Friday in Austin - 2/25/11

So we get in our car, and we realize it's making a clicking noise, like it's clapping it's little hands behind the steering wheel.  This is a little concerning.  We try turning the turn signal off and on, windshield wipers, radio, etc.  We decide to just start the car and see if it stops (this is a very weird sound to hear from a car that wasn't running and hadn't been in several hours).  We turn the key and.....nothing.  Right about this time, I realized I had left the headlights on.  All night long.  Epic fail.  :(  Right about this time, the guy in the truck next to us shows up.  We started to go talk to him, but then he tries to start up his truck and his engine just sputters and dies (at least his tried...).  Then a second guy in a second truck shows up, and all three of us ask him for a jump.  :) And then we were all on our merry ways.

Now, I know we're not supposed to be eating fast food, but there was a Chickfila, and Tricia had been craving a milkshake ever since the clock had been 12:34 in Fort Stockton (she's got a Pavlov's dog thing going with sequential numbers and milkshakes), so we stopped in and got a Cookies n Cream shake and tiny little chicken biscuit sandwiches and honey.  And it was yummy.

Tricia wanted to check out some of the classes at UT Austin, so I dropped her off and then headed to the Zilker Botanical Gardens.  There were Japanese gardens here as well as a tea house (not open in winter).  I walked along a bamboo trail, and then found the Cactus and Succulent Garden.  I like cacti.  :)  There was also a butterfly trail (the butterflies must have flown off for the winter) and a Prehistoric Garden where they'd found dinosaur tracks.  Finally I ended up in the pioneer village where a couple of people were working in the blacksmith shop.  I chatted with them for awhile and watched them molding metal into pieces for their art projects.  Then I returned to collect Tricia from the university.

It was lunchtime, so we decided to check out one of the food trucks we had seen parked on the main drag.  Across the street, there was a Good Will with free parking, so we left our car there and dutifully wandered around the store for a bit.  And we tried on hats.  :)  Then we went over to get some food.  At the Crepe truck we considered mixed berry and cream cheese crepes and chicken curry crepes, but in the end decided to split a peanut butter and Oreo crepe.  We wondered through the outdoor market and saw a lot of homemade jewerly and some soaps and lotions and glasswork (my favorite were the wine bottles that had been flattened into spoon rests).  At the end of the row of tables we stopped at the Taco Cactus truck and sampled the Green Chile Hummus (delicious!).  And then we needed a drink, so we found Jo's and tried their famous Iced Turbo coffee drink.

 

We continued our tour of the free museums with the Lyndon B Johnson museum.  It is the only free presidential museum in the country, and we learned that Lady Bird Johnson's real name is Claudia, but that as an infant her nursemaid had said she was "pretty as a lady bird", and the name stuck all her life.  In reading about all the social programs Johnson had enacted as president, Tricia and I started a lively debate on politics, taxes, social programs, trickle down effect, trickle up effect, etc.  We got some looks from some people, in spite of the fact that we were talking in soft, though earnest, whispers.  (This is also the reason there is only one picture of this entire museum.)

Evolution floor

 

Texas wildlife

We next made our way over to the Blanton Art Museum, which had floors dedicated to Texas Wildlife, dinosaur bones found in Texas, and Evolution.  The bones were amazing, towering over us and stretching the length of the room.  There was one giant prehistoric armidillo, several wooly mammoths, a T-Rex skull, and some extremely giant fish skeletons.

We were hungry again, and an internet search pointed us towards Chuey's Mexican.  Online people had said there was a 45 minutes wait even on weekdays, but it was before 6 so we thought we'd be alright.  We initially parked in a small lot that said "Chuey's parking only", but after wandering around for a few minutes we couldn't find the restaurant.  Returning to our car, we found a sign that pointed us in the right direction.  We set off on foot, but soon realized that the sign had meant for us to drive.  So we returned to our car once again.

Even at 5:40, Chuey's 3 parking lots were extremely full.  Luckily we were at the beginning of the dinner rush and didn't need to wait for a 2-person table.  We ordered margaritas and filled our plates at the free nacho bar while we waited for our food.  We soon had a full plate of flautas, enchilladas, tacos, rice, beans, and queso.  Amazingly, we finished it all.

Our bed in Austin

We were staying with a childhood friend of Tricia's grandmother, and headed over to her house next.  Mickey welcomed us into her home and put out bowls of jellybeans, crackers, and chocolate wafers while we chatted about high school in the 40's and stories of Tricia's grandparents and aunts and uncles.  We stayed up late sharing pictures and stories of our trip, then we crashed for the night.  We didn't set an alarm - too many late nights and early mornings lately!