Well, if you’re going to go to the LBJ museum, you should definitely check out the U.T. Tower. It recently reopened after being closed for over 20 years. It has a great view.
Eep! It appears as though you might have to book your tour in advance (up to 1 week in advance it claims.) You can only go to the top of the tour as part of a 1 hr tour. If you’re interested I’d call asap and reserve a ticket.
Have fun.
From the UT Tower website:
I guess my 30-06 is off the list too.:rolleyes:
That looks very interesting. I’ll have to talk to momma tonight and see when she thinks we can go. I’ll give them a call tomorrow. $3 is right up my alley.
But you’ll be too late to see the bats 
The children’s museum is pretty cool (201 Congress)
I guess babyjesus is a little too young to want to trudge round the celis brewery http://www.celis.com
And greetings fellow Austinites (Austinians?). Just moved here a few months ago all the way from England.
I hashed together a web site for an informal kids club this summer. I thought I had more stuff there that I really did. So instead, here’s a few more things to do around town, possible daytrip ideas and other links; they’re ordered (more or less) by how relevant they are or how well I recommend them.
You mentioned going to the Austin Zoo on Halloween. Boo at the Zoo (the haunted train ride) starts after the zoo ends its regular day and may be sold out (I’m sure that they are for Halloween night.) We need tickets ourselves; I’ll call tomorrow.
If you haven’t found them yet, I recommend that you browse the Austin Chronicle guides.
Austin Childrens Museum --(As of this summer), the ACM is free 5-8:00 p.m. on Wednesdays; it’s $4.50 each otherwise.
Inner Space Caverns–in Georgetown. A friend of my son had his birthday here last year. It’s a nice way to waste an afternoon.
Canoeing at Zilker Park–Hey, if you don’t have time to canoe the Guadalupe… (on the other hand, I’ve heard that Arkansas has a few rivers too.)
Mount Bonnell–on Mount Bonnell road (surprise.) This is the highest point in Austin. Of course, you’ve seen it now…
Enchanted Rock–out between Llano and Fredricksburg. The land on the way to and around Enchanted Rock is incredible (the drive on 965 into Fredricksburg at sunset is beautiful), and it’s a blast to climb the rock, but this is a full day trip for basically some big rocks and a lot of great views. For that reason, I hesitate recommending it, as much as I like it (OTOH, my son loves Enchanted Rock, so what do I know.) You could tie in Fredricksburg (the Nimitz museum?), Luckenbach, LBJ’s home and/or ranch or a few places in Llano or Marble Falls to make it a full trip.
Aquarena Springs–In San Marcos and good for a couple of hours. Formerly a cheezy park, Southwest Texas State U. is taking their time converting it into a conservation/education center. They have aquariums and glass-bottomed boat tours over the springs (I think the kids just like looking at the catfish.) It’s calm and cool, which make it great for summer afternoons, but there’s not all that much to do. At best, you might want to tie this in with some other outing.
Wonder World–San Marcos. I’ve never been here, so I won’t comment.
The Handbook of Texas might be worth a browse, but it’s mostly text, so it’s hard to get a real feel for things from it.
And for some reason, I keep running across TexasEscapes.com. I haven’t read very far through this site, but I’m a sucker for Texana, and it looks promising (Besides, with getting ready for business travel and a vacation, you’ve got plenty of time, right?)
If you do go to San Antonio, you might try to eat at the Alamo Cafe (10060 IH-10 West.) My wife swears that they are the best mexican food restaurant (not to start that up again), and I keep hearing the same thing from different people.
Speaking of Alamos, can anyone comment on the Alamo? I’ve never been there, strangely enough.
And I’ll agree with Mr. Wilkinson; it’s a shame you missed the bats (I’ve never been to the Celis brewery.)
Speaking of which: along with the brewpubs, we’re starting to get a few nice vineyards in the hill country, FWIW.
One more thing, much of the geography is pronounced exactly how you would probably never say it…
Towns near here:
Elgin - EL-gun
Manor - MAYnur
Buda - BYEW-du
Manchaca - MAN-CHACK (alt:MAN-CHECK, sometimes MAN-shok-…)
Llano - LAN-oh
Blanco - BLAYN-co
(somehow, I doubt that Tejanos use these pronounciations…)
Rivers:
Pedernales - PURdu-NAL-iz
Guadalupe - guadaloop, guad-a-LOOP-ay, guadaLOOP-ee,… :rolleyes:
Roads:
Guadalupe - just like the river, make up your own…
Manchaca - same as for the town, of course.
