Let's Go Places: Austin, Texas

 

Friends, it's time for part three of three of the great Chicago/Amtrak/Austin rampage.  We're going to check state capital #21 off our list.

Between you and me, there are some state capitals that I am more interested in visiting than others, and Austin was pretty low on my list.  I had heard that it was a cool town, but I have lackluster memories of visiting Dallas and Houston.  Plus Texas and Florida are two places that have a knack for making crazy headlines, so in my mind both of those states were "go and get them crossed off the list" visits.

We all know that I found Tallahassee to be unexpectedly charming, so was Austin the same?  Let's find out.

(Spoiler: yes.)

Where I Stayed

Nothing exciting to see here.  I didn't see anything on the Airbnb scene that called to me, and the Hyatt House was the right price and in walking distance of the capitol.

Let's Check Out the Austin Capitol!

You know how they say that everything is bigger in Texas?  The state capitol is here to represent!

My biggest learning at the capitol was the origin of the term "six flags".  It's a phrase that I've been hearing all my life since I grew up in Illinois where Six Flags Amusement Park was a huge deal.

The six flags of Texas, also known as the six stars of Texas, represent the various flags that have flown on Texas soil over the years:

• Spain
• France
• Mexico
• The Republic of Texas
• USA
• CSA

Texas is not the only southern state to call out its multi-flag past.  So far I've seen similar things in Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana, but the others are mere four flag states.

I got shafted a bit on the dome.  The center is currently under construction, so the famous lone star is obscured by scaffolding.  You can see what it looks like normally here.

I'm just going to call it...while everything about the Texas capitol was impressive, when it comes to stars in domes I prefer Michigan's rendition.

The other thing that I learned is for all of the outrageous news stories we hear coming out of Texas, the state government has an uneven news cycle.  The Texas legislature only meets in odd numbered years. 

Last but not least, I learned that there are no problems, just solutions.  Texas has always been a big state, so the state capitol is huge, but after the first hundred years, things were starting to get a little cramped.  A good number of the staff and a lot of the state archive was packed into the basement, and in the 1980s there was a fire down there.

Naturally the solution was to build an addition, but where?  Regulations dictated that nothing more could be built on the capitol grounds.  No one wanted to build additional government buildings on another campus and to have to deal with a commute.

If you can't build on, build under.  Would you believe that the picture above and the picture below were taken underground?

Hence the four floor basement addition.  Everything below the top railing in this picture is underground.  Problem solved!

There is another space issue that will need to be solved at the capitol.  Every governor gets an official portrait at the end of their term.  The most recent governor's portrait is on the ground floor, and with each addition the portraits get rotated up.  There are only six spaces remaining, but since there are no term limits in Texas, no one can say how long it will be before they run out of space.  Our guide said not to fret about it since "we've got time and we're capable of figuring it out".

If anyone is looking for a Netflix mini series idea, may I recommend looking into the story of  Governors James and Miriam Ferguson?

James served as governor for two years, and was impeached and permanently barred from office.  Since he couldn't run again, she did.  Her slogan was "Two Governors for the Price of One", which worked well for them but went over less well when the Clintons borrowed the phrase in the 90s.

Her first term was in the 1920s:

And she came back for one more in the 1930s:

After the tour, I browsed the gift shop where I did not buy the following items:

I like a challenge as much as the next person, but this seemed a little extra

By the end of this post you will know why stuffed bat toys are sold in all Austin gift shops

The tour of the capitol took most of the morning.  It was time to move on to the other sites of Austin.

Such as this squirrel chowing down on whatever was in this wrapper on the capitol grounds.  He was not in the least phased by a crowd of onlookers.

The Texas state museum.  The statue of Liberty holding a star was the original capitol topper.  She was replaced in the 1980s but a sturdier model.

I didn't go into the Art Museum, but I appreciated the campus as I walked by.

The LBJ Museum just to say that I did.  So far in my travels I can tell you that 1800s presidential sites >>> 1900s presidential sites.

It was now mid afternoon.  I had one more site to see, but that would have to wait until the evening.

The Bat Bridge!!!

As soon as I started researching Austin, the #1 tourist site really stood out.  The Bat Bridge.

The what?

Officially this is the Ann Richards Congress Avenue Bridge.

There has been a bridge on this site since at least the mid 1800s, and in 1910 a very modern, very serious bridge for a serious city was constructed.  

We would still be calling it the Congress Ave Bridge if not for some renovation work done in the 1980s.  During this time, the underside of the bridge was scored with grooves.

It just so happened that a downward facing surface with a bunch of grooves is an ideal place for bats to hang out, and a colony of bats took up residence and are there to this day.  Bats sleep during the day, and at night there is a magic moment that they deem safe to leave home to find food.  All of the bats swarm out at once, which makes for a very entertaining scene if this happens in the middle of a large urban city.

I read up on various places that folks hang out to see the bats, but once I saw that there was a bat cruise for $14, I knew I had my seat for the bat show.  

That evening I walked from my hotel and made a brief stop on my side of the river for an epic non-Taco Bell crunch wrap.

Then I crossed the bridge to where boat leaves from close to the Hyatt Regency (not to be confused with the budget Hyatt House where I was staying on the other side of the river).  There is no food or drink on the boat, but the Hyatt will give you a plastic cup if you want to take something on the boat.  I had the first half of my beer on their terrace, and the remaining half on the boat.

The departure time of the cruise is adjusted as the season goes on to match the ETD of the bats.  We started off in daylight and got to see the sites of the river and the Austin skyline.

Fun fact, Austin's skyline mostly dates from 2000 and onward.  At one point something like 100 people per day were moving here, so the city has grown rapidly.

The PacMan Bridge.

When it was time, the boat sailed up to the Bat Bridge to see the dinner rush.

Bats are great for the environment because they eat mosquitos, but who knew that they are great for the economy of Austin because they draw hundreds of thousands of people and millions of dollars in tourism revenue each year?  Yay bats!

After the cruise I walked back to the hotel and called it a night.

The next day I was back on the train and soon enough I was home.  But you've already heard about all of that.

Thanks for the good times Austin!  Who has been there?  Has anyone heard about the bat bridge?