Day 12 - Meandering Home from LA to Toronto

April 2015 - Fort Worth TX to Austin TX

A much nicer day, this Monday. We have breakfast in the Corner Bakery in the hotel.

We get our car and head back to the Stockyards so we can watch the Cattle Run. It is much busier and warmer today.

On the road again, this time to Austin TX.

We decide, in the interest of time, to grab a burger at Whataburger, I much prefer In N Out!!

McLennan County was created by the Texas Legislature in 1850 out of Milam County. The county seat, Waco, had been founded originally as an outpost of the Texas Rangers, laid out by George B. Erath, and was known by 1850 as "Waco Village." According to local lore, the first sustained flight did not occur in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, but just outside Tokio (a small community in McLennan County) by a man flying a gyrocopter. During World War I, McLennan County was home to at least one military airfield,Rich Field. In the aftermath of World War I, racial violence disrupted county life, culminating in two major Ku Klux Klan marches (one in Waco and another in Lorena) and the public lynching of numerous black citizens. (One such public lynching is the catalyst behind a "Lynching Resolution" being discussed by both the Waco City Council and the McLennan County Commissioners Court.) McLennan County's contributions to World War II include the reopening of Rich Field, Doris Miller (awarded the Navy Cross for his heroism at Pearl Harbor, also the first African American to earn such distinction), and James Connally (a locally famous World War II fighter pilot).

 We get into Austin and we are at the Hilton Garden Inn right off the interstate at 6th St. The desk clerk assured me we were within walking distance of everything.

The nine-block area of East Sixth Street roughly between Lavaca Street to the west and Interstate 35 to the east is recognized as the Sixth Street Historic District and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on December 30, 1975. Developed as one of Austin's trade and commercial districts in the late 1800s, the predominant building style are two or three-story masonry Victorian commercial architecture. Most structures in the area had already been built by the 1880s, though there are a few notable exceptions such as the Driskill Hotel (1886), the Scarbrough Building (1910) and the Littlefield Building.

Personally, I thought the street was rather run down and there were a lot of homeless people.
There was no example of the music that makes this the music capital of the world. I would go to Nashville any time.

Reference to Jimmy Kimmel on the side The Iron Cactus. 03/10/15 -- Iron Cactus Mexican Grill and Margarita Bar in downtown Austin has created a special margarita aptly named Kimmelrita in honor of Jimmy Kimmel while he is in Austin from March 16th-20th hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live at SXSW. Iron Cactus has also started an online petition inviting Kimmel to visit the popular SXSW destination for Mexican dishes and margaritas.

Back to the hotel and we decide on room service for dinner as we are not that hungry. We share quesadillas and a Caesar salad.