Austin, Texas...city of a thousand restaurants

On Friday, we drove to Austin, Texas, home of the South by Southwest Music Festival every year, which we intentionally missed by a week to avoid all the traffic. We set up camp in Cedar Creek east of Austin at The Oaks RV Park, a lovely campground close to the highway but far enough so that we can't hear the road noise. Perrrrfect!

We met Laura and Andy at their beautiful house on the west side of Austin and then headed to dinner at one of the city's many food trailers...a cross between a food truck and restaurant. The G'Raj Mahal is a little Indian food trailer with a folding table serving as the hostess stand and a couple dozen patio tables for seating. The place was swarmed with people but the place has BYOB, so we were fine for the time being. We must have waited over an hour, but the food was totally worth it. Great mix of yummy Indian dishes delivered in paper bowls, eaten with plasticware, served by a guy with a red mohawk named Dave. Awesome.

Part of the photoengraved magnesium
mural by Naomi Savage

On Saturday, we took in the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, a huge travertine building on the campus of the University of Texas. The LBJ Museum is, unfortunately, undergoing some renovations and the entirety of the museum's exhibits won't be available until January. Nonetheless, they have managed to keep some of the exhibits open and we thoroughly enjoyed those.

A video of LBJ's life began our tour and we learned about his humble upbringing in rural Texas, his pursuit of Lady Bird and his whirlwind political career. He campaigned against Kennedy and lost, but, of course, became Vice President. When Kennedy was assassinated in November of 1963, Johnson inherited the presidency along with the Vietnam conflict. He won the presidential election in 1964. Despite the stain on his administration of the extremely unpopular Vietnam War, Johnson managed to help pass an overwhelming number of social and educational bills during his tenure, including the Civil Rights Bill, Head Start and many, many others.

Notice the little Texas longhorn! HA!

We also found exhibits of world famous iconic photographs, ten original drawings from Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, portraits of all the First Ladies and former Presidents, and gifts sent from citizens to President Johnson during his administration. One really interesting aspect of the museum was an audio recording of Johnson spinning funny stories about country folks to make a political point and needle his opponents with humor.

Lady Bird Johnson portrait
by Norman Rockwell

Another portion of the museum was dedicated to Lady Bird. This remarkable woman made an indelible impression on the city of Austin with her Town Lake Park, a hike and bike trail surrounding what is now called Lady Bird Lake, as well as the National Wildflower Center (now called the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center). She advocated the preservation of native wildflowers across the country in order to beautify the natural landscape with sustainable plants. She was also a tireless champion of children's education, particularly of the poor. What a fascinating couple!

UT Tower

From there we proceeded to walk around the UT campus, finding a little turtle pond near the UT Tower full of turtles of many sizes, entertaining a small horde of humans. We stopped to watch them climbing all over each other for a while (the turtles, I mean). We took in a bit more of the campus around the tower and saw literally hundreds of students covered head to toe in different colors of fluorescent powder. They looked a bit like colorful zombies in search of brains. We tried not to engage them.

On Saturday evening, we met Ken's friend Don, whom he has known since the early 80's when they worked together on software security research at University of Texas. We spent a nice evening chatting with Don at a lovely Mexican restaurant called Manuel's.

The Salt Lick, Driftwood, Texas

On Sunday, we again met Laura and Andy, this time to visit the Salt Lick in Driftwood, Texas, a barbeque restaurant made famous by the Travel Channel's award as The #1 Barbecue in the Country. We agreed to go early so as to avoid the crush of usual dinner patrons, and we were pleasantly surprised to be seated immediately. The service is quick and friendly, the accommodations akin to a picnic table in a wood shed, dining on 60's green melamine camp plates. The family style meal is the way to go...bowls of filler...er, I mean, side dishes, and a big platter of tasty meats. The cole slaw and potato salad, though very good, are certainly not reasons 1 and 2 why we chose this place for lunch. The tender brisket and scrumptious pork ribs are. We ate our weight in meat and rolled ourselves out of there.

At the Salt Lick

So as not to slip into a food coma, we all strolled around the Zilker Botanical Garden for a while. The Botanical Gardens are loaded with native plants and trees, many of which were flowering. We even found a banana magnolia whose little blooms indeed smell like bananas. A turtle pond provided some amusement as we watched a couple of silver dollar pancake sized turtles swimming around.

Kite Eating Tree at Zilker Park

From there, Ken and I decided to go for a hike to work off some of lunch. We chose Zilker Park next to Lady Bird Lake and set off for a long walk. We were joined by hikers and bikers and strollers and dogs of all sizes and kinds, as it was such a beautiful and warm day. The lake was full of kayakers, canoers, paddle-boarders and such. Everybody was outside getting exercise. Ken even found a tree that had eaten at least a couple dozen kites in its day. Austin is a very active city with miles and miles of biking lanes and walking paths, and a particular affinity for running. (We didn't run. No one was chasing.)

In the late afternoon, we retreated to the RV for a relaxing happy hour that lasted several. Great weekend!