Mom's Day with Sean, Caching For Me & Dinner 5/10/2010

Well today was Mom's day with Sean in Austin as he had flown in on Sunday to be with her on Mother's Day. We went out to eat at Eddie V's on Sunday night which was a great place and the food was delicious. This morning he drove out and picked her up and headed for Austin. First stop was the Capitol complex as they walked all around it and inside. Then they walked down 6TH Street, which is "THE" place to go when your in Austin. Likely Texas' best known street, the seven block's of 6th Street between Congress and IH 35 are certainly Austin's entertainment center. With a little help from it's many like-minded sister streets, 6th Street is the heart of Austin's live entertainment scene and the capital of third coast music.
Sixth Street (formerly known as Pecan Street) is lined with many historical houses and commercial buildings dating from the late 1800's and early 1900's. The storied old buildings now house numerous bars, a host of live entertainment venues, tattoo parlors, art galleries, casual cafes, upscale restaurants, and the elegant Driskill Hotel. Live music of every genre abounds. From jazz, blues, and country to rock, hip-hop, beat, progressive, metal, punk and derivations of these, there's something to whet everyone's musical pallete. Great food is a staple on Sixth Street, featuring such regional staples as chili, ribs, and Tex-Mex plus steak, seafood, cajun-cooking, and deli.
Sixth Street draws an eclectic bunch including endless streams of mostly single UT students, the YUP's, the burb's, some interesting street folk,and lot's of out of town visitors. It's not uncommon to spy some celebrity type taking in the sights on 6th. From film folk to politicians, to music men and women, Sixth Street rubs elbows well. Dress code, yeah right. You'll see cowboys and punks, surfers and suits. On Halloween anything goes, and during Mardi Gras, everything goes !
Going West from the entertainment area, West Sixth Street offers another suprise with antique stores, art galleries, hair salons, restaurants, and lot's of eclectic shops.
Sixth Street is Austin's entertainment showpiece, and deservedly so. Great events like the Austin Mardi Gras celebration, SXSW, The Republic of Texas Bikers Rally, the Pecan Street Festival and Sixth's Street infamous Halloween celebration all make for great times with great people.
Then they walked over and had lunch at a Vietnamese-Thai restaurant and then took a Duck Boat ride around the city and then out onto one of the local lakes.

Meanwhile I put a few caches into the GPS and off I went. I found 3 caches all of the NRV type and then came back and had lunch. One of the caches I did try and find was located in a old cemetery named Roger's Hill. It was in terrible condition with fences down and weeds that were up to your hips, so bad that you couldn't even see some of the head stones. I sat around the coach for the afternoon then showered and met Mom & Sean in Austin at Lambert's BBQ. We had BBQ pork and brisket and it was out of this world. It was so tender and tasty that you could cut it with a fork. The building that houses Lamberts is on the National Register of Historic Places and once was an old store. The J.P. Schneider Store is a historic commerce building in downtown Austin, Texas built in 1873. Built along Second Street, the structure is the only remaining historic building in the immediate vicinity, and is today surrounded by Austin City Hall and an office building for the Computer Sciences Corporation. In the mid-1860s, shortly after the Civil War, Jacob Peter "Jake" Schneider (1852-1925) began working in William Brueggerhoff's general mercantile store, and part-time as a legislative page in the Capitol. About 1870, he and his mother, Margarita Schneider, opened a store on the corner across the street (north). Brueggerfhoff helped stock the enterprise in payment of a debt. In 1873, as the business expanded, and Schneider built this two-story brick structure, and converted the older building into storage space, called the "flour house". The Schneider residence was also across the street. The basement of the Schneider store contained meats, vats of wine and whiskey, and molding cheeses, the main floor housed large stocks of food and clothing, and the upper floor was partitioned with bedrooms for rent to travelers. Schneider also operated a wagon yard south and west of the store, complete with two camp houses for travelers. After Schneider's death the store was managed by a son F. Ralph Schneider, who added a saloon in the rear of the building after the repeal of prohibition in 1933. Business operations ceased in 1935, and the structure has since housed electrical and lumber companies and an art gallery. It has been damaged twice by fire over the years. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It was quite something standing down the street from the restaurant and looking at it sitting on the corner with all the tall huge buildings around it. All it had was a very narrow alley where they did there smoking too.

After dinner we said goodbye to Sean as he was flying out the next morning to Minneapolis and we headed back to the coach for the evening.

Well that's about all for today so until tomorrow we love and miss you all. Mom & Dad Dori & Dick