The first weekend in May, Bret and I took our first ever trip to Austin, TX. It is the state's capitol and our new favorite place in this gigantic state.
West Texas (where we live) is super duper dry and flat and blah. There just aren't a lot of trees (besides mesquite trees, which are... interesting) or greenery or mountains or really anything. East Texas is very humid and foresty. Austin is in the middle, in the heart of hill country, with lots of green but not much humidity. Maybe we just had a charmed weekend, but I fell in love with this city. It is about the size of Salt Lake... maybe a bit bigger, but it sort-ot spreads itself out into suburbs and is metropolitan but not intimidating.
I don't want to give you a travel-log, but here are some of our favorite pics to highlight our short vacation.
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| Bob Bullock Museum of Texas History (A really cool museum with that helped me understand why Texans are so darn cocky!) |
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| University of Texas at Austin Hook 'em Horns! |
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| We spent a couple hours wandering around the beautiful campus. This building was gorgeous, but the picture doesn't do it justice at all. |
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| My favorite part of UT Campus... the orange parking meters. |
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| Bret's favorite part of campus? Duh... the stadium! |
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| I don't know why they decided to put a charging horse on their campus, but I thought it was pretty cool. (I also recognize that I am a total geek for making Bret take this picture.) |
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| The State Capitol of Texas (this is the back side) |
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| City skyline from the steps of the capitol building. |
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| Bret and his role model George W. Bush. Bret wants to be just like him when he grows up :) |
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| My new favorite Mexican Restaurant every anywhere. Our waiter was the nicest ever and the food was AWESOME!!! |
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| View from Zilcher Park walk/bike trail (How beautiful is that skyline?) |
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| We saw all these kayaks and canoes out on the Ladybird Lake and decided to rent a boat the next morning. Best part of our trip! |
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| Perfect night. Perfect city. Perfectly happy together. |
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| View from Mt. Bonnell (this is looking away from the city but you can see the skyline from the other side) |
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| Picture taken at the Botanical Gardens. I love this handsome man. |
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| Japanese pond at the Botanical Gardens. |
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| Almost 3 years married and still think we are the happiest, luckiest couple in the world. |
We spent Friday afternoon/evening and Saturday morning in Austin. We loved just exploring and walking around. Hands down our favorite activity (no pictures, sorry) was kayaking on Ladybird "Lake" which is really more like a big river that runs right around the metropolitan area of the city. We sat in the sunshine (getting totally sunburnt) for two hours enjoying our surroundings... big buildings, cars, people, tall trees, art festivals in parks, people on runs and bike rides... this place has an incredible blend of urban and nature. There is so much LIFE with all the people and music and art, and yet you feel surrounded by beauty and the outdoors. I hope we get to spend a lot more time in Austin!
We topped off our trip by driving a couple hours to San Antonio to see the Livesy family. We hung out at their house, went to dinner at an incredibly beautiful restaurant, played with the kids, and enjoyed going to church with them. We are lucky to have such great friends who are so generous to us!
