I recently took a mini road trip with my wife and mother-in-law to the Texas capital city of Austin. It is the 34th largest city in the country and has close to 850,000 people living in the city limits. The main things known to this part of Texas is the music scene and the food. They know how to do it right here in this neck of the woods! There is some great eating, including some of the best BBQ joints in the country. Also, Austin is home to one of the best schools around, the University of Texas.
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| Texas State Capitol |
Upon arriving in Austin, we went straight to the capitol for a tour. They are free are leave around every 15 minutes from the lobby. This capitol was modeled after our U.S. Capitol, but since everything is bigger in Texas, they went ahead and made this one 11ft taller! Go figure. The tour was quite informative, as one would expect. They took us to both the Senate and House of Reps chambers as well as the annex part of the capitol which goes four floors underground and out towards the north side of the building. The tour itself is only about 30 minutes long so if you are in town, go check it out.
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| House of Representatives |
You can also tour some of Austin through the
Austin Duck Adventures. You get in an amphibious vehicle with an excited tour guide who takes you through downtown and the outskirts of Austin and then end up boating around Lake Austin for 20 minutes. I won't give away some of the "secrets" of the tour but you will find out some celebrities that live in Austin and some other neat facts about the city as well.
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| Duck tour. Image from austinducks.com |
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| UT campus and bell tower |
The Salt Lick is one of those places you must go to if you're ever in Austin. The main location is located in Driftwood, TX which is about 30 minutes southeast of downtown. There is also another location in Round Rock, TX approx. 25 minutes north and a final spot in the Austin International Airport. We went to the main location and it was well worth it. We actually loved it so much we went there two nights in a row! It's not a bad drive at all and it takes you more into the countryside with the rolling hills and trees everywhere. It is very beautiful. Once you arrive you'll see a huge gravel parking area because depending on the time of day that you come, it is going to be packed! People flock here from all around to get at some great food. The prices are not too bad either. The combo plates are $13.95 and that includes the beans, slaw and some good ole potato salad which has their awesome BBQ sauce in it.
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| The Salt Lick menu |
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| Atmosphere at The Salt Lick |
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| Combo plate with ribs and brisket |
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| Outside view of the dining area |
We did not get to try the #1 voted BBQ joint in Austin called
Franklin Barbeque. He is only open for lunch starting at 11am and then closes when he is sold out of everything. And this usually happens pretty quickly. Every single day since they opened their place in 2011, they have sold out of brisket. Tell me that is not amazing. People line up for hours prior to opening so they can get a taste of this great stuff.Would you be willing to stand outside in a line for a few hours just to try some?! Next time I am in Austin I plan to.
From March to early fall, you can go and see the Mexican free-tailed bats at the Congress Ave. bridge. There are anywhere from 750,000-1.5 million bats that come out every night at sunset to feed! It is a pretty cool thing to see. When you are sitting and waiting for them to start to fly out and feast you can hear them squeaking in anticipation. The bridge is located in downtown Austin and it crosses over Lady Bird Lake aka the Colorado River. It can take up to 45 minutes or so for all the bats to fly out into the evening and they are estimated to consume anywhere from 10,000-30,000 lbs of insects per night! That is a ton of bats.
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| Congress Ave. Bridge |
Another local hot spot right on Lake Austin, west of the downtown area is the
Hula Hut. It is Mexican food with a surfer twist. I have the BBQ chicken tacos and they were very good. The bbq sauce on them was extremely good. There is also a little bakery/coffee shop near here called
Mozart's. They have a ton of selections of desserts and I highly recommend checking it out if in the area.
There are also plenty of museums to hit up while in town. We only went to the
Bullock Texas State History Museum. I learned a ton of stuff just by walking around for an hour or so on the three floors in the building. If you are a history buff this is a must do. They have ticket options to see a short film about Texas as well as seeing the feature film on IMAX. Well worth it.
Austin is a very relaxed, fun city to come visit be it for a day, a couple days or more. There may be some wacky people here but there is plenty to see and do here and you won't regret visiting.
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