Austin, University of Texas Austin

Friday, September 28, 2012

Took off for Austin this morning for the day.  What a fun day.  We arrived and parked near the Capitol and went through the Capitol building and the grounds.  They were very nice.  Built of red granite.  We opted out of the tour as there are lots of other places we want to go today.

  We then walked over to University of Texas Austin, home of the Long Horns.  We first went to the stadium, Darrel K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.  It is enormous seating more than 100,000.  There team mascot is “Bevo”, a longhorn steer with a 72 inch horn span! I wonder if they have a “habitat” for him like they do for Mike the Tiger.  I doubt it.  Texas fans use “Hook “Em Horns” as the battle cry heard on game day and also have a “Hook ‘Em” hand gesture created by a UT cheerleader in 1955.

 We walked to the UT Tower but no one is allowed in without a reservation since a shooting in 1966. 

Tower in background

 We found the turtle pond with lots of different kinds of turtles and then went to see the Gutenberg Bible and the Harry Ranson Center.  There are only 46 of them in the world and 5 in this country (I think).  Very beautiful.  We then walked over to The Texas Memorial Museum which has many dinosaur skeletons.  They have a Pterosaur, with a wingspan of nearly 40 feet, the largest flying creature ever found!.  They also have dinosaur tracks encased in front of the museum, experts speculate that the two sets of tracks show one dinosaur tracking another just before an attack.  Lastly we went to LBJ Library and Museum, unfortunately most of it is closed for renovation currently but we were able to see a replication of the Oval office and what it looked like when he was President.

Turtle pond on campus

Pterosaur

Replication of Oval office when LBJ was President

Esther's Follies

We walked down to 6^th Street, the Bourbon Street of Austin and down to Congress and the Bridge where we will return Monday night to see the bats come out.  Had a nice dinner with a few too many margaritas and then headed over to Esther’s Follies which is kind of like a Saturday Night Live show.  It was a riot. I haven’t laughed this hard in years, and then just listening to Jack laugh made me laugh harder They even use the street outside the window as part of the act which is hilarious as curious people walking by also get caught up in the show.  It was very politically incorrect.  No public figure is safe from these folks!  They also had an amazing magician which is always fun. Anyone coming to Austin has got to see Esther’s Follies

It started to rain or should I say pour after the show.  We had to drive back to San Antonio which is 70 miles away.  Even super speed windshield wipers could not keep up with the rain.  The freeway was really scarey.  We kept hydroplaning as there was so much water on the road.  We saw lots of accidents, one where a truck had jackknifed and another car was underneath part of it.  Ykes!  I guess it rained about 4 ½ inches in a short time.  The interesting thing is their storm drainage is completely different than ours with no underground drainage systems on the street at all.  We were relieved when we safely arrived back in San Antonio.