We are sitting now at DFW waiting for our flight to Brazil and wondering whether we will get the cushy first class seats or not... but I realized that I have not posted up anything about our time in Texas.
The last week has been a good time as we explored Austin and rested up for the upcoming travels. This is going to be out of chronological order, but oh well.
Barton Springs. A natural swimming hole with chillingly refreshing water. For the hot days in Austin, the watering hole with its 70 degree ish water was a welcome relief. After jumping in and letting the body go numb it was quite nice. There was also a small sculture garden nearby, but like several other things we encountered, it was closing right as we arrived. Fortunately we did not have to pay the entry fee for our 15 minute walk around.
We also went with Phil and Maryann to Longhorn Caverns. A natural cave about 1.5 hours away. It was an interesting place and nice again because inside the cave the temperature does not go above 70 or so (a recurring theme you will notice is ways to avoid the heat). The cave had interesting history a as speakeasy during prohibition to a large scale public works project during the depression. Our guide did his best to ruin the tour with terrible grammar and a complete lack of scientific knowledge. Each of us latched onto something he said, but beyond that it was an interesting site. Examples include, please dont touch the rock formations as you will kill the rock. The place was used as a fallout shelter in case of nucular (not sure how to spell the fake word) attack. The crystals on the wall would glow and absorb energy when light was shown on them. And of course the constant "more brighter".
Marina and I were also able to explore a couple martial arts schools in the area. The people at South Austin Gracie Barra were awesome and the head instructor knew the head instructor from a school that I had visited in Honolulu. We were also able to box at Austin Kickboxing Academy despite their lack of air condititioning. We tried to go to the South Austin Gym, but a $25 drop in for a one hour class seemed a little too much to be worth it. Along with a few runs and trips to the UT gym, were finally able to be a little more active than earlier parts of the trip.
One of the first runs we went on took us to the Congress Bridge in the evening which is known for the flying of the bats. Apparently there is a large bat population that lives in the bridge and comes out most nights at sunset. We joined the throngs of people waiting and saw a very large group of bats (like a scene out of batman) come flying out at sunset.
Around the house there were a great many interesting food trucks and shops on south Congress st. They ranged from a smoothie shop to artisan grilled cheese, a burger place with hours wait in the evenings, great pizza, an amazing costume shop and a candy store with more choices to the point of overwhelming the senses among other stops on the strip. It was fun to explore and nice to be able to walk despite the overbearing (at times) heat.
The candy shop was a particular favorite for Marina who is now carrying several bags of candy and I am feeling a little sick from eating too much of mine.
We were also able to take in a cultural event, attending a speech by Robert Rietch (not sure on the spelling). There was a plan to explore the LBJ library at the same time, but was closed before we arrived. Another time perhaps. The speech was interesting, but could have used more detail as he mainly covered the pop ideas that are seen in the news without the substance to explore how they could really become reality. But was still interesting and he is a funny speaker despite his vertical challenge.
I should also state that this is being written on my new ipad mini tablet, which despite a current browser glitch with the page jumping around as I type is quite nice. Hopefully it will resolved itself and make writing a better experience in Brazil. Now we are waiting to board, updates from South America to follow.
The last week has been a good time as we explored Austin and rested up for the upcoming travels. This is going to be out of chronological order, but oh well.
Barton Springs. A natural swimming hole with chillingly refreshing water. For the hot days in Austin, the watering hole with its 70 degree ish water was a welcome relief. After jumping in and letting the body go numb it was quite nice. There was also a small sculture garden nearby, but like several other things we encountered, it was closing right as we arrived. Fortunately we did not have to pay the entry fee for our 15 minute walk around.
We also went with Phil and Maryann to Longhorn Caverns. A natural cave about 1.5 hours away. It was an interesting place and nice again because inside the cave the temperature does not go above 70 or so (a recurring theme you will notice is ways to avoid the heat). The cave had interesting history a as speakeasy during prohibition to a large scale public works project during the depression. Our guide did his best to ruin the tour with terrible grammar and a complete lack of scientific knowledge. Each of us latched onto something he said, but beyond that it was an interesting site. Examples include, please dont touch the rock formations as you will kill the rock. The place was used as a fallout shelter in case of nucular (not sure how to spell the fake word) attack. The crystals on the wall would glow and absorb energy when light was shown on them. And of course the constant "more brighter".
Marina and I were also able to explore a couple martial arts schools in the area. The people at South Austin Gracie Barra were awesome and the head instructor knew the head instructor from a school that I had visited in Honolulu. We were also able to box at Austin Kickboxing Academy despite their lack of air condititioning. We tried to go to the South Austin Gym, but a $25 drop in for a one hour class seemed a little too much to be worth it. Along with a few runs and trips to the UT gym, were finally able to be a little more active than earlier parts of the trip.
One of the first runs we went on took us to the Congress Bridge in the evening which is known for the flying of the bats. Apparently there is a large bat population that lives in the bridge and comes out most nights at sunset. We joined the throngs of people waiting and saw a very large group of bats (like a scene out of batman) come flying out at sunset.
Around the house there were a great many interesting food trucks and shops on south Congress st. They ranged from a smoothie shop to artisan grilled cheese, a burger place with hours wait in the evenings, great pizza, an amazing costume shop and a candy store with more choices to the point of overwhelming the senses among other stops on the strip. It was fun to explore and nice to be able to walk despite the overbearing (at times) heat.
The candy shop was a particular favorite for Marina who is now carrying several bags of candy and I am feeling a little sick from eating too much of mine.
We were also able to take in a cultural event, attending a speech by Robert Rietch (not sure on the spelling). There was a plan to explore the LBJ library at the same time, but was closed before we arrived. Another time perhaps. The speech was interesting, but could have used more detail as he mainly covered the pop ideas that are seen in the news without the substance to explore how they could really become reality. But was still interesting and he is a funny speaker despite his vertical challenge.
I should also state that this is being written on my new ipad mini tablet, which despite a current browser glitch with the page jumping around as I type is quite nice. Hopefully it will resolved itself and make writing a better experience in Brazil. Now we are waiting to board, updates from South America to follow.
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