Koenig - KAY-nig (I’ve heard this one pronounced incorrectly in radio ads and corrected by the deejays.)
I haven’t drunk anything tonight. Would it be too lame to blame my posting this on my being tired?
The Alamo is interesting, worth an hour, hour and a half tops, of your time. Definitely not worth going to SA for this alone, but if you’re already planning to go it’s a good stop.
Couple of corrections there, Cornflakes…
Buda is more like BYOOO-duh.
We’ve always pronounced Manchaca as “Man-shack” and some of my Hispanic friends in high school (the ones who actually had Mexican accents) actually pronounced it that way too…
And don’t forget that Burnet (the town and the road) is pronounced Burn-it.
That said, it’s also important to note that very few major roads in Austin have fewer than two names.
MoPac is Loop 1 (and is not a loop)
Loop 360 (also not a loop) is also the Capitol of Texas Highway
Hwy 183 is also Anderson Lane, Ed Bluestein, and Research Blvd, depending on what section of it you are driving on at the time
Koenig Lane is also 2222
When people talk about “The Drag” they are referring to the few blocks of Guadalupe St in front of the Univeristy of Texas…
Also, there are 1st through 6th streets downtown that run east-to-west, and in South Austin there are 1st through 6th streets that run north-to-south.
Confused? You won’t be after this episode of Soap…
I just moved here and everyone agrees that IH-35 is one more letter than needed to describe a highway…of course that would be my address then
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that 2222 is Koenig Lane… and Allandale Road, and Northland Drive, and Bull Creek Road, all in the space of about three miles?
I think we’re saying Buda the same way, just writing the phonetics differently.
I mentioned the names thing to a hispanic friend from Corpus. She mentioned that when she first moved here, her boyfriend gave her directions over the phone to his house, off Guadlupe. Following these directions, she drove down North Lamar, looking for a streed named “Guada Loop”, or something like that. After she got to his house, she gave him hell for being a Mexicano and mispelling something like that. But that’s how it’s pronounced.
Oh yeah, speaking of Burnet, does anyone have a recommendation for or against the train? I’m just trying to add to the list.
Yeah, I think you’re right about the phonics. But when I read your version I read “du” as “doo” and that made the town “Byoo-doo” which cracked me up.
You’re right about 2222 - I was tired. I’ll do better next time…
Colin - Thanks for the tip on the children’s museum. That’ll give momma and babyjesus something to do on day. And, no, he’s not too young to go to the brewery as long as I get to go too.
Cornflakes - I can’t thank you enough for all those links and pronunciations. Maybe I won’t look and sound like too much of a tourist.
neuroman - I hope to visit the alamo. I was figuring it’d take half a day, but if we can do it in an hour and a half, all the better.
K-man - Most of the roads around here have more than one name. Come to Little Rock and I’ll show you I-630/Wilber Mills/Fanny Fox Freeway.
Thanks to everyone for their help. Hopefully the hotel will have a computer in the lobby where I can check in and let you know how much fun momma and baby are having while I’m stuck in class.
My trip to Austin last week was wonderful. I didn’t get to do as much as I had planned on doing. I didn’t make it to LBJ Library or Celis Brewery or the UT Clock Tower or 6[sup]th[/sup] Street. I had a chance to go to 6[sup]th[/sup] Street Tuesday night, but I’m too old to not know better than to get in the middle of something like that.
Austin is a beautiful city except for one thing – the frigging traffic! How the fudge do y’all manage? Even after almost a week, I never got the hang of the way the roads are laid out. K-Man, I thought you were kidding when you were telling me about every road having more than one name. Like I told you, we have some local names for a lot of roads around here. They just don’t put both names on the street signs up here.
I knew it was going to be a good trip just after we left home last Sunday. We’d driven about 30 miles and saw a dog that had been hit. Two of his buddies were standing in the median and I looked at momma and said, “That’s nice, they haven’t left their buddy alone.” She started laughing her ass off and I looked in the mirror and saw that the two dogs in the median were going at it too hard to be paying any mind to their buddy. Less than 30 minutes into the trip, my wish for vacation sex (either to have or to watch) had already been granted.
