Austin has been on my bucket list for quite some time
because if some town is even more hipster than Portland, I am totally down. So
when a work training brought me to Houston, I knew I had to make the 2-ish hour trip
to Austin for the weekend.
I fell in love with cowboy boots during my drive from
Seattle to Minneapolis for a summer internship when I stopped at Wall Drug, the
most random drug store in the middle of nowhere that has a bunch of themed
shops, including a boot shop. Ever
since, I am always on the lookout for good boots, but they are a rare find in
the Pacific Northwest. What better
combination is there than cowboy boots and Texas? I don’t think there is such a thing.
There are a couple famous cowboy boot shops in Austin, but
since one primarily does high-end, specialty boots (aka boots that were like
$600 a pair), I opted for the more mainstream store (aka boots that were more
like $100 - $200 a pair), Allens Boots. I had no idea being a real cowboy cost so much money...
I spent so much time in awe of all the incredible styles
they had in the women’s section, but unfortunately my wide feet don’t fit into
the cowgirl ideal, so I had to shop in the men’s section. No worries, though, because I was able to
find some adorable styles that were on the feminine side.
Just when I had found my perfect purple and dusky blue embroidered pair, the
salesman said he had another pair and prefaced it with “I’m not sure how much
you love Texas, but I might have another option” and brought out the below gems. I had gone in telling myself that
I would only splurge on one pair of boots, but I couldn’t resist the Texas flag
boots as well so I walked out with two new pairs of boots to add to my
collection. It’s okay, though. I’m totally worth it and some Texan cowboy
boots are indeed a good investment in my future, right? Since I couldn't fit both pairs in my carry-on sized suitcase, I rocked the Texan boots on my flight home and am 95% sure I was the envy of everyone in the airport. The poor North Face-clad PNWers didn't realize that I was actually one of them...
While getting my fill of cowboy boots was top of my list, no
trip to Austin is complete without also seeing all of the amazing graffiti art
around the city (and the Hope Outdoor Gallery in particular).
Other must dos include visiting the UT campus and seeing the brunt orange long-horn symbol anywhere/everywhere, going for a dip in Barton Springs and witnessing the migration of the bats from under the Congress Avenue bridge. It is amazing the crowds that gather in the grassy park below and in the water near the bridge to watch the daily migration, but it was very cool to see!
It’s a little hard to see what is going on in the video (gotta love the cell phone video quality!), but the bats
are leaving the bridge area just below where we were standing and move towards
the skyline, so they are the fuzzy black specks moving against the backdrop of
the river. I couldn’t believe there were so many bats because this went on for 10-15 minutes straight! It is estimated that there are about 1.5 million bats that move out from under the bridge in a nightly ritual during certain times of the year!
I could see myself wanting to move to Austin…if it was about 20 degrees
cooler on average. And to think I wasn’t
even there during the hot part of the year! I do hope that Austin always stays weird.
