Tyler and I took a little trip to Austin together at the end of September. No kids! Huge thanks to Gigi and Poppy for keeping them while we were away. We'd never left the kids like that before and it was nice to know they were in good hands. Frankly, they had a lot more fun with Gigi and Poppy! Grandparents are the best and I'm so glad our kids have good relationships with all of theirs.
We left Thursday afternoon and enjoyed a no-stop road trip with uninterrupted conversation.
By the time we got to Austin it was a little rainy. We checked in to our hotel and then drove to Congress Ave. We went to Guero's Taco Bar for dinner and it was amazing.
We'd planned to go watch the bats come out from under Congress Bridge but we didn't bring umbrellas and it was still raining and kind of chilly! So we improvised. We grabbed some dessert at Voodoo Doughnut and took it back to the hotel.
There are a few famous donut places in Austin, and we only went to one of them. I was a little put off by the environment - inappropriate names for all of the donuts, among other things - and to be honest, I prefer Shipley's for the actual donut. The toppings at Voodoo were insane though. We had Oreo with a peanut butter drizzle and a regular chocolate one. Yum .
Friday morning we woke up to more rain! So we took our time getting ready and eating breakfast at the hotel and moved some of our plans around a little bit. We decided to do the Capitol first since it was inside and would give the weather time to clear up.
We had to take a picture or two in this same spot since we'd come here
a few years ago.
We actually took a tour this time and loved it! I learned so much. I really like incorporating history into our travels. And I'm super proud to be an American and a Texan.
The tour included a new expansion, which I had no idea even existed! It was cool to spot the old part of the building in parts of the new.
The rain had finally cleared when we got out of the tour! So we headed over to Graffiti Park. It's hard to tell what used to be here - maybe it's an abandoned building? I don't know - but now it's just a bunch of cement walls that anyone can spray paint.
We climbed up to the top and enjoyed a pretty view of downtown Austin, mixed in with the graffiti.
Then we got to do some spray painting! I've never done that before and never thought vandalism was all that cool but after trying it out we have a new respect for people who do. It was certainly not easy and we didn't do anything particularly artistic.
T+C (+M+M+H) 4 eva!
Panoramic of the view up there. Gives you an idea of how high we climbed too.
There are lots of fun murals all over Austin, so we thought we'd better check some out.
By then we were hungry and ready for lunch! Home Slice Pizza was delicious. Maybe my favorite meal of the whole trip? It's so hard to pick a favorite. We really ate our way around!
We had garlic knots and a NY slice. Tyler says it's better in New York but we both really enjoyed it.
Another funny mural as we were leaving lunch.
We had hoped to do water bikes on Lady Bird Lake, but when we got there the place hadn't opened and they weren't answering the phone. I think they didn't expect anyone to come after the rainy morning. We still wanted to do something on the lake, so we rented a kayak from a different place and paddled around for a bit. It was a really nice day by then and we enjoyed the pretty lake.
We even went under Congress Bridge and could totally hear the bats up in it! It was kind of creepy.
After our time on the lake was up we drove around UT's campus for a little bit and found a cool store. We didn't go in but we should someday!
We then drove up to Round Rock and checked into a different hotel. We met up with Nathan and Charlee for dinner at Hopdoddy Burger Bar. Unfortunately, the only picture we remembered to get from that evening was of the two of us before they got there.
Hopdoddy was delicious (one of my favorite burgers ever!) and we went to Nathan and Charlee's house afterwards to hang out for a bit. It was fun to catch up with them and to see their house.
The next morning we donned our "Treat Yo Self" shirts (Parks and Rec fans?) and checked out.
Before heading home to the kids we treated ourselves to a massage! It was a great way to end an amazing trip.
The kids had plenty of fun without us! Mitchell and Shayna came into down and they had fun playing with them. Max got to go to a Langham football game and thought it was fun. He even got to meet the mascot, a Lobo! We got some pictures of their fun at Gigi and Poppy's.
Good times all around!
