We had a great night last night, so need to recap this morning. We ended up being close to Red River St which is similar to our State Street but as everything in TX it is BIG and larger than life. Interesting mix of homeless folks, some mentally ill, and the gentile coming downtown for barbeque and a good time!

Every place that seemed to sell barbeque already had a standing room wait at 6:30pm.

We ended dup at the Ironworks, which looked vaguely familiar to me. emJay and I were here several years ago on a visit to the Austin area with her brother Michael and wife MaryAnn. This is what it is all about meat . . .

. . . that has been smoked until it is ‘fallin off the bone’!!

Full tummies . . . but I did have pecan pie for my birthday treat . . .

Here is the old river bed outside where I think Michael had told us people used to tube through a culvert that runs under the street and feeds this creek when there is enough water to flow, until someone got trapped and drowned. No more tubing.

Colorful street art . . .

. . . and a whole area of food carts that probably didn’t open until after the bars closed . . . speaking of bars we ended back at Pernel’s, a tequila bar that Margie and Gin had discovered earlier, for mojitos.

Margie bought me a birthday martini and soon I met Michelle and Kristen, from Dallas, who bought me ‘several’ mojitos. Nice girls, Michelle is realtor and Kristen is in pharmaceutical logistics. Her startup company ships temperature sensitive drugs all over the world and supplies the devices that records the temps an other environmental factors during the shipping ensuring the products come through unscathed . . .

. . . Kristen insisted on a selfie . . . my first time! The were intrigued by my hair dying story and thought my drivers license photo made me look like Santa Claus,which they said was a good ‘married look’ but that my current color looked better for ‘meeting’ people. Told them I was not trying to meet anyone because I had Smoochie at home!!! They really liked the photos of Daisy, our pup. But alas, my hair color and the age of our group didn’t fool anyone. By the end of the night Michelle wanted to set Tom up with her mother!!!!!!

The boys were back in our Super 8 nest by 9:30pm. I was up for the 6:00am breakfast room opening, and was biking  down 11th Ave in time for 8:00am Mass.

Interesting experience. Holy Cross church ends up having primarily a black congregation. Of the 100 or so early riser’s like me, only 5 of us where white.

Palm Sunday today so of course there was the reading of the Passion of Christ. The Narrator part of the gospel, which is about 80% of the 8 page reading, was read by a guy who sounded JUST LIKE Barry White. I could have listened to him all day!!!

Some more local art on the way back . . .

I had noticed this place, Franklin Barbeque, on the way to church and notice there were about 50 people already lined up at 7:30am for the 11:00am opening. Including several looked like some ‘professional’ line sitters, right near the front of the line. . .

. . . when you turned the corner the line snaked back out into the parking lot.

Here was the manager telling the folks at the back of the line, it was now 9:25am, that they should expect a 2:00pm seating . . .

. . . but not for John and his son Chad! They were first in line . . . having cued up at 6:00AM!!!! It’s Chad’s 21st birthday tomorrow but Franklin’s is closed on Mondays, so they came today. Drove all the way over from Houston. They did the same thing last year on Chad’s Bday. I asked them if it was worth the wait and they both enthusiastically exclaimed . . .”YES”!!!!

Here is the ‘morning after’ of the ‘night before’, across from our hotel. When we walked back last night the lot was full, loud music blaring, cars cruising, and at least 4 or more police cars all with their lights blazing. One of the cops said things get a little ‘lively’ every year during the Austin Relays!!!

Oh . . . and here is a photo I took the morning we left Johnson City for Austin, that I just found. We met Dana and his 31 year old daughter, Jill, who are on the Southern Tier going east to west. This is about the half way point for them, and us, so it was fun to compare stories. They definitely have the ‘harder’ part of their in front of them. Interesting they are traveling REALLY lite. They each have only one bag, you can see Jill’s on the bike with the pink handlebars. In this shot they have on all their biking clothes. Hopefully the weather will be warming for them or they are going to need to buy a few more layers!!

Today was our rest day so beside to some wash and bike maintenance it was time to tour around Austin. I decided to go to the Capital and the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum located on campus.

The TX Capital is impressive BUT not as impressive as WI’s!!

The star directly under the dome is cracked and legend is that a worker fell from some scaffolding and broke it. Not true. The star has cracked due to seismic shifting . . .

. . . but in the past, a worker did fall to his death though a glass floor like this into a lower level!!!

For sports fans . . . you know what this is all about.

When I got to the Presidential library there was an entrance fee . . . I got my first official Senior discount today. Although I did have a little trouble explaining my new hair color!!!

The honorary . . .

. . . never met a horse he didn’t like or want to ride. LBJ meet Connie the Clydesdale!

Visitors can tour floor 3, 4 and 10. Floors 2-9 are used by archivists. You can see some of the volumes through these glass windowed floor fronts. very Impressive!

On the time line they had all kinds of ‘important’ facts . . .

. . .who knew, thanks LBJ . . .

. . . yes!!!

. . . not sure Smoochie was even born when LBJ came through IA!!!!

. . . looks a little like the D!

Some of the millions of people he tried to help with his Great Society program . . .

. . .as well as fighting communism and trying to end the Vietnam War. Here was a direct link to Moscow he had installed during his presidency.

. . . a mock up of his Oval office . . .

. . . complete with three TV’s to watch the three major networks. Wonder what he would have done today with all the news channels available??

Here is his beloved ranch we missed visiting, by 15 miles as we pedaled in from Johnson City . . .

. . . his office at the ranch where he spent 1/5 of his presidency governing the nation  . . .

Here was his unarmored limo he used for tooling around Austin.

He and Ladybird at their beloved ranch.

This photo sort of says it all . . . a great dog lover.

I’ve been over this overpass 6 or 7 times since our stay here in Austin and it is bumper to bumper like this every time. Like the name of that street!!!