset when we were planning to see the bats. We came upon an REI, and Dennis wanted to visit. I had no objections when I saw and Anthropologie right next store!!! I LOVE that store, and this one was huge! How perfect is that? A store for the guys and a store for the gals right next door! I had a great time there, but, as always, it would have been more fun with another gal. Shopping is always so much more fun with a girlfriend. Oh well. It was some girl-time on a boycation, and I was happy to take it!

Then we grabbed some Creamslushes at Sonic and headed over to Congress St. bridge to wait for the famous Austin bats to emerge from under the bridge. By then it was pouring rain! Still hot, but beyond humid to soaking wet!

We waited for a long time, but we were certainly not alone. Quite a crowd had formed waiting for the bats to get busy.

Finally, just at dusk, the largest urban population of bats, up to 1.5 million, decided it was dinner time! They are Mexican free-tailed bats, very small, and when they are not hanging out in Mexico, they are living in the long narrow slits in the underside of the bridge, above. Even before we could see them, we could smell them and hear them squeaking. Once they decided it was time, they started coming, and coming and coming for about a half hour.

We watched them from under the bridge for a while before moving up to the top of the bridge where we were just a few feet above the rats as the shot out from under us. It was hard to get a picture of them from this point, because we couldn't see much of them against the treetops, but managed to get a few images with my camera, above.

We liked the bats!

We figured that Austin would be a good a place as any to get some real Texas barbecue. A local pointed us to a place called the Salt Lick which was about a half hour out of town in a place called Driftwood, Texas. It was literally out in the middle of no-where in an old barn. Really, how could it NOT be great? I mean, LOOK at that grill! We ordered it family style - fresh hot rolls, coleslaw, beans, homemade pickles...

and of course, lots and lots of meat! Spare ribs, short ribs, chicken, sausage, and the ever popular Texas brisket!

Now that was some mighty good barbecue!

Did I mention it was all you can eat? And would you believe, they let us take it all home? It tasted even better the second day.

We were stuffed!!! But we had been warned that it would to a crime to leave before trying the cobbler, so we ordered a berry cobbler and a peach cobbler to share. One taste and we all forgot how full we were. We descended on those desserts like a swarm of buzzards!

Or maybe bats.