Instead of sitting around the house this Labor Day weekend (my plan), Susan said, “let’s go to Austin, Texas.” Austin is roughly 400 miles/6 hours S/SE of Oklahoma City. We’ve been through Austin twice (both times while driving to Galveston) but had never stopped.

In a span of 36 hours we:

• Ate at Happy Days Diner, Fricano’s Deli, Freebirds World Burrito, Hat Creek Burger Company, and In-and-Out Burger.
• Saw one of five existing complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible and the first photograph ever taken at the Harry Ransom Center.
• Played dozens of arcade and pinball machines at Pinballz Arcade. (We also stopped by Arcade UFO but they were closed).
• Visited the Museum of the Weird.
• Went to see the Congress Avenue Bridge Bats, where between 750,000 and 1.5 million bats fly every night.
• Went swimming in Barton Springs, a creek naturally fed from underground springs that is 68 degrees year round (yes it was cold).

Over the next few days I’ll be writing more about Barton Springs, Congress Bridge Bats, Pinballz, and the Museum of the Weird. We had a great time on our first (and quick) trip to Austin and we are already excited about going back again. There aren’t a lot of towns on our list of “other places we could live,” but based on this trip I think Austin might have made the list!

(PS: “Keep Austin Weird” became Austin’s small business slogan back in 2000.)