6th Street

I bought a half price fare card from Randalls, $5 for $10 worth of rides on the Cap Metro system. Pretty sweet deal when the fare is already only 50 cents.



We decided to use the bus to visit 6th street so that we wouldn't have to deal with parking or deal with driving with a buzz. There is a bus stop right next to the entrance of our building and the southern route goes to Barton Square Mall while the northern route goes to the capitol building with stops along Congress.

This is a pic we took on our December trip, hence the decor

We caught the bus and with stops, the trip took about 20 minutes to get to the intersection of 6th Street and Congress. We strolled the area and ended up on the rooftop deck of Maggie Maes. There was a band playing downstairs and the deck allowed for hearing the music but still being able to talk. Also, people watching from this perch was great. It was funny to watch the Sex And The City fans all dressed up to go to the opening weekend release at the Alamo Drafthouse across the street.



The Alamo was serving cosmos and a special menu for the release and it looked like it was a success. For the uninitiated, the Alamo Drafthouse is only the best movie theatre ever. They many locations throughout the area serve great food and drink to you while you sit and watch the movie. The 6th Street location at The Ritz also serves liquor while the other locations only have beer and wine.



After enjoying the evening, we caught the bus for the return trip. The bus system is very clean, efficient and seems to be on time. The drivers are helpful and polite and as I mentioned above, the price cannot be beat.

Barton Creek Greenbelt

Our apartment is located right next to the Barton Creek Greenbelt. The greenbelt is a hike and bike trail that begins in Zilker Park next to the Barton Springs Pool. It features sheer cliff walls, lush vegetation, waterfalls and swimming holes. This year has been abnormally dry so a lot of the creek bed is dry and most of the swimming holes are nonexistent.







We enter the trail at the Spyglass Access which is about a mile south of the Zilker Access. By bike we can get downtown in 10-15 minutes without going on a road. The cool thing is that the Greenbelt trail connects to the Town Lake trail so you can pretty much get anywhere in Austin via the trail system.

Local resident of the area

First Weekend

Our first weekend as residents in Austin began Saturday morning at the Sunset Valley Farmer's Market in the parking lot of the Toney Burger Center in the southwest part of town. When we visited last December we had gone to the Austin Farmer's Market on 4th & Guadalupe and we wanted to compare the two.

While Sunset Valley is much larger, it is also much busier. To us it did not have as good of a feel as the downtown market. The quality of the produce and meats looked to be similar, as did the prices. While we like the idea of buying local and supporting the farmers directly, we still find it hard to pull the trigger because of the increased cost. We bought some golden zucchini, mushrooms and sweet onions and the total was well over ten dollars.

While we were in the area we decided to check out the Central Market in the Westgate area. The produce looked just as good or better and even here at what people like to refer to as 'Central Markup', the produce was cheaper than at either of the farmer's markets. The rest of the store was setup a little too windy for my tastes with a lot of dead ends. I may be just be an old school shopper but give me my standard supermarket grid system please. It looks like our supermarket of choice will be the Randall's on Bee Caves.

Our first weekend was stuffed full of shopping expeditions. We located our local Target, Home Depot, Target, Kohls and of course the nearest mall. It turns out that the very nice Barton Square Mall is about 2 miles from our new home, not too bad when we were used to driving 20-30 minutes to get to a mall back in New Jersey.

We also ventured north to our nearest Ikea which is in Round Rock and then we swung around to the northwest part of Austin and found a Rooms To Go. Here we found and ordered our new sofa which will arrive on Tuesday.

Thankfully, shopping wasn't the only thing we accomplished this weekend. We also found time to walk the Town Lake trail and watch the bats. Sunday evening we went to the Long Center and watched the free concert on the lawn. Every Sunday the Austin Symphony puts on a different show called Concerts In The Park. A great way to end the weekend.

Relocubes Arrive

We survived the first night in our apartment without the basic necessities of 21st century life. No internet, no cable and no couch or bed. Not a single lux-ur-reeee. To show our priorities, we went out and bought a new television within a few hours of being here. Time Warner Cable will be here today along with the Relocubes. By the end of the day we should have internet, cable and a bed. Not bad for a day's work.



