Austin: Day 2

More about our weekend trip to Austin:

Austin: Day 2

Sunday started like a real-deal vacation: Tory slept in until 8:00am which means Andi and I did too. We tackled her breakfast feeding of rice cereal and bananas (which she hated, by the way! Tory Girl far prefers mama's homemade banana puree to Gerber's version). Once she was fed, Andi volunteered to take Tory down to the hotel breakfast while I got dressed. Can I tell you how heavenly it was to get ready ALL BY MYSELF for once? Quite the vacation treat, I say. I came down to breakfast to find Andi with perspiration on his forehead. Apparently managing a breakfast buffet and a six-month old isn't so easy, no? My husband made a comment about how he doesn't know how I do what I do everyday and I filed it under NO KIDDING and THANK YOU.

After breakfast, we decided to take a walk around Austin on Lady Bird Trail. Lady Bird promised a pleasant, mostly flat walk with views of downtown Austin and Lady Bird Lake which sounded like a perfect way to start our day's adventure. Conveniently, we hopped onto the trail just outside our hotel and strolled along in the warm morning sunshine. Tory was being a peach in her stroller and we even went as far to hope for a morning nap while we walked.

At one point, we came to a T in the trail. We followed some joggers and took a right turn instead of a left which turned out to be a really dumb idea. Still strolling along, the trail finally turned into a Department of Transportation parking lot. "I think the trail picks up just on the other side," Andi said, so we continued to follow the runners and blindly made our way out of the park. Our quiet morning stroll gradually became more noisy with busy traffic blaring by on the street. Andi stopped a man running by and asked where to pick up the trail again. "Just past those condos," he said. We continued walking, crossing a busy intersection to get there. Finally, we found the trail but it was under construction. Andi asked a gardener outside a nearby apartment complex for more directions. He basically told us we'd have to walk a few more miles back in direction we came but if we did, we should check out the kite festival in Zilker Park. "Very beautiful!" he said.

Super, thanks.

By this time, Tory was melting down (of course) and there was no freaking way I was walking back three or four miles with a screaming baby. We walked up the road to a 7-Eleven and hailed down a cab. I think this picture explains it all:

As the cab pulled away in route to the kite festival, Tory's face was priceless. She looked at Andi and I with a mixture of distaste and confusion. "Get used to it kid," Andi told her. "This is what it's like traveling with your parents." I couldn't stop laughing.

The kite festival in Zilker Park was beautiful. We laid in the grass and fed Tory before deciding to take the Lady Bird Trail back to our hotel (you know, the beautiful part of the trail which wrapped around the lake). Tory napped on the return route and then we hopped into the car to continue our adventure.

One thing on Andi's Austin To-Do List was to visit Whole Foods. It's their flagship store and we thought it'd be neat to see. Plus, we're quirky like that on vacations. The store was crazy big and had a wine bar inside, a full grocery store (with big aisles even - that's always my biggest pet peeve about Whole Foods in our neighborhood), a sushi bar and more. We bought Tory what turned out to be the lamest teething toy for $14.99 and left the store in search of lunch.

We decided to try Torchy's Tacos for lunch, highly recommended by She Likes Purple. We ordered two fried avocado tacos, queso dip and chips and made our way to a nearby park to have lunch outside in the gorgeous weather. The food was fabulous, by the way. I could've licked the queso bowl clean and finally had to throw it away in a yucky park trash can to stop myself from going overboard.

After walking around the park a little bit, we drove over to Austin's South Congress area, a street lined with unique stores and a nearby food truck court. Andi ordered an award-winning coconut cream pie a food truck and we spend an hour or so walking along the strip, browsing through the funky stores. We wanted to stop for a infamous drink at San Jose Hotel (another She Likes Purple suggestion) but Tory was getting fussy so we decided to head back to the hotel.

No vacation is complete without a trip to the pool, so we suited Tory up and went for a dip. She wasn't sure what to think of the water at first, but soon enough was splashing away. And lucky for us, it was Sunday night so there wasn't another kiddo around. We had the entire pool area to ourselves.

After swimming, it was bedtime for Tory. I tackled feeding, bathing and putting her to sleep while Andi ran out for take-out. This time, we ordered dinner from Bess Bistro (Sandra Bullock's restaurant). We dined on crispy artichokes, steak frites and asparagus. The food was pretty good, but probably would've been better served fresh from the restaurant. Someday we'll be able to go to dinner on vacation again ...

Andi and I were in bed by 9:30pm but neither of us were complaining. We had a great day in Austin, plus our legs were killing us from all that walking on Lady Bird Trail!