Texas Capitol, Austin, TX – 9/24/2016
September 24, 2016 (Saturday)
We both slept well in the ultra soft and comfortable bed and bedding, but we finally pulled ourselves out of bed to go downstairs to the breakfast buffet. The buffet was a really good one with bagels, toast, muffins, pancakes, waffles, eggs, yogurt, cereal, and lots of other things. Really good.
The drive today was a little over 100 miles to Austin, Texas. We got another Priceline hotel deal in Austin, an Extended Stay, which was $65.65 a night (we got two nights). The weather was the usual Texas weather we’ve been experiencing – blue skies, rain, grey clouds, rain, HOT, weird. There were almost no interstates but the roads were good.
We got into Austin around noon and headed straight to the Capitol. The Capitol (like a lot that we’ve seen lately) is being worked on. They have a garage about two blocks from the Capitol that we parked in and walked up the slight hill. The whole Capitol complex is secure so you have to park outside the perimeter.
We walked around the grounds and enjoyed the statues and plaques. We then walked up the stairs and around to get into the Capitol building and go through security.
There were lots and lots of people visiting the Texas Capitol. Not sure if it’s because it’s Texas, or because it’s a Saturday, but every other Capitol we’ve visited did not have many people. The interior was lovely but not what we were expecting. We’ve heard for years that “everything’s bigger in Texas; everything’s better in Texas” (except waterfalls). We expected the Capitol to be both bigger and better. We were both underwhelmed. It’s lovely, don’t get me wrong, but nothing spectacular (like the Nebraska State Capitol); or artistic (like the Arkansas State Capitol).
We waited around for a tour but the tour leader was very hard to understand, and with all the people, her speaking softly and with a heavy accent, we decided to wait for the next tour. (The tours run about every thirty minutes.) The next tour started and the tour leader was even harder to understand than the first one – so we just headed off on our own with a little map we had.
We started on the top floor and worked our way down. Like I said before, we were both underwhelmed. That’s why I don’t like to have any expectations going into something.
We left and went outside and walked around the other side of the Capitol building and then down to the car.
We left and headed to our “home” for the next two nights. We put in the address in our phone GPS and headed out. Got to see some pretty country around Austin, the river and lots of greenery. Only problem was it took us to the wrong address. Roads in Texas are weird I tell you. We called Extended Stay and the hotel clerk gave us a physical address nearby that she said should work to get us there. We plugged it in and discovered it was about 15 miles from us. Ugggg but another adventure! We got to see the river and all the greenery all over again on the way back.
We found our “home” (finally) and it is fun. It has it’s own kitchen, little living area, little dining area, and a bedroom. After we rested for a little bit, we headed out to another Cheesecake Factory (they have two in Austin), which was about five miles away. It was not busy and we got seated right away. Michael ordered a BBQ chicken salad, and I got some garlic noodles. Both were delicious. We ordered a snickers cheesecake slice to go.
After the Cheesecake Factory we headed down the street a little bit to the Costco. Michael was needing to get new t-shirts and socks. He picked up another shirt as we left his really good one at niece Natalie’s home. We scored some gas at $1.76 a gallon at Costco while we were there!
That was our day. Hope yours was great!