Day 05 - Austin

As Angela mentioned in yesterday's post, the Ghia is not starting in the traditional manner. We have to push start it to get it going... but it fires right up when we do.  We should find out tomorrow what the problem is when we visit a very large air-cooled VW repair shop that is nearby. Did you ever see the movie "Little Miss Sunshine"?  In it, the family travels in an air-cooled VW bus that they must push start to get it started.  So... we're just like them.  Except that we're not competing in a creepy beauty contest for 6-year olds.

Given our down time, we took this opportunity to explore Austin.  And it was an absolutely beautiful day to do it. Temps started out in the 60's and worked their way into the 70's. Skies were clear all day long.  We are staying about 6 miles from downtown.  Being Sunday, we knew stuff wouldn't start opening up in town until around noon; we took a cab and arrived right about then.  

For those of who don't know, Austin is the capital of Texas and the home of the University of Texas.  It is the 11th most populous city in the US - 4th in Texas.  It labels itself as the "The Live Music Capital of the World". It is definitely a hopping city.  Angela and I estimate that there are over 40 bars on 6th Street alone (get out the toolbox, we're about to get hammered).  It also has something like a little version of San Antonio's River Walk.

We visited a couple of the bars - very friendly. Did you know that Austin is the 3rd largest growing major city in the world?  Our bartender told us that.  Do you know what is the favorite mixed drink in the US? Margaritas. On average, Americans drink 185,000 Margaritas per HOUR.  I learned that from my daily Total Wine Store email.

I know that Austin is known for live music, but we actually saw a lot more live music during a recent trip to Nashville.  In all fairness, we were visiting Austin on a Sunday afternoon. There are probably more acts in the evening.  Austin beats Nashville hands down on people watching.  

We are hoping to start out very early tomorrow and get to the VW shop first thing.  We both fully expected some sort of mechanical difficulty. Let's hope it is not too serious.