Day 11: Austin

Basically, we’re obsessed with Austin. Who knew Texas could be so hipster? We started off our morning by brunching at Bouldin Café, a vegetarian restaurant right off of South Congress street. It was the definition of a hippie hangout: it was decorated kind of like a giant quirky garage sale, silverware/water/condiments were all self serve, the only milk choice with your coffee was soy, they had a book collection (for Texas prisoners), and The Onion was available for every table. We planned the rest of our day over blueberry cornbread, tofu hash, and a veggie omelet. You’d have never thought we could possibly be in Texas…



We then ventured towards South Congress to window shop and check out all the cool stores we had seen the night before. The street is filled with vintage clothing shops, antique stores, art galleries, jewelry shops, markets, and restaurants. Ashley bought a pair of smoking hot red high heels from this vintage clothing store (for $16… score!), and Meredyth oogled over vintage bottles and old postcards at Uncommon Objects, a huge emporium full of cool old junk. Another highlight was spending some time at Justin’s boots, where we each found our own pair of dream cowboy boots (which would have only set us back about $400 a pair… yikes!). We chatted with a store clerk, who told us about the cool places to check out over the course of the day, and informed us that a girl from New York had come in once and bought the boots Meredyth wanted, and that they had started dating after that, but that it ultimately didn’t work out between them. We wonder if that was supposed to be a pick up line.



We were propositioned with some football tickets by some Wyoming fans, but ultimately decided to decline the offer. We did, however, meander down to the UT Austin campus to see the tailgating and see some of the school buildings. UT has a beautiful campus – very different from UVA – there is a huge fountain in front of their main administrative building, and the roofs have those curved orange tiles kind of like the architecture of Stanford. The football stadium is right next to campus (um, you can’t miss it… it holds over 100,000 crazy screaming lunatic longhorns fans at a time), and man do Texas fans know how to tailgate. Almost every tailgate had several TVs showing other games on for the day, and some even had their own BBQ meat roasters. EVERYONE was in orange (we were a bit out of place in our wrong colored outfits), and even the girls who wanted to dress up were in burnt orange Longhorn dresses.

One of the coolest things about Austin was its abundance of food carts. Food carts, while just emerging as a trendy and affordable option for a quick bite to eat in places like DC or San Francisco, are EVERYWHERE in Austin. Donut food carts, crepe food carts, cupcake food carts, waffle food carts, burger food carts, pie food carts, Mediterranean food carts, po boy food carts – even sushi food carts! You are just plain DUMB if you can’t find a food cart to grab something to eat in Austin within 5 minutes of anywhere you might be in the city. Below are some of the best food carts we saw:

We decided to head back to South Congress street (can you tell we liked it?) for dinner and had a delicious meal at South Congress Café. Then it was attempt #2 at seeing the great bat flight from under the bridge. While it got dark, we waited on the grass with all the other spectators, and as soon as dusk ended, the bats started flying. Literally thousands (over a million?) of these bats were flying in hoards from under this bridge out into the night where they’ll hunt and eat bugs, only to return to the bridge in the morning before the sun comes up again. It was a really cool experience to watch them. After ducking into this down-home-country dive bar line dancing establishment called The Broken Spoke for a few minutes (just because we were told it warranted a visit, just to see the authentic Texan crowd and witness some two-stepping), we headed back to the hotel to catch some shuteye before a 4:45 am departure time the next morning, knowing we had a long drive ahead.

We loved Austin for its puzzling duplicity – it has an earthy, hipster, liberal feel while simultaneously remaining true to its southern roots. You’ll see people walking around in cowboy boots holding their organic chai lattes. You’ll see a bar with a mechanical bull right next to a fair trade market. You’ll overhear someone in a thick southern accent declare, “ya’ll better recycle those soda cans!” On the surface, Austin is a mysterious hybrid of young and old, liberal and conservative, progressive and traditional, north and south. But it’s not so much a city that can’t figure itself out as it is a place that embraces its multiple personalities with irreverent pride. There’s no doubt about it: we’ll be back someday. Who knows, maybe Meredyth will even end up living there!

Miles to go: 2,008

Total Post Cards Given Out: Lots

Post Cards Received: Still just 1

States Traveled: VA, MD, WV, PA, OH, KY, TN, MS, LA, TX