We spent Sunday and Monday nights at the Renaissance and Tuesday and Wednesday nights at the Best Western Atrium North. Both are nice. For the money, though, I’d recommend the Best Western. Plus, they’ve got Jollymon serving their continental breakfast.
I forgot :rolleyes: I had class Monday afternoon and momma and I took babyjesus to the Austin zoo. Demise, you weren’t joking when you said it was small. If you’ve ever read any of my comments to PETA threads, you know that I am not an animal activist, but, like cornflakes, I do appreciate “rescue zoos” like Austin. (Like the Zookeeper said, something is wrong when you need a permit to own a squirrel, but you don’t need one to own a big cat.) From what I saw, the Austin zoo seems to be fulfilling their mission very well so I don’t regret spending money there. I didn’t care for their “petting” area. There’s something fundamentally wrong with filling a petting area with, give or take, 50 goats and then gouging parents $2.50 for a cup (and I do mean 8 oz) of feed. The goats are so conditioned to being fed that way they literally attack you when you get close to the pen. On a very positive note, I will say that their train ride beat the hell out of the one at the Cincinnati and Memphis zoos.
Kepi, momma took babyjesus to the State Capitol on Tuesday. She said the Capitol was great. They followed a tour group around and got to see everything.
Momma and babyjesus hadn’t eaten lunch so after we checked into our new motel we wandered next door to the bar and restaurant. It was Ninfa’s. Demise, that’s wonderful food! The beef chimi is to die for. And that green sauce, my god. I’m going to start working on copying that recipe this week.
We took babyjesus to one of the malls Tuesday night so he could wear his Blues Clues costume and go trick-or-treating. He wound up with two bags of loot by the time we were through. I want to give a great big Thank You to the Lakeline Mall and all the merchants that gave my kid a treat.
Momma took babyjesus to San Marcos and the Wonder World cavern on Wednesday. She said the cavern was a long run for a short slide.
That night we drove out to the Salt Lick. Good BBQ. It was well worth the long drive out and, after eating so much, the long, uncomfortable drive back. I haven’t seen babyjesus eat like that in quite a while. He ate so much they had to bring us more sausage twice.
After going through the museum at Camp Mabry Thursday morning, we drove to San Antonio and did the Alamo. The Alamo wasn’t quite what I expected, but I’m glad we went. I know a lot more about it and also Texas history.
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While we were in the Alamo gift shop, momma did experience a very surreal moment. While I was looking at the display of Bowie knives, momma and babyjesus was looking at t-shirts and stuff when an older Tejaño lady working a nearby cash register looked at CHET (our son) and said, “Look at the babyjesus.” Not being sure what she had said, momma looked at her and the lady said, “Look at the babyjesus” again.
Momma told me what had happened. In the immortal words of Eric Burdon, “This really blew my mind.” Of anyone I could even conceive of knowing the difference between CHET and Sicum, only the folks on the Board would know to call him “babyjesus.” I’m not sure what it means.
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We went to eat at Tom’s Ribs and were caught in the rain that besieged San Antonio. We actually drove through some of the areas that later flooded. When we finally made it back to the hotel, I sat in the car for almost 30 minutes trying to calm down (I don’t handle driving in heavy rain and dark well). I honestly thought about taking up smoking something again. I hope all of you San Antonio Dopers, and the Austin Dopers too, dry out soon.
We hit the San Antonio zoo Friday morning before we started back. Nice zoo. If you’re watching Fox 17 and see a piece on the elephants at the San Antonio zoo, look in the background for three people sitting on a bench. That’s the jesus family.
The drive back wasn’t wonderful. It had just started drizzling when we hit the road and it rained on us all the way to Little Rock. What had been a seven hour drive the Sunday before turned into a twelve hour drive on Friday.
And to all the jerks that caused me to spend two and a half hours to get around (not through, around) Dallas at 7 last Friday night, a mighty Hi Ho Firetruck Off to you.
Demise, TheNerd, K-man, Kepi, neuroman, cornflakes, Sapphire Bullet, Colin Wilkinson, and electricwookie – Thanks for all of your suggestions. Just like every working vacation I’ve ever scammed, there just wasn’t enough time to do even half of the things y’all suggested. Hopefully I will make it back soon.
Kelton
Please try to include a chicken fried steak in your trip. I was in Texas once and had the best chicken fried steak ever.