At the airport we had a brief scare when BK’s name didn’t pop up on the reservation list, but all was good and we had been upgraded to First Class for both flights – woo hoo!  Austin airport is really nice – we indulged in some Amy’s ice cream once again (grasshopper with Oreo this time) while BK started watching the Rose Bowl on his ipad.

Once we landed in Houston we found a really nice wine bar near our gate to watch the rest of the Rose Bowl at while sipping some fancy wine and enjoying a light dinner before the flight.  I was a little worried when a Duck sat down next to us but BK kept quiet

It was so nice to have First Class on the way home, especially with a late flight (thanks RR!).  Eventually we collapsed into bed, covered by cats.  Super fun trip to Texas and a great way to kick off the New Year!

From mini-golf we drove up to road to walk around Zilker park, which is huge and was packed.  It was a beautiful day and unseasonably warm, so there were even folks swimming in the big spring:

Last stop in Austin was Amy’s Ice Creams - homemade deliciousness served on marbletop with mixins.  I got the Mexican Vanilla which had a really smooth intense flavor.  so good.

After Ice Creams we hit the highway for the Texas Hill Country, headed to Aimee’s parents house on Lake Buchanan.  Only 60 miles away but on small roads in the middle of nowhere.  It’s a beautiful house, designed and built by Aimee’s mom, with a lot of land.  The amazing thing to see though was the impact of the drought – I’ve heard the drought mentioned on tv but here we saw it first hand.  When they first bought the land 5 years ago, the water was right at the property – now, it’s a quarter mile away.  We drove by dozens of homes with docks with water nowhere near them.

For dinner, we drove Llano to visit what is deemed one of the best BBQ joints ion Texas, Cooper’s Pit BBQ.  Several large BBQ pits greeted us, filled with various meat options.  You point and choose as little or as much as you want of every option, they dip it in some sauce, put it on a cafeteria tray.  You then take yoru tray instead where they weigh everything and charge you by teh pound.  We got lots of different things to try – I thin teh brisket and teh turkey were teh favorites.  You sit at long communal tables, eat off butcher paper, use paper towels, grab some white bread to sop up extra sauce.  Pretty awesome.

Back home we just hung out and watched a Foo Fighters concert on TV and played with the dogs before calling it a night…

We dropped Kevin off downtown, then hit the road north to Austin for New Years Eve.  Aimee met us at the Sheraton and we drove down to the main part of town to begin enjoying the festivities.  First stop of the night was Peche, an absinthe bar recommended by Steve.  BK got absinthe that was actually pretty smooth.  I had a Dark & Stormy made with house-made ginger beer and Aimee had a real lime dacquiri.   It was a great speakeasy/prohibition style bar.

From there we wandered down the street to Frank’s for dinner, home of artisan hot dogs.  Aim & I each had the Notorious PIG (with mac & cheese and BBQ sauce) while BK had a couple different dogs.  We shared a couple different desserts, including chocolate covered bacon – weird but good.  Click here for pics.

After dinner we strolled up and down 6th street, the main drag of nightlife in Austin.  Since it was a holiday they had it closed down to car traffic, so it was fun to see everyone arriving for parties and to listen to bands that had already started playing through the windows and doors of big clubs.  The bar we had planned to settle into was a little farther off the main drag so we eventually made our way over to the Mean Eyed Cat, a Johnny Cash themed bar closer to campus.  They had two fun bands playing that night, the bar had a great vibe and was not overly crowded and crazy – the perfect spot to hang out.   Around 11:30 though we snuck out of that spot and headed back to the hotel to ring in the new year quietly at the hotel bar watching the ball on drop on tv.  Happy New Year!

We then wandered in a new direction towards Market Square, first passing by the San Fernando chapel where the heroes of the Alamo are buried.  Also home to what JJ deemed the ugliest Christmas Tree ever:

Market Square was the original Farmers Market area, now home to random shops, food stands, street performers and stalls of imported goods.  It was great to walk around in the warm sunshine.  We finished up our night wandering bars on the river walk, and then had a final great dinner at Boudro’s (review to come), featuring another prickly pear margarita and guacamole made tableside:

On the way home we snapped some late night photos at the Alamo:

Back downtown, we wandered over to the Alamo which was smaller than I thought it would be.

We wandered the Riverwalk and grabbed an early afternoon beverage together at Acenar, the bar we had tried to go to the night before.  Then the boys abandoned me & JJ in search of good BBQ (also recommended by the bartender) while JJ & I scored a table on the riverwalk for our late lunch/pre-game meal (along with prickly pear margaritas).  After lunch we walked along river northwards on what they call the Museum Reach.  I had read there were cute artisan shop on this stretch but all we saw were installations along the way (still cool).

It was nice to get away from the super overcrowded sections of teh walk – we found their version of the Ballard locks and even Jones Ave.  We walked to the end at Pearl Brewery, where I had a grand master plan for the boys to pick us up there in their way back but miscommunication led them back to the hotel.  We went through a couple shops at the end, then called a cab to meet them back in the main area of town.

We met up at the Hyatt where half the group was staying for pre-game beverages before making our way into the Alamodome for the game.  We had club level seats which was nice to get out of the major crowds.  We did a loop on that level and then I wandered the lower level for a loop by myself (I love looking at arenas).  Husky Purple was definitely outnumbered by Baylor Green but still a pretty impressive showing by Dawg fans.  As expected, the game was an offensive shootout which I like, but even this got a little ridiculous.  Final score would make you think it was a basketball game.

Afterwards, we drowned our sorrows at a nearby sports bar on the riverwalk before crashing late that night.

We settled quickly into our hotel, then headed out to a nearby bar to meet up with our crew.   We enjoyed a drink as we watched the end of one football game, then went in search of the Husky bars to watch the Holiday Bowl.  The first option was near our hotel, but super packed already.  The next option was across the street but a little fancy for our needs.   The third option was a few blocks away above the River Walk and a surprising choice, but it worked out well.

We took over one corner of the SoHo Bar, and surveyed the fancy drink choices as they game began. I chose the pineapple margarita which was yummy.

This bar has created many unique infusions like bubblegum vodka, brisket bourbon, etc.  Over the course of the evening many were sampled by the boys – unsurprisingly the brisket bourbon was the winner.  A fun way to kick off the trip and make up for the rough arrival…

BK needed to work on the 27th, so we had decided to take the red eye into Houston, then a short flight into Austin where we would pick up our rental car and drive to San Antonio.  About 20 minutes before our plane is supposed to leave Seattle (1:10am departure), the gate agents announce “we have some bad news.”  Apparently our crew was coming in from Philadephia via Houston, and would not be landing in Seattle for another 90 minutes.  Seriously?  and you wait until now to tell us?  We hunkered down on seats nearby and awaited our opportunity to board.   Boarding took forever, so I think our plane finally left around 3:15am.  I usually have trouble sleeping on planes, but conked right out tonight.

Our connection to Austin was leaving at 9:15, so arriving in Houston at 9:00am we weren’t sure what was going to happen.  Having bee seated in row 1 was an advantage so we zoomed off the plane to th desk to figure out where to go – only to be told they had re-booked us onto teh 2:15pm flight.  Excuse me?  that’s 5 hours later.  How about the 10:00am flight?  it’s full.  11:00am?  12:00pm?  both full.   Finally she said we could try and go standby at 10:00am – great.  we rushed over to that gate and got on the list – BUT, even if we made it on the plane, our bags wouldn’t.  lame.  We decided to go for it anyway as at least in Austin we could pick up our car and go explore while we waited for our bags rather than spend 5 hours at Bush Intercontinental.

We did in fact make it onto the 10:00am puddle-jumper, landed in Austin, picked up our car and started to explore Texas.  First need was for food, which we found at Kerbey Lane Cafe.  We had migas and then shared a side of blueberry pancakes (their specialty).  The pancakes were sweeter than most – BK thinks the batter was almost muffin batter like.

With a little more time to kill, we went in search of our favorite spot, Costco – check one more off the list!  And conveniently located next to Costco was the Hey Cupcake! airstream.  We bought three:  Michael Jackson, Mint Rushmore and Sweetberry.

lack of sleep was starting to catch up with us, so we headed to the airport and took a quick nap in the car until our bags arrived.  We were thrilled to see they actually arrived, snatched them up and hit the road for San Antonio.

We wandered around the market a bit then braved the rain over to the Capitol building, first stopping outside the Supreme Court (another beautiful building):

We went into Capitol but didn’t want to wait in the lines for a tour, so no rotunda viewing on this trip.

