Austin

Republic of Austin. 2/24/2011

With an average of 300 days of sunshine and if you love biking Austin is your city. In a land area of 272 square miles, including 7 square miles of water, Austin has approximately 193 miles of bike trails. The grocer Whole Foods has a bike park area with air pumps and enough tools to fix your bike. This month Austin is hosting the North American Hand Made Bicycle Show with local bike builders; Crumpton Cycles, Alchemy Bicycle Company, Kirk Lee Bicycles, True Fabrication are showing special carbon fibre fabrications. As a matter of fact biking is so popular here that dealers offer loaner bicycles. According to Pam LeBlanc of the Austin American-Statesman, Austin Continental Automotive Group; Honda, Subaru and Infinity will provide loaner bikes when you drop the car off for service. The idea might work for the Honda and Subaru crowd but I would be shocked if an Infinity customer was willing to take a bike after spending 60K on a car. Especially after showing up at the dealer in a Dolce & Gabbana suit and alligator boots, or a middle aged woman in a Dior dress and stiletto heels.

Keep it weird 3/22/2011

Austin is famous for its unusual and sometimes bizarre look of stores and restaurants. The idea is to make the establishments look somewhat rustic as they did in the old southwest. The most prominent locations for weirdness are on South Congress, Barton Springs Road near Zilker park and 6th St. All these areas are very popular with the locals and tourists. In the middle of March Austin holds its famous South by South West film and music festival. The film festival showed the documentary of Ayrton Senna the Brazilian F1 driver's extraordinary racing career and life. Fortunately it was it was featured in Austin at the time we were here. The SXSW music festival had over 1,950 bands, some playing in parking lots, street corners, someone's backyards and clubs and restaurants, although only a few bands were actually worth listening to. The best part of SXSWwas people watching. The most popular attire for girls was black ripped stockings, and for the boys it was multi-hued spiked hair.

On the way home we stopped in Branson, MO stayed at the Wyndham Branson at the Meadows Resort to delay our trip to Wisconsin for a week. Click here to view pictures and videos from Branson.

Link to bike maps and dashboards shown on videos

Lone Star Winter. 1/1/2011

We left for Austin on the 29th of December, again escaping Wisconsin winters, for warmer weather. This year we drove our trusty old Range Rover Discovery with a little more room to carry Margee’s luggage and Dominic’s toys. The trip will take us past St. Louis with the first stop in Springfield, MO. Springfield’s claim to fame was the first recorded “quick draw” shootout in the town square between Wild Bill Hickok and Davis Tutt Jr. The trouble started during a poker game where Tutt claimed he was cheated. Tutt missed from 75 yards and Hickok killed him with a bullet through the heart. The next day we proceeded through Tulsa, OK and stopped in Desoto, Texas, just outside Dallas. The snow line ended just past Springfield, IL.
We arrived in Desoto fairly early in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve, named after Dr. Thomas Hernando Desoto Stewart  who was a doctor dedicated to the community. Desoto also lies on the famous Shawnee cattle trail, (now interstate highway 35) one of the earliest routes by which Texas Long Horn cattle were taken to rail yards in the north.  Our early arrival gave us a chance to stroll around the town, not much to see, but we did walk past a discount liquor store. Since it was New Year’s Eve we decided to look for our favorite Italian champagne, Prosecco, to celebrate New Year after dinner. But no one in the store ever heard of it. So we sprung for a Californian Brut extra dry. We were surprised that it was very good, not having experienced many Californian champagnes. At our age we celebrated the New Year on European time.
Every trip we take Margee brings a selection of books on CD to listen on long drives in the wilderness of the flat and fertile Midwest and arid Southwest. The books she selects from the library are usually mysteries with the story plots located in states we are visiting. The book we listened to was Rain Gods by James Lee Burke, narrated by Tom Stechschulte, a total of 14 disks, almost 16 hours, too many to finish during the drive. The story is about a Sheriff in a small Texas town investigating the murder of illegal aliens.
On New Year’s day we had a short trip to Austin but could not enter our rental until after 3 pm. At noon we had to find a sports bar so that Margee could watch her beloved Wolverines in the Gator Bowl. Michigan got totally embarrassed by Mississippi State and the coach got fired. The bar we found by accident, by walking to a different bar, was a New Orleans themed bar, called Shoal Creek Saloon that is the hangout for Saint’s fans. The bar features southern Louisiana cuisine and Abita beer made near New Orleans. We had such a good time reminiscing about our stay in New Orleans last year, that we went back on Sunday to watch the Green Bay, Chicago game.  

The Austin house is located in Travis County in a section of the city called Barton Hills. The front porch faces downtown Austin and it’s a half mile from Zilker Park, Austin Nature Center and Barton Springs Pool. Barton Springs Pool was involved in a documentary called “The Unforeseen” shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007. Produced by Robert Redford and directed by Laura Dunn. The house is a comfortable 2 bedroom house located in a hilly neighborhood near many biking and walking trails. It was remodeled in 2010, so everything is new and attractive. A bus runs right in front, and Margee plans to try riding it downtown to the Austin Central Library and to explore the area.