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| Happy Birthday Jilly |
First, a happy birthday to our daughter Jill, a great Mom, wife, and daughter. We wish we were in Bristow, VA to celebrate but since we are in Austin, Texas, a happy birthday will have to do.
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| We Like The Night Life |
I am in the lounge of the Holiday Inn Express, nicely located next to the Homeless Shelter, that's right, when we drove in, there were 30 or 40 homeless hanging out on the corner. We are actually 50 yards away but it's clear we could have had a cheaper bed. It 6:40 and the lounge is quite busy, with everyone filling up on coffee, having some breakfast.
We did not have a good start yesterday from New Orleans; we ordered our car at 6:15, to be delivered by 6:45 and it never arrived until 7:30. We were not happy campers even if they knocked off the price of parking for a night. Supposedly, the guy on the shift that ended at 7:00 did not want to drive our car over at 6:45. And the 7:00 guy was a little late to his shift, thus the car arriving at 7:30.
And what can I say about an 8-hour drive other that we made decent time once we got started. We have been on the Lousiana part of this road before, one section a long corridor of 20-30 miles of a bridge over swamp lands, with water down the middle strip of the road. Interesting and we just prayed there was not an accident. We were fortunate until Highway #10, the major highway, was closed in Baton Rouge so we had to take a 24 miles detour on back roads.
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| On The Road Through Houston |
Other than that, we were lucky, and our drive through Houston was without a problem, just lots of refineries as we entered the city which was off to the south of our route. Our highlight was stopping at a Buc-ee's, the Walmart of gas stations. First, it has least 20 pumps lined up, one after another. When you enter, there are food bars to the left and a huge deli, along with country clothing, to the right anything a traveler might need like coolers, enormous grills, fishing gear and essentials. When we entered the bathrooms, we thought we could probably hold a square dance inside it was so spacious. The guy's area had at least 30 urinals, no waiting in line there. As they say, "Everything is bigger in Texas."
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| Gas Islands in The Night |
We had little trouble finding our Holiday Inn Express in Austin as most of the traffic was leaving the city; the hotel looks new, has the smell of paint in some areas, with a small Indian manager, in a suit, no tie, hovering over the employees. He has already said good morning to me twice during breakfast and asked how things are going. The staff seems really nice, helped us find a place to eat that was not far away and we were able to park our car in their underground garage for a fee of course. It's a good location and we can walk to lots of places or easily get our car.
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| View Of Austin From Our Hotel Window |
Since we arrived at our hotel at 4:30, we just relaxed until 6:30 and took showers to get our energy back after our drive. We wanted a restaurant within walking distance this first night so our hotel manager recommended two places. I checked both out on my computer and the first, Moonshine Patio and Bar sounded great, people loved it. It was a ten-minute walk, unfortunately, others must have read the same reviews because both bars, at least three dining rooms, the patio, and the seats in front of the restaurant were taken. And there was only an hour and a half to two-hour wait. We didn't.
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| Iron Cactus |
So we walked to the next recommendation, much closer to our hotel, the Iron Cactus, a Mexican themed bar, also crowded, with three floors, one on the roof, seemingly packed with patrons. We were lucky to garner two seats at the bar just as we entered. From Yelp we knew the chicken tortilla soup was good, so Evie ordered the soup, along with an Iron Salad and I wanted something light, chicken enchiladas. Evie's soup and salad were good, my enchilada decent not great despite the hatch chiles. We had Long Star beers of course and walked home, avoiding the Homeless Shelter at 8:30, tired and ready for bed. Tired at the end of the day seems to be a theme of my blog.
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| Iron Cactus Bar |
It looks like a cloudy day for exploring downtown Austin, with rain tonight and tomorrow. We are not leaving Austin until late tomorrow afternoon so we will have plenty of time to see the city and hang out this evening with our grandson, Mitchell, after his two exams today.
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| Congress Street, State Capitol |
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