Austin, TX

First real adventure after arriving in Abilene, was our trip to Austin! I have always wanted to see Austin; when learning that Abilene was about 3.5 hours from there I HOPED we'd get to go there but with Nick's schedule being that they work everyday that weather permits, I didn't see a great possibility of that happening. Nick text me on a Friday morning saying that if they're supplies didn't arrive by that afternoon we'd get to go to Austin for the weekend! I was so excited but didn't even pack my bags, not wanting to jinx it! (Which lead to being very unprepared and not well packed for the weekend haha.) We did end up going there, and it was SO fun. Austin is a VERY cool city! (hence my capitalizations) The first night, we got in pretty late, and very hungry. I called Luke (who lived there for two years) and asked for a recommendation. He sent us to the Hula Hut, which he described as a mix between Polynesian and Tex-Mex, right on Lake Austin, and very "Austin". Woooww.. That place was delicious. Here is us on the dock that surrounded the restaurant. Very cool atmosphere and yummy food.

The next day we drove about an hour to the Texas Ski Ranch, which is a wakeboarding cable park. Nick road for 2 hours and I got to lay on the fake beach :). It was a cool place and we got there early so he got to ride the whole time and it wasn't too hot yet. On the way back we stopped at Rudy's; the famous Texan BBQ that my family raves about. It was pretty freaking good.. Quite the experience! (which anyone who has been there understands, and if you haven't, then go.)

Okay that night we bought tickets on craigslist to the UT vs. BYU football game!! We were 13 rows up on like the 20 yard line? Anyway, it was AWESOME!! I wanted to go to a football game in Texas so bad, just knowing how intense Texans are about football. And that they are. It was so much fun being in that crowd, pretending to be Longhorn Fans haha. It was 95 degrees outside when the game started at 6pm.. Holy crap it was hot! But other than that, SUCH a cool experience that i'll never forget.

These photos pretty much speak for themselves, it was a very close game, UT ended up winning after being down until the 4th quarter.

The next morning, our last day in Austin, we went to the Lindon B. Johnson Presidential Library, which is on the University of Texas campus. I was not sure what to expect when going here, but heard from my parents and brother that it was definitely worth seeing. I was kind of expecting lots and lots of books, because it's called a library? But that's not what it is at all. Well there are about 8 floors of all of the documents that the president saw and signed during his presidency but it is much more than that. More like a museum of the time period, a period in US history that interests me so much. It's crazy to think that a president was assassinated, and within minutes another one sworn in, just like that. It rattles my brain to think of something like that happening now.