APRIL 1: AUSTIN – DAY 8

April 1st is April Fool’s Day for you but it is also our wedding anniversary.  We had several things planned for our day but the itinerary had to be altered due to some bad weather.  Instead of our morning walk, we took a drive south to San Marcos and then east toward Lockhart, the “BBQ Capital of Texas”.  San Marcos is a nice small town off I35.  We visited briefly and walked around their main square.  I have long wanted to go to Lockhart; my only disappointment was we could only eat at one of the well known BBQ joints.  We chose Blacks BBQ... which has a second location in Austin, but hey we’ve come this far and we weren’t going to settle for anything but the original.  It was awesome.  Cara had a single beef rib which doesn’t sound like much except this thing looked like it came off a dinosaur!  I of course had the brisket.  Difficult to say one was much better than the other, both were better than anyplace else I’ve ever eaten, but I’d have to give the nod to Opies in Spicewood.  After we finished lunch and visited downtown, we returned back to Austin.  The drive back was much quicker.  We took a toll road with an 85 MPH speed suggestion - Texas is growing on me,

With the rain past us and clearing skies, we walked portions of Lady Bird Park and Zilker Park near the river and then up and down the infamous South Congress, aka SoCo.  SoCo is filled with funky shops and restaurants.  We had several folks suggest Home Slice Pizza so even though we were still stuffed from lunch we tried a slice.  As good as advertised, if you like NYC style.  We enjoyed window-shopping and people-watching before walking back through the parks to our rental and heading back to the hotel for a much needed break.

Our last venture out for the day was to take a ride through some of the wealthy neighborhoods in West Austin and up to The Domain Area for a small dinner at... of all places... Shake Shack!  We had never heard of Shake Shack until we were in NYC this past December.  We all liked it but Elle fell in love with their burgers and shakes.  We about fell over when we found there are two recently opened in Austin.  It was an unexpected treat, especially for my little girl, and a nice end to our visit to Texas’ Capital City.

San Marcos

Lockhart

Lady Bird Park with Downtown Austin Skyline

Stevie Ray Vaughan Statue

SoCo

My next purchase?

 Notice the 'all right, all right, all right' quote in the bottom right corner,  Yep, I'm back to saying that again.

 Because is there ever a time when lasers shooting out of a cat's eyes isn't awesomeness?!

Outside the Shake Shack, Elle found her name on a license plate. 

Just 4 months ago in NYC we discovered her favorite and ate at Shake Shacks three times.  We truly did not think we'd see one again for a quite awhile.