Chandler's Excellent Adventure: Day 18: Austin, TX

So far, Chandler and I have been enjoying our President's Day weekend in Austin. Yesterday was our first full day in the city and we didn't waste a single minute. Chandler spent some time here a couple of months ago for work and said he wanted to go back to this little French Cafe for breakfast. He said it was amazing. I now agree. He ordered the Veggie with roasted veggies and Swiss cheese, I ordered a Crepe with Feta, sun-dried tomatoes, pesto, and spinach. Our server was very sweet and even gave me another free Chai Latte to go.
http://www.cafecrepeofaustin.com/

After breakfast, we wandered around making our way to the SoCo district. This ended up being the best part of Austin and we stayed here until night fall. There are vintage stores, boutiques that sell only local made goods; clothing, jewelry, cards. There were lots of food trailers selling anything from cupcakes to Thai to anything that can fit in a cone. We went in galleries, listen to music outside at at least 5 venues, it was a lot of fun. Tons of entertainment, if people watching isn't enough for you.

We ate World Famous Round rock Donuts (which I recently saw on the Travel Channel), I bought little handmade Worry doll earring from Guatemala at the Tesoros Tradin company (my favorite store :) ), we picked up a couple more cacti to decorate Frank, and drank Dublin Dr.Pepper while listening to a man play the didgeridoo and while getting sunburned in the 80 degree weather (ahhh... I love it !!!).

Apparently, Austin has the largest urban population of bats living under the Ann Richards Bridge. When I heard this I was dying to check it out. Chandler and I walked down to the river where the bridge is located and I was a bit disappointed that you aren't able to see them in the daytime, but was excited to hear them. It was really crazy. Lots of high pitch squeaking noises and signs cautioning you not to handle fallen bats.
We walked around the Town Lake trails and came upon a HUGE dog park! There must have been hundreds of dogs out there! Chandler and I agreed that this park alone must make Austin one of the top dog friendly cities. It was comforting being around all the dogs and puppies since we miss our babies back home :(

By the time we finished up our loop around the trail the sun was beginning to set so we sat and watched it from the top of the bridge. Then we took a tour of the Red river District and ended up finding dinner back in SoCo at Gueros Taco Bar (http://www.guerostacobar.com/). Tired and sunburned we drove back Chandler's Cousin Paige's apartment, who has been so kind to let us stay with her over the weekend :)