Austin

McKinney Falls State Park is located 10 miles from downtown Austin and is beautiful. It is in the Hill Country of Texas, with the terrain changing from flat stretches of mostly sandy soils and tall pines to gently rolling hills full of thickets of relatively short trees and cactus. Our campsite was huge, with a gently curving pull-through slot for the truck and trailer. The design was perfect. While enjoying the site, we saw no sign of other people or vehicles, even though the sites on both sides of us were occupied.



The falls are divided into upper and lower falls; this is the lower and larger of the two. It's still not very high, but it is wide, and neither of us had ever seen waterfalls going over an escarpment like this.



Bill rode the park's 3-mile bike trail to scout it out for Karen, who was once a fairly serious cyclist but hasn't ridden in 14 years. Once we were on the trail together, Karen proved that you really can forget how to ride a bike by promptly falling to the ground in front of a woman on a Scooter and her husband, who thought a crash was coming and gallantly stepped between Karen and the Scooter. OK, what happened was this: Karen saw the elderly couple coming around a curve too late, hit the breaks hard, and avoided hitting them. All was fine for a split second, but then Karen couldn't get her left foot out of the toe clip and took one of those weird, slow-motion Arte Johnson falls right in front of the man, standing in front of his wife. Of course, Bill then demonstrated the joys of clipless pedals, over and over again. Later in the ride, Bill saw a coyote cross the trail in front of him.

Saturday February 27:

Austin was one of the must-see destinations on our trip because we wanted to see the memorial statue of Stevie Ray Vaughan, and it was wonderful. Photos really don't do it justice at all. Someone had left flowers there for Stevie. The statue is located along the water in Auditorium Shores, a beautiful park between W. Riverside Drive and Lady Bird Lake (which is apparently the name of part of a river flowing through Austin).



The park was full of folks walking, running, biking, reading, and just enjoying the weather. There were also about a hundred dogs having the time of their lives. The park is not fenced, and all the dogs were well-trained. We didn't see one get anywhere near the road.



A pedestrian/bike bridge crosses the river to the city, where we joined lots of other people for lunch and grocery shopping at Whole Foods on the corner of W. 6th St.and N. Lamar Blvd. Karen was happy with the amazing variety of vegetarian offerings and selected Kung Pao Tofu, which was delicious!

The Pfluger Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge, with a Texas star on each arch of the supports:



The Capitol and a couple neat old buildings we stumbled upon while walking around Austin:







It was nice to see Lance Armstrong's bike shop, Mellow Johnny's, and the Lance Armstrong Bikeway.





Dinner at Stubb's Bar-B-Q was good, with fried green tomatoes for Karen and a barbecue assortment for Bill, but we were sad to see that there was not one picture of Stevie Ray Vaughan in the whole place.



Walking up and down E. 6th St. was really fun, as all the bars had their doors thrown open, and the conversations and music drifted out to the sidewalk. Two blocks of live music venues; what a treat! But we missed Barkley and headed back to camp at 7:30, so we heard only a few musicians on E. 6th.



A door decorated with beer bottle caps: