Day 34 - Austin: Cosmic Coffee, Umlauf Sculpture Garden, Carver Museum

Last night it was balmy, walking along Sixth street. This morning the temperature has dropped. They say tonight it's going to freeze. Figure that!

We went to have lunch at the Cosmic Coffee and Beer Garden off of South Congress Avenue. We were early and it was windy and freezing. No place to eat inside.
Luckily a table got freed up in the patio and then they put on the plastic curtains and turned on the tower heaters.
They serve food from food trucks parked in the beer garden, and coffee is served from ...the coffee shop. The food and the beer were excellent.

Our friends Julian and Anne had recently moved to Austin. We talked a lot about how you can afford a 4 bedroom and 3 1/2 bath home for a third of the money you would need in the Bay Area or even Seattle.
Austin rocks on this point of view. There are job opportunities. Apple and Google have moved in and they are planning to expand. It takes only 10 minutes to go anywhere. Some locals complain about the traffic. I think they mean that there are cars on the road 😏.

After that we went to visit the Umlauf Sculpture Garden near Zilker park... some' to do.
Charles Umlauf was a famous sculptor and a professor at the University of Texas and in 1985 he donated the garden with all his sculptures to the city of Austin.
But what you really want to know is that Farrah Fawcett was one of his students. Yes! That one, from Charlie's Angels. After switching her major from microbiology to art, she became one of Umlauf's most serious students. Their friendship continued through the years. She continued to create artwork and she collected many of the Umlauf sculptures.

We took a walk in the garden.

The weather was not improving so we opted for more indoor activities. We went to visit the George Washington Carver Museum off of Rosewood Avenue.

I didn't know about Juneteenth Independence Day, also known as Freedom Day, which is on the June 19, 1865. It took Texas and the confederate states a bit longer than the rest of the union to announce the abolition of slavery... just a few more months...

In fact, the 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865. On February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the proposed amendment to the state legislatures.

Anyways, this day is celebrated in several cities across the states, and I am planning to attend one this summer... they say the food is superb!

In the museum there were a few rooms dedicated to African American Texans and their contribution to the growth of Texas, from farmers to preachers, from inventors to astronauts. It reminded me of another museum that I had seen in San Francisco about Italian immigrants and their proud and resilient communities. 

There was another room dedicated to a Nigerian American artist, Eto Otitigbe. 

This installation was entitled "Subwaves".

I read more about this artist. He is a multimedia artist and performer. He is interested in the relationships between people and their struggles to survive together and mainly the byproduct of all of this. 

I like his stuff!

Day 33 - Austin: Mount Bonnell, Mayfield Park, Texas Capitol, Public Library, Sixth street

I read that people hike up to Mount Bonnell to watch the sunset, but with all these clouds I don't think we would have seen anything. Instead we had lunch looking at the Colorado river. We noticed the multi-million dollar homes lining up on the shores. 

We tried to follow our google trip day planner and this time it took us to Mayfield Park and Nature Preserve. In 1971, the 21 acres were donated to the city of Austin by Mary Mayfield Gutsch for all Austinites to enjoy as a park. The sky was still cloudy and it was muddy and wet. We took the trail that goes to lake Austin. On the way, we saw a couple of peacocks, one was on the roof of a house.

We realized that the google trip day planner was no good. The map lists places in a sequential order that does not make sense. We assumed that there were no humans involved in the compilation of this itinerary.

So we aimed for the meat and potatoes, the Texas Capitol.

The Capitol building sits on top of a hill, surrounded by a park. As we were driving down Congress Avenue flanked by high rise buildings, we could see the Capitol looming at the end. It's quite a sight. It is one of the largest and tallest Capitol buildings in the US.

We took the free general tour with a docent. After a general description of Texas history, which is pretty much made out of  two main battles, Alamo and San Jacinto, she went on describing the life of the 150 house representatives at the Capitol. So they work every other year and for only five months, 140 days, from January to ...hmmm maybe beginning of June. Yes you understood correctly, it's only every two years and not for long. I had to ask twice.

Bill googled it and then he found out that they are not paid that much. In fact, they make $600 a month for a total of $7,200 per year, plus a per diem of $190 for every day the Legislature is in session. They all have other jobs, this is just an hobby.

We got to enter the house of representatives and the senate rooms.

 

 

 

 

Every February when the Legislature is in session, a group of individuals bring a bunch of rattle snakes to the Capitol to show them to the representatives. They handle them with sticks. First they squeeze their head down until their eyes are bulging out and then they hold them by their heads and put them on a rep shoulder for a photo shoot. When they are done, they literally throw them down on the pile to avoid getting bitten, and this makes a big noise... pretty disgusting!

I love public libraries and this one was especially awesome.

Public Library

The Butterfly Bridge

Austin By Night is on Sixth street. There are bars, restaurants, and nightclubs all along including the museum of weird stuff.

My hair at 97% humidity 😂

We spent the evening at the Elephant Room, where during happy hours for free we could listen to a jazz band with a singer playing famous jazz songs of the 30's and 40's.

Day 32 - San Antonio to Austin

This KOA is only two years old. Everything is brand new, from the laundry machines to the unisex huge shower rooms. The grounds are a bit rough but the hook ups are the best I have seen so far.
On the other side of the fence we are told there are some longhorn cattle. I can't wait to see them.
The area is rural and for this reason it's quiet.
On the way to Austin, we see on one side a prominent Sikh Temple and on the other side the vast grounds of the Austin Rodeo. Welcome to Austin!

As the body ages, it needs more maintenance, like exercising to keep the bones healthy. I think I need to exercise more now than when I was younger. It's the only way to get rid of creaking 😉
But very few campgrounds have an exercise room, like this one, so before leaving we bought resistance bands. They work like weights but without... the weight 😂

Lately I have been using google fit for keeping track of workouts and steps. I like it because it's on all the time.
Also since I haven't mentioned it yet, we are traveling with Scampers, our cat, and for who knows her and worries about her, she is doing great and she is a great traveler.

She loves the trailer, but sometimes she feels cold or depressed (?)