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Shortly after arriving in Austin, we head downtown to Friends Bar to see Erin Weinberg aka Erin Jaimes perform. Austin calls itself the "Live Music Capital of the World" and while we didn't do a statistical measurement there's plenty to be seen and heard.

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And here's Erin! Erin is a family friend who Mitch has known since childhood. She's been in Austin singing the blues for a number of years, and is quite good. She even sang a song for us - I just wish I remembered which one!

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The room was very dark, and I didn't want to use an annoying flash so this is as good as it gets.

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You should visit Erin's web site at http://www.erinjaimes.com. She has one CD out, and is working on another.

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A Mexican restaurant recommended by the locals. Decent food we thought, but not amazing.

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A nice looking building downtown. Not sure what it is.

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Here's the Texas Capitol.

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Under the dome. Look waaaaaay up and around the star are the letters T-E-X-A-S.

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And here's a closeup of said star at the top of the dome.

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The state senate chamber. Being a Texas legislature is a part-time job. They meet for a few weeks just every two years.

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The house chamber. The desks are quite crowded!

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Want to print something in the Texas house chamber? Here's the IP address! (Hopefully they're smart enough to block it from the outside...)

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A few years ago they needed more space in the state capitol so they build an adjacent underground addition. This is from the top floor of that addition, where the roof is at street level.

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In case you forget where you are, you can just look at the hinges of many doors.

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The lobby of the Capitol has portraits of every past governor. The portraits go up the stairs to the top floor. The tour guide said they only have room for four or five more portraits before they run out of room. Here on the left is Ann Richards. On the right is some other guy.

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Here's a closeup of Ann's portrait.

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Some info about Austin during the civil war.

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Here's Austin from the Colorado River. No, not THAT Colorado River but one that runs through Texas. We're sitting in a boat about to take a little tour of the river and Lake Austin, followed by watching some bats supposedly fly out from under the bridge on the right.

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Here's our tour guide.

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The Congress Avenue bridge, where the bats live. Here's the story. The bridge was built without any thought as to bats. But the way it was constructed left crevices which were just perfect for bats. You can read more about the bats at http://www.batcon.org/discover/congress.html.