Lone Star State of Mind

The pool and late nights quickly became norm for the weekend.  But first, there was a city to see....

The Texas State Capitol is one of Austin's most distinctive landmarks.  It was built in 1888 from sunset-red Texas granite and, as everything is bigger in Texas, it's the largest state capitol in the USA standing at 308ft (94m) with a dome that's taller than the US capitol building's.

Inside the dome from the ground floor.

Texas House of Representatives Chamber

The dome and whispering gallery from the fourth floor.

It was a long way down for a toddler
that could squeeze between the banisters.

From the Capitol we ventured north to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.  Big, glitzy and still relatively new, the museum even had (for the first time in our Texas museum history) an actual cafe inside, hooray!

After lunch we managed to check out the conquistadors, cowboys, buffalo soldiers, oil barons and suffragists through three floors of interactive exhibits, special effects shows and dynamic films.

We also got up close and personal with the Goddess of Liberty, who stood atop the State Capitol for nearly 100 years with a star in one hand and a sword in the other.  When she was removed from her perch and lowered by helicopter as part of a capitol restoration project in 1985, no one had seen her up close since 1888. Not only was she badly weathered, but she was 16ft tall with hideously exaggerated features meant to be appreciated from 300ft below.  After making a cast for her replacement, they restored her to her former 'beauty' and put her on display inside this museum.

Inside the museum we also visited the Texas Spirit Theatre and watched their Star of Destiny show, a 15 minute special effect film that chronologies the 'Texan Spirit': "If you want something done, tell a Texan he can't do it".  Well, three of us watched it, one of us surprisingly stayed asleep during it, and one had to accompany another out of it due to the loud unexpected noises and 'scary' footage.  That was the Don and Toots.  Maybe she's just at an age that understands more than Tiger and Lightning, or maybe she just doesn't like unexpected lightning flashes, vibrating seats, water drops falling from the sky and stories about killings and bad storms...

The State History Museum is also right on the edge of the University of Texas campus, and looks toward Texas Memorial Stadium - home of their football team. The Longhorns college football team is one of the most successful football programs of all time.  In 2012 the Texas' football programme was valued at $805 million, more than the calculated value of several NFL teams, and the stadium seats 100,119 people.

We stumbled on the first home game of the season, and there must have been thousands outside the ground tailgating and ready to watch the game on the dedicated ESPN channel.  Everywhere you looked folks young and old where donned in the orange of UT - it's quite an experience.  The picture doesn't really give you the atmosphere, noise or scope of the tailgating, but wow.  They know how to support a team!

Finally we drove round the UT campus, except of course because a game was on we were pretty limited in what we could see.  Still, it just meant we were home quicker and back in that pool...

UT Clock tower