Hello From Austin!

Hey Y'all!

Austin is AWESOME!

I arrived yesterday morning around 11am and was picked up by Diane who met me at the baggage claim. The quilt bags arrived in good shape, we loaded up a rental cart and off we went to the parking garage and out into the wilds of Texas traffic!

I used to live not too far north of here, just up the interstate, in Waxahachie but that was about 7-8 years ago. And of all the times I drove south to San Antonio,or further down to Houston or Galveston, I always passed through Austin, close enough to see the state capital from the freeway, but never actually stopped unless it was just to get gas right at an exit with an easy off/on.

Diane drove me down Congress and we had lunch at Guero's Taco Bar! What a fun place. They make the torillas right there, and the salsas are all fresh....really really good Tex-Mex! I loved it. There was so much on the menu that I wanted to try, but I opted for a combo that had black bean soup (to die for) a fresh tamale, spanish rice, and a quesadilla on a whole wheat tortilla. I tell you what, fresh tortillas just can't be beat!

From there we drove toward down town. this picture was taken as we were leaving the restaurant of a side of one of the buildings....I just love the arty flavor of everything..look at these colors!

As we got closer to downtown I took pics through the car windshield...so please excuse any bugs/dirt/debris that you see....it's there to add artistic texture, right? :cD

Isn't this building just beautiful? I love visiting capital buildings. As expected, there was a whole lot of "school field trip" activity going on.

Fun to watch the kids trying so hard to pay attention when they really wanted to run screaming through the rotunda, hearing their voices echo..and sliding down THESE corridors!

And this is my view from the inside of the Rotunda look up into the dome....love the 5 pointed Texas stars everywhere...this one even had the letters in between each star point..

Even the door knobs and plates were awesome to look at...just look at this detail!

The grounds outside were also just lovely. I have always loved winding twisted live oaks, and it was great to see them all over the capital grounds along with rose gardens, statues, memorials, it was a lovely place to spend some time.

Today was the crumbs workshop..I'll have to upload pics for those another time as this has gotten quite long! Tomorrow is the Star Struck workhop, and then there is two lecture/trunkshows on Monday, one to the morning group, and one to the evening...so it's going to be a fun couple of days.

I got a mail from Lucy..she and Rene have made it to Texas fine, and they will be coming to get me after my workshop tomorrow and we can go have dinner, find a fun place to listen to some music and visit for the evening. Can't Wait!