The rest of my trip to Austin

I am going to skip the boring details like how my flight got delayed due to a mechanical problem and I rebooked myself so I made it to Austin closer to the original time, and because of that got to fly first class from Atlanta to Austin. Instead, I will jump right in to the other half of the trip (the non-ACLFest):


Friday morning, when I was finally up and ready to go, Brad came and picked me up. Alisha had some work to do (preparing a grant proposal), we met her for lunch. We had Indian food (I can't remember the name of the restaurant). I got a small tour of the UT Austin campus. It's downtown, and it reminded me a lot of SCAD, only it was more localized and not spread out like SCAD.

Everything is orange, even the meters (this is for you greg!)

Brad, Scott, Anil and I headed down to ACLFest with Lizzie. Alisha came later, after she picked up Maddie from school. By the end of the festival on Friday night, Lizzie had enough. She was sleeping in her stroller, but wasn't strapped in. She likes to move in her sleep and was basically wiggling her way out of the stroller. It was a little chilly that night, so I put her on my lap to keep me warm, and to keep her from falling... this is how she finally fell back to sleep.

Saturday was Maddie's birthday. She's showing off the new shoes that had Dora on them! She opened a lot of presents that morning (from Brad's parents).

One of the things she got was a princess crown. She was wearing it in the car, but then put it on me. (not like I'm used to wearing a tiara or anything...)

By Monday, we were pretty tuckered out. Maddie went to school, Alisha went back to work and Brad took me on a longer tour of Austin. Here's the Capitol building. (Capitol as in the state is spelled with an "o" like the shape of the dome. Capital as in a letter, is spelled with an "a". Just in case you wanted to know!)

This is me on the front steps of the Capitol building with the rest of Austin in the background.

Inside the Capitol Building, looking down (from the second floor) at the mosaic under the dome.


Looking up at the dome!


The door hinges.


The artisan well outside of the Capitol Building. It did work, a slow trickle of water finally came out.

This is the staircase inside the Visitor's Center. There was a main staircase too. We just happened to find this one first.

This is the Texas State History museum. It had a large, beautiful mosaic tile floor right inside the door. But it was so big, like everything in Texas, that I wouldn't have been able to get a good enough picture of it. I liked the Lone Star out front.

Brad wanted to show me this beautiful fountain, but there was no water running that day. The tower is in the background.

Chuy's, where Alisha and I ate lunch. Yum! It was a great lunch.

Maddie opens her birthday card from Bill and me.

Bill and I bought Maddie the Skippyjon Jones books for her birthday (Skylar loved these). They are about a Siamese cat who thinks he's a Chihuahua and the adventures/mischief that he gets into. She loved them both. I read them to her, Brad read them to her, and I think she would have let everybody read them to her if she hadn't fallen asleep!

So that was my trip to Austin. Oh I should end with this: when I got to the airport Tuesday morning, they offered the last first class seat available for $50. Nobody went for it, so I did. I could get used to that!