Day 23: Austin, Tx: A little Blue within a sea of Red

I'm so disappointed because I signed up for mobile Blogger (where I can simply text the photo & description from my phone to the blog) & yesterday I tried it out, but no luck.  I'll have to figure out the hiccup, as it would be so great to "post on the go".
Yesterday we had a full day in Austin.  And by full day I mean from one in the afternoon to ten at night; still a full day in all accounts, but we tend to be a little slow on the morning get-go.  I think that has a lot to do with "living on the road", as that was our pace last summer traveling around Portugal & Spain, too.  I wonder why...any advice for us to get moving quicker?
So Austin: a very cool city & obviously, as we've all heard, one of the most liberal cities in Texas.  We saw tattoos, crazy piercings, trend-setting neighborhoods...you know the norm for a couple who recently lived in Berkeley.  At one point of the day, Mike even commented that he felt like he was in California--that's a compliment, Austin :)  And thanks to the suggestions from our friends on Facebook, we saw the local version of the city.  We toured the University of Texas campus (Hook 'em!), walked around the capital (which of course is bigger than our Nations Capital because everything is bigger in Texas), went swimming in Lady Bird Lake, ate at the infamous Torchy's Tacos, then strolled the great neighborhood of  "So Co", South Congress Ave. As the sun went down, we made our way down to an area under the Congress Ave. Bridge to watch the largest urban bat colony in North America emerge from their slumber to wreak havoc on  the local mosquitoes. Go bats!  All & all a great day, & definitely a city we want to come back to!

Day 23: So Co, Austin, TX.

And now a drive through Houston, then onto the French Quarter!!  Hello Cafe du Monde.