Austin! Day 2

Sunday, July 4th

Independence Day! The first thing on the agenda for us was to hit up the coffee shop called "The Houndstooth," recommended by Tom at The Coffee Ethic in Springfield. When we walked through the door and I saw "cortado" on the menu I was in a state of bliss. The Ethic introduced this tasty drink just this summer and I fell in love. I knew right away that we would have to visit The Houndstooth just about everyday we were in Austin. :) If you're ever in the Austin area, you should definitely step in and check it out.



After our caffeine fix, we visited the farmer's market on 5th street. A few of the booths mentioned that the pickings were a little slim due to the holiday. Nevertheless, the area was very cute and had plentiful produce. After the market we took a stroll down 6th street and stopped in a few shops. The street was made up of mostly pubs, but we ended up purchasing a bumper sticker for our friend, Leslie. Her one request was a bumper sticker that said "Keep Austin Weird." Mission: Accomplished. :)



For lunch we went to Chelsea's aunt and uncle's house for hamburger's and ribs. I ended up talking with her uncle for about an hour or two about Pittsburgh. He visits up there often and loves the city and Primanti Bros., of course. This means "instant friend" in my book. (twinge of homesickness) Oh yes, and he loves Volkswagen so that was a topic of conversation as well. If only Brock and I had purchased The Thing in Marionville last year...

After lunch, we drove downtown to the Congress Bridge to watch the hundreds of thousands of bats that are supposed to fly out and fill the sky at dusk. They made plenty of noise, but decided not to make an appearance, so we just sat and waited for the city fireworks. The fireworks were not much to look at, so we ended up leaving about five minutes before they were over to beat the majority of the traffic. This definitely did not happen...we were stuck in traffic (human and vehicle traffic) for two hours...craziness...I don't even want to relive that, so we'll just leave it at that.

As soon as we got back to the house we were staying at, we put on some B. B. King and relaxed on the couch reading our books. After all of the chaos of traffic, it was a great end to the night with the King.