Monday, March 5th
Mar. 15th, 2007 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariOne thing I did forget from Sunday: In the evening, we took a trip through Hyde Park and Amy's Ice Cream, where we got to see some of the entertainment firsthand, including a catgirl, a guy with a shirt saying "Ask Me About my Berries" and a contest where if you could catch your icecream in a dish across the parking lot, the dish was free. Welcome to Austin, Emily. ;)
We began Monday with a mission - pick up packages in Austin. As long as we got to Austin before 5PM, we'd could see some of the sites, and even after that, we could see more after we got them.
We took off from San Marcos, through the old stagecoach route, towards Austin. Near Five Mile Dam [MAP], we saw a train just sitting on the huge concrete trestle over the Blanco "River." On the side of one car was something like "Mike & Diana Were Here." I thought it was wierd just sitting, there, but Emily, resident railroad expert, said it was normal. We'll come back to this....
We continued down the twisty little road into Kyle [MAP][INFO], where we visited the quaint little town square, and the oak where the townsite was parceled out and auctioned off. As we were leaving, though, what comes along, but that train we had seen sitting on the trestle. After watching it pass from the old Kyle Depot, we continued on.
Spurred on by the railroad to our east, we pulled into some old road alignements at the Ginormous Centex Cement Plant to get a closeup of some railroad alignments when along comes that same train. We raced it into the old downtown Buda [MAP][INFO] to watch it go by, and examine an old siding that went into what used to be the Buda Depot.
With the train gone by, we drove into Austin proper [MAP][INFO], by coming up Congress Street to give a good intro to Austin, down the Guadalupe Drag, and into Hyde Park, pointing out all my old stomping grounds, and finally pulling into the Post Office to pick up the packages.
Turns out there were actually THREE packages. One was a book on Java Programming I did some illustrations for. None of the illustrations were actually used, but I did get a nice little mention in "Special Thanks" :)
The other two packages were from the lovely Middleswarth Company in Pennsylvania containing 36, count 'em, THIRTY SIX, bags of Middleswarth Potato Chips, the Best Potato Chips North South East ORRRRRR West of the Pecos. They're so very light a crispy...and powdery. I can't explain what makes them good, they just are. And they're VERY good.
I also picked up some Weis Brand Birch Beer, essentially "Crystal Root Beer." Pennsylvania has this thing for "Teaberry." You can find it anywhere - in gum, ice cream, and in soda. Birch Beer, is essentially teaberry soda. And you're probably familiar with Teaberry, too, and just don't know it. Ever had Pepto Bismol?
Back from our commercial break, we took the new Mopac to my old job, where I "met" Emily on my overnight tech job. Sure we couldn't go in, but we got as close as we could without security being called out on us. Dell wasn't too too far away, so we made our way into the Dell Round Rock Campus [MAP], showing off Building 2E and 7 where I worked, and the Gilded Cage where Mike himself works. This ended up in a quick tour of Round Rock [MAP][INFO] and its railroad system.
I gave Emily the chouice of tracking an old abandonned line, or a currently used line. She decided she wanted to see the currently used line, so as we made our way to where the Round Rock rail yards would have been, along comes the same train we saw when we left, with Mike and Diana Was Here proudly displayed on that car. We were several HOURS out of San Marcos at this time, but there she was, clicking down the tracks....
We ended up driving parallel to the tracks, to the town of McNeil [MAP][INFO], although it's really just a general store, a rock quarry, and security guards who were very very very interested in the two women examining and taking pictures of the diamond interchange there.
From there, we visited the Fish Pond and Waterfalls at Great Hills Park, but we were rapidly running out of light, and decided we'd stop by Dean'n'Jill's place to wait for Dean and let him dig through the Middleswarths/Birch Beer for himself.
We ended up staying for a while, since we thought he was getting out of work at 8, which ended up being 10. In the meantime, we watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which was really hard to follow in a Hudson Hawk kinda way, but was very good nonetheless, and ended the day at Jim's having Peach Cobbler and Ice Cream.
We came home late, well traveled, and promptly fell asleep, for the next day's adventures.