We got Taco Deli for our first lunch. We both got a Mole Taco (chicken with mole sauce garnished with cilantro, onion and crumbled queso fresco), and I got a Puerco Borracho taco (slow-roasted pork braised in tequila and sherry and seasoned with fresh basil and pasilla peppers) and Heather got a Mojo Fish Taco (tilapia fillet grilled with a mojo-galic sauce and garnished with our homemade guacamole and pico de gallo). Taco Deli is always voted one of the best tacos in Austin and now we know why.

The Road Trip (Day Five)

Welcome to Texas! Oh wait, we still have six more hours of battling semis with a little car.

Going through the big D and I do mean Dallas

So close I can taste it.

Oh wait, that's just a piece of burger i had stuck in my tooth.

The Road Trip (Day Four)

It gets hot early in Memphis. After seeing how much it cost just to park at Graceland (a lot), we didn't even bother to see how much the tour was (a lot lot lot more). We opted to check out the downtown and see what Beale Street is all about. We saw the Gibson factory, B.B. Kings and the Orpheum theatre. We also got our first glimpse of the mighty Mississippi River. It sure is muddy.

Gibson Factory in Memphis

Beale Street in Memphis

After tasty bacon and sausage biscuits from a small (closet-sized) breakfast shop, it was onward and outward to the "Natural State." I guess by natural they mean that there is NOTHING because, there is NOTHING. You want to know what we saw and did in fabulous Arkansas? NOTHING. Let me rephrase it a little bit: first there's nothing, then Little Rock, then nothing, then Texarkana.

Little Rock

70,000 miles!

Twice As Nice as what exactly?

The Road Trip (Day Three)

We headed south from Louisville and soon found ourselves at the birthplace and childhood home of Abraham Lincoln. After some stumbling and cursing we finally found our way to the childhood home (photo to your left). We also eventually located Abe's birthplace which was a little more established and better marked. We visited the memorial and watched a documentary and were on our way. Luckily, around this time, we crossed over into the central time zone so we gained an hour to make up for the lost time of driving all willy nilly through the backwoods of Kentucky.



Our goal was to eat at a BBQ place in Nashville and then look around downtown but our GPS got confused and had us on a down when we should've been on an up. The down set us on a westerdly course towards Memphis so we opted to go with the flow and save Nashville for a future excursion. We stopped about an hour east of Memphis in Jackson, the home of famous train engineer Casey Jones. The Day's Inn that we stayed at was located right next door to Casey Jones Village which is listed proudly as "One of Tennessee's Top 10 Travel Attractions."

Maybe next time Nashville

The Road Trip (Day Two)

After a visit to the Ohio Valley Mall for a good movie (Baby Mama) and a decent dinner (Garfield's), followed by a sleep at the Day's Inn, we were on our way in the western slash southern direction. We drove around Columbus (no photos) and straight through Cincinnati (hence the photo on the left)





Soon after, we arrived at Louisville. While it looked promising and we enjoyed the Slugger Museum, we found it impossible to find an open restaurant in downtown Louisville on a Sunday. There were some chain restaurants open in the 4th Street Live area but we were looking for a cool local downtown place and we struck out miserably. We ended up at a Beef O'Bradys near the University.

Approaching Louisville from interstate 71

The Banks Of The Ohio River In Louisville

The Road Trip (Day One)

If you count New Jersey, then this was the second state that we drove through. One word to describe Pennsylvania? Long. Another, more made up word? Tunnelly. We started west on interstate 78 which led us to 81 south. We went around Harrisburg and continued west on the lovely PA Turnpike. Wikipedia says the following: "When the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened in 1940, it was the first long-distance rural highway in the United States and was popularly known as the "tunnel highway" because of the seven mountain tunnels along its route."

Here are just a few of the tunnels that we encountered and eventually spelunked (surprisingly, there is not a past tense version of spelunk so I just made up 2 words for this one post). Also, notice how varied the architecture is on the tunnel entrances:

Materialistic My Arse

At this point and time, I believe I now have less possessions than I have had since being considered an adult. The car has been sold, the TV is a memory and where the furniture sat is now an empty space. Amazingly, we still need two Relocubes in order to fit all the other crap. It is really amazing how much stuff there really is when you Tetris it all together in geometric shapes.

The big road trip begins Saturday. I have booked rooms in St. Clairesville, Ohio (which is located just west of Wheeling, West Virginia), Louisville, Memphis and Texarkana. To keep the cost down we are using the Super 8 and Days Inn chains. Both are cheap and offer continental breakfasts and free wireless internet.