Austin, Texas

Visited Feb. 27 - Mar. 7, 2021

 

By Janell

We spent nine nights in Austin. We reconnected with a few of Marty's former co-workers, and since Austin has a lot of things to see and do, we wanted enough time for both. 

One of the things that Austin is most known for is live music. Unfortunately due to Covid, the live music scene is . . . well, dead. We'll have to come back!

We had a few interesting neighbors in our RV park in East Austin:

A new neighbor moved in next door . . . definitely not your run-of-the-mill motorhome!

 

Feel free to Google "Charlie Rocket's Dream Machine" if you're curious

 

Also neighbors - but fortunately not right next door!

Our RV park owner and/or his father own this adjacent property and these amazing Texas Longhorn steers! We were also told that they own the longhorn named "Bevo", who is the live mascot for the  University of Texas at Austin. 

The horns on the black and white one are easily three feet long on each side of his head. You should see him swing his head back and forth; those horns look very unwieldy! Glad I don't have to carry them around!

BTW, my high school mascot was a longhorn: La Sierra Longhorns in Carmichael, CA. (La Sierra High School closed permanently in 1983 due to low enrollment in the area, three years after I graduated)

 

Check out this video of bath time for "baby":

These three were right across the camp road from us, and they were extremely well behaved.

 

 

Austin is a growing city! We saw a lot of buildings under construction -- commercial and residential.

As you'll soon see, Austin is sweet on Willie. I think I'd vote for him.

And then he stopped to pick up a pizza!

Great name, huh?! We kind of wished we had a costume party to go to.

The infamous tower at the University of Texas at Austin

On August 1, 1966 a former Marine took rifles and other weapons to the observation deck at the top of this tower where he proceeded to open fire on those down below, killing 15. At the time, the attack was the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in US history.

Austin is the state capital, and their building is made from Texas Pink Granite

Marty was already familiar with Texas Pink Granite from his days of working at the Wells Fargo Center (the tallest building in Sacramento), which is clad in Texas Pink Granite.

Looking up into the dome. You can probably just make out the letters T-E-X-A-S around the star.

Looking down at the Texas star from the third floor of the capitol building

We happened to visit the Texas State Capitol on Texas Independence Day, March 2

On this date in 1836 the settlers broke away from Mexico to create the Republic of Texas. (Less than ten years later, on December 29, 1845, Texas officially became the 28th state in the Union.)

Marty & Willie

This is "Tesla Giga Texas"! It's easily a mile in length alongside Highway 130.

The cost to build it is estimated at $1 billion, and it will employ 5,000 people.

On a gorgeous, sunny day we biked an 11-mile loop on the Roy and Ann Butler Hike and Bike Trail, which runs right along Lady Bird Lake (as in Lady Bird Johnson) in Austin.

Lady Bird Lake as seen from the bike trail

These next few photos are either right on the bike trail or very near to it:

I love this mural!!!

Stevie Ray Vaughan (October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990)

Stevie Ray Vaughan was born and raised in Dallas, TX. He started playing guitar at age seven, and in 1972 he dropped out of high school and moved to Austin where his music career really took off. Sadly, he was killed in a helicopter crash at the age of 35.

We stopped for a photo op with Willie Nelson, which is on Willie Nelson Blvd (aka 2nd Street)

I told you that Austin is fond of Willie! (So is Marty, but then everybody already knows that! 😉)

Austin City Limits, the longest-running music series in American television history, recorded its pilot episode in October 1974, and it featured Willie Nelson. Willie went on to appear in 17 episodes of the show.

Still on the bike trail:

We saw dozens and dozens of turtles swimming around and sunning themselves.

We're not sure what the story is with the two turtles in this video, but we like to think it's a mother and son. He just wants to play, and mama just wants Five Minutes' Peace! (Mothers everywhere can relate to that story!)

No wonder there are so many turtles!

After the bike ride, we went to Mt. Bonnell:

Walk up 106 steps to Mount Bonnell . . .

and you'll be rewarded with this view!

Mt. Bonnell, located in Covert Park, is considered the highest point in Austin at 775 feet

On our last day in Austin we did one more bike ride: the Veloway! This was the first of its kind in the US. It's a 23' wide, 3.1 miles long paved bicycle tract through natural terrain, and one is to travel clockwise only; so there are no bikes coming at you. Apparently people travel from all over the area to cycle here daily -- and we came all the way from California! (Well, we just learned about it a short time ago, but still, here we are!) It's a path created for bicycles and inline skating; no foot traffic, hikers or pets are allowed. 

This all sounded great to me! Upon arriving in the morning, we stood and read the rules and information. I read the following paragraph:

Mount Everest

This is the steepest part of the Veloway - one brief but brutal ascent. To make it more interesting, there’s a hard right turn at the base, so oncoming traffic is driven by the urge to get up as much speed as possible for the ascent, while not being able to see whether the way is clear until the last second.

and instantly my insides turned to butterflies!

Anyway, the butterflies were all for naught! While the last-minute curve before the climb was annoying and didn't allow me to build much (any?) speed, the hill did not kill me. In fact, there's a brutal hill in Livermore that gives me more trouble, and that's with a straight shot to build up speed. 

The course was quite fun, and we went around it four times!

See the round mirror off to the left? There were a few of these on the track, and I think they're meant to be useful and not add anxiety! 😅

Marty reenacts his victory pose from his 2019 cross-country ride!

Visiting The Bullock Texas State History Museum was our last Austin activity. This was a very interesting and well put together museum. And we thought they handled the Covid situation quite cleverly also. Check out these two signs from inside the museum.

 

The Bullock museum had a lot of interesting exhibits, but one of the biggest exhibits, and I think one of the most interesting was the story of the La Belle.

The preserved hull of the La Belle

In 1684, French King Louis XIV sent explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, with four ships and 400 people to North America. He was supposed to land at the mouth of the Mississippi River, establish a colony and trade routes, and locate Spanish silver mines. Instead, La Salle lost ships to pirates and disaster, sailed past his destination, and was murdered by his own men.

In 1686, La Belle, the one remaining expedition ship, wrecked in a storm and sank to the muddy bottom of Matagorda Bay where it rested undisturbed for over 300 years. 

In 1995 archaeologists found the ship in about 12 feet of water. A massive water-tight cofferdam enclosure was built around the wreck to allow archaeologists to pump out all the water surrounding the ship. They uncovered 1/3 of the ship's hull and more than 1.8 million artifacts preserved in the mud!

 

Many of the recovered artifacts

The Story of Texas: Born Around the Campfires of our Past

This is a very unique floor mosaic at the entrance to the museum; you are viewing it from two floors up.

Of all the states we've been to, Texas is by far the proudest of its state flag. They are everywhere!

We've noticed all across the country that Camping World (an RV/camping supply store and RV sales/service) always has a FULL size American flag -- as in the size they fly at our nation's capital. This particular Camping World (somewhere in Texas on our drive from Austin to Grapevine) is the only one we've seen that not only flew the U.S. flag but the state flag as well. And the state flag was a FULL size one also!