So, my parents arrived in Austin on Tuesday, June 6. They left this past Thursday. In the interim, we ate our weight in chips, salsa, queso, tortillas, beans and rice between here and San Antonio and generally acted like unabashed tourists for the duration of their stay.
We hit the usual suspects here (Shady Grove, Z Tejas, Kerbey Lane, Shady Grove, again, Curra's and Opal Divine's), and I got to try the food at Lucy's Boatyard for the first time. Crawfish Eggrolls for the table. Cajun Redfish for me. Texas Pecan Chicken for Jamye. Grilled Texas Gulf Shrimp for Dad. Grilled Salmon for Mom. Rolls with sweet butter for insurance against ordering dessert in any form. Good stuff. I'll be back. I'll also go back to County Line when I've got a hankerin' for some barbecue.
Did I mention the Catfish Beignets with jalepeno tartar sauce appetizer at Z Tejas? They deserve more than one line of praise here, but we must press on. We've got a lot to cover, dear reader.
On Thursday, June 8th, Jamye got us tickets to tour the UT Tower. While there was no mention of the 1966 tragedy that most associate with the tower by our guides on the twilight tour, we were given a wealth of history associated with the campus landmark. Rising 300 feet above the Austin landscape, the tower's observation deck provided an impressive vantage point to view the city, the campus, and the hill country and sunset to the west. Of course, we forgot the camera, so our friends and family who haven't experienced it will just have to imagine what it was like until we can take them up there.
Other interesting footnotes from their stay in Austin include our first visits to the flagship Whole Foods Market (which one should either always or never enter on an empty stomach... I'm not sure which), and the award-winning independent bookstore, Book People, a bookstore that reminded me of Davis Kidd before it, well, for lack of a better term, sucked.
Of course, no trip to Austin would be complete without seeing the Congress Avenue bats, and we weren't about to let my folks head back to Tennessee without having the quintessential Austin tourist experience. We saved that for Wednesday night, and I think they were suitably amazed despite Dad's rumored misgivings. Whatever your take on bats, the almost primordial idea of nocturnal critters exiting their dens en masse to feast on smaller critters is, also for lack of a better term, pretty cool.
Tomorrow, I'll recap the highlight of my parents' visit: our weekend trip south to San Antonio, and this time, we have pictures.
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Sounds like a fun weekend. Oddly enough, I had never heard about the tower killings, so I read the wikipedia entry. Suitably creepy for a Tuesday morning. We may have to leave that one off the tour when we come visit!
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