We began Monday with a mission - pick up packages in Austin. As long as we got to Austin before 5PM, we'd could see some of the sites, and even after that, we could see more after we got them.
We took off from San Marcos, through the old stagecoach route, towards Austin. Near Five Mile Dam [MAP], we saw a train just sitting on the huge concrete trestle over the Blanco "River." On the side of one car was something like "Mike & Diana Were Here." I thought it was wierd just sitting, there, but Emily, resident railroad expert, said it was normal. We'll come back to this....
We continued down the twisty little road into Kyle [MAP][INFO], where we visited the quaint little town square, and the oak where the townsite was parceled out and auctioned off. As we were leaving, though, what comes along, but that train we had seen sitting on the trestle. After watching it pass from the old Kyle Depot, we continued on.
Spurred on by the railroad to our east, we pulled into some old road alignements at the Ginormous Centex Cement Plant to get a closeup of some railroad alignments when along comes that same train. We raced it into the old downtown Buda [MAP][INFO] to watch it go by, and examine an old siding that went into what used to be the Buda Depot.
With the train gone by, we drove into Austin proper [MAP][INFO], by coming up Congress Street to give a good intro to Austin, down the Guadalupe Drag, and into Hyde Park, pointing out all my old stomping grounds, and finally pulling into the Post Office to pick up the packages.
Turns out there were actually THREE packages. One was a book on Java Programming I did some illustrations for. None of the illustrations were actually used, but I did get a nice little mention in "Special Thanks" :)
The other two packages were from the lovely Middleswarth Company in Pennsylvania containing 36, count 'em, THIRTY SIX, bags of Middleswarth Potato Chips, the Best Potato Chips North South East ORRRRRR West of the Pecos. They're so very light a crispy...and powdery. I can't explain what makes them good, they just are. And they're VERY good.
I also picked up some Weis Brand Birch Beer, essentially "Crystal Root Beer." Pennsylvania has this thing for "Teaberry." You can find it anywhere - in gum, ice cream, and in soda. Birch Beer, is essentially teaberry soda. And you're probably familiar with Teaberry, too, and just don't know it. Ever had Pepto Bismol?
Back from our commercial break, we took the new Mopac to my old job, where I "met" Emily on my overnight tech job. Sure we couldn't go in, but we got as close as we could without security being called out on us. Dell wasn't too too far away, so we made our way into the Dell Round Rock Campus [MAP], showing off Building 2E and 7 where I worked, and the Gilded Cage where Mike himself works. This ended up in a quick tour of Round Rock [MAP][INFO] and its railroad system.
I gave Emily the chouice of tracking an old abandonned line, or a currently used line. She decided she wanted to see the currently used line, so as we made our way to where the Round Rock rail yards would have been, along comes the same train we saw when we left, with Mike and Diana Was Here proudly displayed on that car. We were several HOURS out of San Marcos at this time, but there she was, clicking down the tracks....
We ended up driving parallel to the tracks, to the town of McNeil [MAP][INFO], although it's really just a general store, a rock quarry, and security guards who were very very very interested in the two women examining and taking pictures of the diamond interchange there.
From there, we visited the Fish Pond and Waterfalls at Great Hills Park, but we were rapidly running out of light, and decided we'd stop by Dean'n'Jill's place to wait for Dean and let him dig through the Middleswarths/Birch Beer for himself.
We ended up staying for a while, since we thought he was getting out of work at 8, which ended up being 10. In the meantime, we watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which was really hard to follow in a Hudson Hawk kinda way, but was very good nonetheless, and ended the day at Jim's having Peach Cobbler and Ice Cream.
We came home late, well traveled, and promptly fell asleep, for the next day's adventures.
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Date: 2007-03-15 11:25 pm (UTC)I read somewhere that Middleswarth chips involve buttermilk powder, or powdered buttermilk, or something, somehow. I could believe that. Mmmmm... chippy.
PS - In an unrelated note, I think I had a dream that I was Keith Moon (while he was still alive, not Zombie Keith Moon...picture THAT if you will).
braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains