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I’ve been in Austin for about a day now and I’ve been having a very good time. Peter Patricia and I have had some pretty damn good food (Austin seems to be made of wonderful locally owned restaurants) and seen some fun sights. Today we visited down town Austin and saw the Texas State Capitol. I’ve not visited many state capitols but I think the one in Austin is pretty impressive. Not so much because of the beuty of the building or the grounds (which are quite beautiful) but because of the accessibility. We litterally pulled up to a parking spot outside the gates of the Capitol grounds, walked through the gate, up the road to the building itself, and into the front doors. No questions, no security checks, no tickets.

The other main event of today was going to see Ratatouille at the Alamo. No, not THE Alamo, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema which is pretty much the coolest movie theater I’ve ever been in. They have an extensive menu of both drinks and food and they take orders (silently, via paper and pencils) throughout the movie. Ratatouille was another fantastic Pixar movie and I have to say was really good, definitely one of their best, it also included my new favorite Pixar short, “Lifted.” More on Austin to come.

Well I’m in Austin, Texas and having a pretty good time. At this point a good amount of time that I’ve spent on vacation has been on the road. I traveled via Tulsa, OK to visit my Aunt Tara along the way and only made one other pit stop in Lamar, MO for gas. Well one other pit stop might not be entirely acurate… The trip went fairly uneventfully excepting some minor directional issues. I managed to get myself slightly lost in Kansas City due to accidentally leaving my directions in the back seat (my wayward travels can bee seen in the above linked map, you’ll not that I didn’t get too far before realizing I was going the wrong way).

Some additional fun I had in Mossuri resulted from a great lack of gas stations along US-71.  You’d think allong such a long strech of road there would be quite a few gas stations but there is in fact very very few.  So few that the fuel light on my car turned on near Sheldon, MO (marked on the map as well).  I drove into Sheldon to find that it was a small town of about five hundred people and one gas station, a gas station closed till Saturday.  I made it to Lamar, MO just fine to find the first highway-side gas station since the Kansas City area.

In addition to the fun in Missouri I ran into difficulty when trying to get onto the MO-Pac Expressway in Austin off of exit 251 of Interstate 35. You’ll notice that there are in fact TWO exit 251 one of which is the correct one, the other is the one you will come across first when approaching Austin from the north. It’s pretty much the most ridiculous series of exits in existence.  Despite the incompotence of both myself, Adam Smith’s invisible hand (for not providing gas stations near the highway on US-71 where there is clearly a demand) and the Austin City Planners I managed to make it to Peter and Patricia’s Appartment safely.