Beautiful World // Austin

I’m a midwest girl at heart, but I have a little thing for Texas.  And if I had to pick a favorite place in Texas, it would probably be Austin.  Not just because my awesome big brother lives there, but that helps!  We spent last weekend in Austin and so I thought I’d share a few of my favorite photos from that trip, plus a few of our past visits.

One of my favorite parts of Austin is how much there is to do outside.  When we visit, we like to hike or bike the Green Belt – I love that it runs all the way through the city – and we also spent a day boating on Lake Austin (this is a seriously awesome past-time).

I loved visiting Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, where I was able to get some great shots – I could take photos of flowers literally all day long.  It was a small center, but it had longer trails you could hike, if you desired.  We stuck to the center where the gardens were, and still had a lovely time.

On this trip, we took a tour at University of Texas, which was a beautiful campus – much more “college” feeling than my urban-center alma mater DePaul – but it didn’t nearly feel big enough for the number of students that attend (50,000+!).  Also, college pride level at this school is through the roof – every other person we passed was wearing burnt orange, and of course, there were longhorns on pretty much everything a longhorn could be put on!

And of course, no visit to Austin would be complete without some really tasty grub.  I won’t go into all the details here, but if you’re interested in more detailed reviews of restaurants, etc, that we visited during our trip, check out my yelp reviews. (Full disclosure: I didn’t actually eat at Chuy’s, but rather the neighboring Shady Grove – I just loved the sign – but from what I hear, and from the 1.5 hour wait there that Sunday morning, I’m guessing the food is delicious there too.)

It’s pretty hard to capture Austin into one post, but this is a tiny glimpse of some of our past visits – I’m sure I’ll be adding to the memories as time goes on.  Have any of you been to Austin? What was your favorite place to visit or eat?