Keep Austin Weird
[author: Kitty]
After just a little while in Austin, we decided we loved it. Our RV park isn’t the fanciest place but it is so convenient to everything. We walked to downtown and explored the streets and took in the sights. It was so hot that we were really sweating through our clothes, but we forged ahead. We stopped to get an iced coffee and found ourselves in the coolest bike shop ever, Mellow Johnnys. Apparently, this is the place that many famous bikers frequent, including Lance Armstrong. Several of his Tour de France jerseys and bikes are on display and we toured around like a museum while enjoying our delicious coffee. We loved the name of the coffee shop, Juan Pelota (which Drew figured out was a play on words referring to Lance).
We stopped into the famous Allens Boots store and the kids each bought a cowboy hat, very fitting for a trip to Austin. We also talked with a man selling lemonade from inside a huge fiberglass lemon. We stopped for lunch and had delicious tex-mex and margaritas. We were liking this town more and more.
Later in the afternoon, after checking out a lot of the downtown area on foot, we decided we wanted to see the bats on the Congress Avenue bridge so we got there at 8 PM and waited patiently with a hundred other hopefuls. The bats usually fly around dusk. We called the bat hotline and it said approximately 8:30 - 9:15 PM tonight. Sadly, after an hour and a half, the sun setting, and many jokes about what the bats were thinking, we decided to give up. Unfortunately, it seemed that this was not the night to witness the phenomenon of thousands of bats flying out from under the bridge after all. Oh well.
We made up for it with a short walk to the ever-famous Stubb’s for some real Austin-style bbq. While we waited for our meal, we enjoyed checking out all the fabulous music posters of musical groups who have made a pilgrimage to this iconic place. We even took a peek at the stage downstairs. The food arrived and tasted so delicious after a big day of sight-seeing in the heat. We chose from all their barbecued meats (pork, brisket, short ribs, chicken, turkey) and sides (fries, onion rings, sautéed spinach, okra, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, sweet potato fries). Amazingly, people choose two or three of each! We had so much fun at Stubb’s that we forgot all about those silly bats.
We called a cab to go back to our trailer park and got the kookiest cab driver. He talked about a million different topics, including his many theories on why he thought the bats didn't feel like flying tonight, and ended almost every sentence with, "Well, but you know my wife knows everything!" Anyway, he was so entertaining and really was the finale to our fun day. We were laughing by the time we got back to the RV and just had to shake our heads. He personified the famous slogan, "keep Austin weird" in the very best way!