Next stop was the National Air & Space Museum – again, the Smithsonian’s are a surreal experience.  They have everything and its all real – no reproductions.  A moon rock, Apollo 11, Amelia Earhart’s plane – craziness.

we rounded out the day at the National Archives which had a cool exhibit about food in  (What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam?)- and of course they also have the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  These papers are definitely fading…

Strolled home to warm up a bit before dinner, then enjoyed a great meal at Jaleo (check out the review here.)  Of course, this was Saturday, which means Husky football, so we ended the evening at a sports bar across the river in Virginia watch the dawgs beat up on Utah.  After after the dawgs were done, the Sun Devils showed up!

Sunday morning we enjoyed our last morning of cat-free laziness, then hopped in a cab to explore Georgetown a bit. We grabbed brunch at Serendipity 3, the popular NYc joint that serves frozen hot chocolate, then wandered the shopping streets before seeking out the Curran family house.  They live right in the heart of the ’hood, just down the street from the historic Martin’s Tavern.  We chatted for a bit in the house, then bundled up the kids and walked over to Georgetown Cupcakes for a sampling.  The line wasn’t too bad, and the cupcakes were yummy – we tried Maple Chocolate Chip and Red Velvet of course.  Their frosting is super soft though.  It was fun to hang out with them on their turf and a great way to end the trip.

Post cupcakes, we zoomed over to the hotel to grab our stuff, and flew on home.

We rested briefly back at the hotel before heading out for a nighttime bike tour of the monuments.  We visited a few of the same spots we had walked by the previous night, but it was useful to get the extra info and history behind each spot.  For example, the big FDR memorial is actually 4 “rooms’ each representing one of his terms as president.  The new MLK memorial is a gift from Greece but made in China.  And at Lincoln the night before I walked right over a very small stone that marks the spot where MLK gave his “I Have a Dream” speech – tonight I stood in that spot and imagined the thousands of folks gathered on the mall at that time.

Rounding the corner we saw the monuments I hadn’t seen yet:  Vietnam, which is tough to see at night since it’s all black stone.

the fairly new World War II memorial, which is also very large:

the Washington Monument, which you can see from everywhere and can’t get too close to currently as they continue to assess damage from the August earthquake:

and I finally saw the White House.  Our hotel is only two blocks from the place but it was quickly about to be one of those jokes that I went to DC and never saw the White House.  phew…

Speaking of our hotel, it’s a W and as mentioned in a previous post has a great rooftop bar.  So on the weekends, it becomes a pretty hip spot to be.  After dropping off our bikes it was late but we needed food – we couldn’t find much nearby that looked appealing and the bars at the W were overflowing with hipsters, so we took our uncool selves upstairs and ordered room service to end the night.  It was actually pretty good…

It was a nice way to kick off the mini vacation though – and we thought we were so programmed to always wake up at 7:00am.  apparently not.  We eventually made it into the office where we got a tour of the digs since neither of us had been there before, then settled into a couple of empty cubes to do some work.  The cubes are just like the old ones at my first building so it was a bit of a time warp feeling.  This office is also much quieter than our usual.

BK had a lunch meeting, so I wandered out on my own and discovered several food trucks scattered around the park across the street.  After surveying all my options I got in the slow line at Far East Taco Grille - luckily once you finally get to order the food comes pretty quick.  I got chicken tacos with sweet chili romaine, lime crema, chopped onions and pineapple sauce.  They were good – they just need to pick up some speed on taking orders.  As I waited I also visited the SweetBites truck next door since they were selling cupcakes – how could I resist?  The cookies & creme was ok, nothing special.

Back to the office to work a bit more, then escaped with the IT team over to the International Spy Museum for the rest of the afternoon.  To begin our visit we went on an hour long mission trying to save the world from a nuke in the country of Khandar – super fun! Then we acquired new covers and roamed the history of the spy world.  Great museum!

We got a quick bite across the street at Gordan Biersch, grabbed the camera from the hotel, then caught a cab down to the Lincoln Memorial to walk around a few of the monuments at night.  It was so surreal and impressive to stand there.  Its so big, and amazing, and cool.  Loved it.

Next was the Korean War memorial – it is especially eerie at night as the faces on the wall seem ghostly…

MLK just opened a few weeks ago – also amazing:

FDR is huge with lots of different aspects to it – very nice to wander through:

and Jefferson is grand and traditional:

We walked home to our swanky hotel, grabbed a drink at the bar, and called it a night.