Day 2 Austin

Tuesday, October 2, 2012 We headed into Austin with first stop being at the UT bookstore-east, to get a shirt for Quinton for Christmas and shirt for Jackson. Jodi tried on a few but couldn’t find anything she liked. Next stop, Whole Foods. Oh my, this is the mother ship of all Whole Foods, the first one in the nation. It is simply unbelievable. We were in absolute awe. Amazing bulk food section, with about 8 kinds of lentils, balsamic vinegar in bulk along with olive oil, agave nectar, honey, syrup. We bought some mandarin flavored balsamic. 14 kinds of soups, a vegan bar, salad bar, a humongous deli with all sorts of goodies, amazing cookies by the pound, 2 of the hugest olive bars with pesto, sun dried tomato pesto, tampenade, roasted bell peppers, prepared Indian, Mexican, Louisiana food, a BBQ bar, a fish taco bar. They also have a beer cooler with different sections for each section of the country and then international beers, huge wine section. Did I mention the multiple kinds of nuts you could grind into nut butter, some with chocolate in them. I sampled almond butter with chocolate. It’s a good thing I don’t have that at home! The day we were there was a city wide fundraiser for musicians of Austin and health insurance, so they had music going on all over the city. We were able to get a sandwich and soup and sit outside in their large area and listen to a band in the sun! It doesn’t get much better than this. Our plans were to come back to Whole foods for dinner and eat healthy.

 We’ll see how that evolves. We walked up and down a few block area to go to my favorite stores, Starbucks, Title 9, REI and West Elm. I could definitely live here. We then drove to Zilker Park and walked around, found Barton Spring but didn’t have our bathing suits, so walked on the trails.

 When we first got there, Jack saw a police car and wanted to ask him what they were setting up for, thinking it might have been the musician fundraiser, but no it was for this weekend, Austin City Limits, which is a huge music festival. We need to come sometime. They talked for a half an hour and our healthy dinner plans got shot to hell. Jack came back to the car and announced we were going to drive 20 miles away for a BBQ place called the Salt Lick. Good old Anthony Bordain and Andrew Zimmer have eaten there. How can I fight it? After walking around some more we drove back to Whole Foods for Tuesday Happy Hour at the Lamar Bar (in the store). They had 3 spanish wines for $2 a glass.. We sat around talking to the locals and getting tips on more restaurants (just what we need), and Barton Springs. A hairdresser was very helpful in recommending restaurants and told us the springs had been blessed by Buddhist Monks. We compared notes on Austin vs the Pacific NW. A guy came up with a six pack of beer from the beer cooler and told the waitress he was going to drink one before he shopped! She said great and put the other 5 in the cooler for him. What a great atmosphere, but it’s a good thing we can’t do this at home. Jack might go shopping on his own all the time and come home with a 4 pack! I forgot to mention we had to buy some beer (Moose Drool) to take to the Salt Lick as it is actually a BYOB restaurant with no corking fee. We LOVE Texas. On to The Salt Lick. Drove out of Austin in rush hour traffic, but that’s ok, Jack was on a mission.

 What a fun place with amazing BBQ. I had a 2 meat special with ribs, sausage, potato salad (not the typical mayonnaise salad)., coleslaw, beans, bread and pickles. Jack had the same except got brisket too. We loved the salads, they both had some kind of vinegar dressing which was wonderful. We had leftovers for lunch tomorrow. I took pictures, they welcome you behind the counter to take pictures of the meat cooking over the fire. This place is huge with their own smoking house. We couldn’t believe how busy it got on a Tuesday, considering there is not even a town we saw in Driftwood and Austin is 20 miles away. The food was great, however. Walked a tiny bit of our dinner off and then rushed back to Austin in time to see the bats again. I love those guys!