By the Time You Read This, I May Have Moved to Austin.

Austin – Day Two (Tuesday)

At last! We arrived in Austin at around 11:30pm on Monday night and were welcomed by my friend Tracie’s sweet friends Tara and John. They took one look at our tear-stained cheeks and travel-rumpled clothes… and immediately offered us wine. Clearly, Tara and John are our kind of people.

In-the-process-of-being-converted garage =
power outlets on the ceiling.

We took over their in-the-process-of-being-converted garage and snuggled in for a brief 5 hours of sleep to prepare for….

TUESDAY!

At 5:30am, Stacey roused us from our slumbers and we trundled outside in the morning half-light to watch the sun rise. Mount Bonelle is the highest point in Austin. It can be summated by climbing 100 steps and, from its peak, offers a panoramic view of the city. Sounds good to me… But, “Mount”? That’ll do, Austin Tourism Bureau. If I can reach the summit in less than 5 minutes and/or without getting winded, that geological formation does not deserve the title of “Mount.”

Hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself. Back at John and Tara’s…

The night before, John informed us that Hill Bonelle was a mere 15 minutes away. Under this advisement, we left about 35 minutes before sunrise. Stacey Googled a Starbucks on the way-ish but, because Texan highways make zero sense, we got immediately lost. And stuck in more traffic. AND, after consulting GPS and Google Maps, we realized that John was on crack last night, because Hill Bonelle was 25 minutes away from their house.

Here is where the Law of Jinx comes into play. If we had said, “Oh we can make it!”… we definitely would not have made it. By keeping our expectations low and refusing to bow to the pressure of optimism, we ensured that we DID, in fact, make it up all 100 steps to the peak of Hill Bonelle before the sun rose. BAM! Suck it, Jinx!

The "hike" to "Mount" Bonelle

At the summit!

Good morning, Austin!

Gettin' sassy on the Mount

Brunch at Kerbey Lane Cafe

Freaking delicious. And yes, those are Lemon Poppyseed Pancakes.

Unfortunately, Jinx wasn’t done with our ragtag crew. Stacey discovered while at brunch that her credit card was missing again. (We now staple it to her ass every morning.) “Maybe it fell out of my clutch when we unpacked the car last night,” she mused. To keep her from freaking out, Allison and I eagerly agreed: “Of course! It’s probably lying in the driveway at Tara and John’s! Nothing to worry about! It’ll definitely be there!”

Jinx is a cruel mistress. The credit card was not there. By this time, however, Stacey was getting wise: “It must’ve been stolen,” she said. “I know it’s not in the house.” And where should we find it? Under her exploded suitcase, in the in-the-process-of-being-converted garage.

Crisis averted, we headed back to downtown Austin to explore Zilker Park and Town Lake by bicycle. I freaking love biking around (flat) places: there’s a built-in breeze, it feels vaguely athletic, and the scenery goes by quickly enough that I don’t lose interest. On this blisteringly hot day, we hit the road with chilled water bottles (which promptly became lukewarm) and a park map that we didn’t actually need, since Stacey has an internal GPS that never ceases to amaze me/make me look like a cross-eyed fool.

Let the Ninny BikeFest begin!

On the Lady Bird Lake trail

Zilker Park : Austin :: Central Park : NYC, except maybe awesomer. There’s a big stretch of trail next to the river designated as an off-leash zone. So, as we cycled by, dozens of dogs bounded around, jumped in the water, chased each other, and made me miss Rowdy and Bruiser like crazy.

Look at the puppies playin' in the water :) 

Zilker Park is also home to Barton Springs, a section of the Colorado River that has been dammed off to provide a natural swimming hole for Austinites. In spite of the 15-year-old “lifeguard” on duty who demanded that we eat our apples before entering the pool area, Barton Springs was stellar. We lay on a grassy hillside, drank lukewarm Coke Zeros, and read magazines. After an hour or so, we ventured to the water’s edge and HOLY GOD it was frigid! We did swim to the other side and back (because Allison’s a masochist) and, once my extremities went numb, I decided that it really wasn’t that bad.

Barton Springs

Rockin' our Barton Springs admission hand stamps.

Fast-forward through a delicious bowl of guacamole and some miscellaneous other stops…

Pretties on the bridge, waitin' on those bats!

We rounded out our active day with a sunset bat-viewing at the Congress Street bridge. Apparently a herd of bats lives underneath the bridge and they fly out at the stroke of sunset to search for prey. Granted, Austin is nicknamed the Bat City… but I still didn’t anticipate seeing more than 10 or 20 bats. Nevertheless we arrived in the general vicinity of the bridge at 7:50pm for the 7:45pm sunset, parked illegally, and rushed across four lanes of rush-hour traffic to… wait awkwardly while those bats took their sweet ass time. At about 8:10pm, after we had tired of taking faux-candid photos and spying on fellow tourists, the squeaks and rustles from under the bridge began to intensify. All at once, a veritable flood of bats zoomed from beneath the bridge up to tree-level, and then zigzagged along the river into the distance. Very cool. But what really blew my mind was that the bats just kept on coming! (Nope, that’s not what she said.) We stood there and gawked for about 20 minutes, and they were still streaming out when we left. Dang Austin! You may tell some white lies regarding the mountainousness of your topography, but you’ve definitely earned the Bat City moniker. 

Look at them go!