Austin

.She's the centre piece at the Austin City Limits Festival.  She sits atop this square column about 15m high and spends the day just going round and round! Later on you will note a resemblance to the Capitol Building.

          Standing at the gate ready to have a musical experience.  The billboard says it all!

 Listening to a local Texan band called "Asleep at the Wheel".  They often team with Willie Nelson.  They were immensely popular & and played "Texas Swing".

 This guy had a great time!

   For all those with kids this is what you do.

Valerie June - could be the next big thing. Great music. Fabulous boots and hair. 

      The whole band.

The crowd on Saturday was huge. Wilco was playing later in the evening.  Those storm clouds over the city look threatening.  

    

    Wilco was great.  This is as close we could get!

Remember the rain clouds.  Well the heavens opened overnight.  Enough to cancel Sunday's music. Sad for us but it forced us onto the streets to locate local music, and see the sights.

The State Capitol. The building is constructed from locally sourced pink granite. George W. Bush was governor. Pretty easy gig, the lower house and senate only meet on alternate years. Yes it takes 2 years to pass legislation.

Beautiful architecture and attention to detail as these hinges show.

The Senate House.  They are elected for a two year term.  Sit for half of it.  What is the rest of the time spent doing? Answer - campaigning.

With no music to see, we decided to check out Pedernales Falls State Park, about an hour out of the city.  Due to the rain, there was a lot of water.  We wanted to see Hamilton Pool Preserve as well, but due to the rain the area was closed.

  

We were supposed to be able to swim in this area, however due to the speed of the water and the colour, decided it was best just to look.  The roots of these trees go for metres.

    Very "Wild Wood"

   The river was pretty, especially with the Autumn tones starting to appear.

We knew we had to have ribs while in Texas and chose this diner as the venue.  It was supposed to have cooked their ribs using the mesquite wood that gives the ribs a very distinctive flavour.  Well we didn't like the ribs here much but the venue was fabulous.

Decided to checkout the music night life.  This club, One-2-One was fairly new and supposed to showcase emerging artists.  Not sure if these guys fit the bill!  They are Jimmy & The Mustangs who it turns out were very big in the late 70's, emerging from the punk seen. Now they are very much Rockabilly. They played at Robert Plant's wedding and Bruce Springsteen has played with them too.

South Congress St. and "The Continental" were another draw card.  Saw this group back in Aus., at Brunswick Music Festival, 'The Hot Club of Cowtown'. They drew a dance crowd here.   Saw a great country rock band called 'Whiskey Sisters" too.

Wandering South Congress St. was fun and yielded many great sights. Austin is famous for its food vans.

This little shop across the road from our digs, was deceptive.  It looked rundown.  Was full of old bags, supposedly for sale, but made the best sandwiches.

Wandered the streets to checkout the Hyde Park area.  Here are a few of the homes. Not dissimilar to Surrey Hills.

Robert had to checkout the veggie bins at these two.  Next time you visit Surrey Hills, you may see something similar.  "Great use of Coreten!"

Lauren, you may like this one.  Food vans like this are all through this area.  Each one has a food style of their own.  Many are in these old style campers.  Cute.

As mentioned Halloween was looming. Stores, homes & people were preparing.  This supermarket was well stocked.  The variety of pumpkins was staggering.

I'm not sure about you, but this is not a good place to park your car!  The tow truck driver didn't think so either.  He was having trouble extricating it safely!

This was a scene viewed early in our stay in Austin, but sky and church spire are very Texas.

So our Austin tour is over, onto Dallas and College Football!   WAR EAGLE! 

(I'll explain that war cry in the next blog).

Cheers,

Robyn & Robert, 

The Tourin'Travellers