Day Trip to Austin

After what has already been a busy summer, and before the next few weeks get away from me, I took a day off from work today, and the boys and I headed to Austin.  We arrived shortly before noon, and went to the State Capital.

Once inside, I snapped a quick picture, and then realized a tour was getting ready to start, so we joined in on that.

One of the first things the tour guide showed us was this statue of Stephen F. Austin.

Right now, the senate is meeting in a special session to make a determination on the future of abortion in Texas.  As a result, there were lots of people with signs, and silent protesters.

There was also a huge number of police present-in fact I have never seen so many police in the same place at one time before.  I asked the tour guide if this was normal, and she told me that they were there "anticipating a riot" due to the nature of the special session.

These door hinges are pretty cool-they seemed to be on nearly every door we passed through.

"Remember the Alamo" this declares at the top.

Neat view of the capital from beneath the ground.

 More signs...

My photography skills don't do this staircase justice, but the carvings were so detailed-just beautiful!

Here is a protester speaking to a small crowd that assembled.  When she was done, she started singing-the acoustics in here were amazing!

This is where the House of Representatives meet.

And this was the line to observe the Senates special meeting today.  I had no desire to wait in that line.

After that, we toured the outside grounds a bit.

After that we went for a quick letterbox find just a few blocks away, and enjoyed the sights on our walk.

After our time downtown, we headed west of Austin to Hamilton Pool-a swimming hole from a local creek that pours a waterfall down into the limestone basin.  I have never seen anything quite like it!  To get down to the pool, there was about a half mile walk down a rocky, unstable path-but it was so worth the trip!

We had a great day today-a welcome break to the norm!