Austin, Texas

A few weeks back I took my first work-related trip of the year. My frequent flier status has dropped to Silver so I was only upgraded on one leg, but at least I'm still a Hilton Gold member, so I got free breakfast. Yay!

Anyway, it was nice to visit a warm place in early April. Today, April 23rd, it snowed a new more inches here in Minnesota. We expect rain in May, but hardly freezing temperatures. So .. Austin.

I have to admit this is a pretty nice city. One thing I tend to notice is how clean a city is, and this was a relatively clean one. While as spic and span as Dallas or Nashville, it far surpassed Chicago or New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco, where the garbage and litter blows around in the streets. In Austint he trash wasn't evident until I went for a run and got up close and personal with the parks and side streets.

And while on that run around Lady Bird Lake (a widening of the Colorado River) I encountered thousands of other runners participating in the Austin Capital 10k. I ran against on the flow, on a dirt trail next to the street they were running on. It was pretty thick with people for a couple miles; I didn't know it at the time, but they had 25,000 participants.

Austin is known for it's music, which my co-workers sought out. I found some good beer instead. The hotel bar had a belgian triple on tap, as well as a claimed Old Rasputin Imperial stout. I commented that it tasted more like an irish stout, and the bartender said something about getting the nitrous out of the lines. The next night I stopped in for that triple and she pointed out I was right ... there was Guinness in the tap lines from the previous keg.

I was only in Austin a few days for the COMMON conference and I didn't have a car or time to explore much more than that. Overall the city left a good impression on me, and knowing that it is at the eastern end of the Hill Country, I might consider coming through here on the motorcycle some day.