Austin, 8-Apr-2014

Not only were we leaving Austin this day, we also left Texas. On the way to San Antonio, however, we went to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to spend a couple hours.

Checking out of the hostel was easy (turn in our keys) and we were all curious what would happen with the car, since the lot seemed to have a fixed price rather than be based on how long you've parked. Indeed, parking there for two nights cost us $15. The lot is attached to a church, so I'm not sure what happens if you park over a Sunday.

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

Parking lot mystery solved, we made the short drive to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, where we found the parking lot nearly full. In fact, we took what looked one of the two last non-bus parking spots. That didn't give us a good feeling for how full it would be inside, but we forged ahead. Celeste had found a coupon for a discount, so our entrance fee was a bit lower than we expected.

Wandering in, we found that the place didn't feel very crowded at all, a pleasant, but curious surprise.

Entrance to the Wildflower Center

Cactus

Restoration Research Trail

Country Stream garden

Restoration Research Trail

Eastern Black Swallowtail

Restoration Research Trail

Melody and Celeste on the Texas Arboretum trail

While we were wandering around, we saw several small groups of kids, but it seemed the number of kids was more than would warrant having them arrive in individual cars. As we ate lunch at the café, however, we saw that there was a seminar in the conference room.

Going home

After having lunch, we were ready to drive back to San Antonio. Once we got to the city, we swung by Celeste's place so she could get her car, returned our car, then headed to the airport. It ends up that Celeste would be leaving for Australia the next day, and would be gone for two weeks, so we got to the airport pretty early so she could finish getting ready.

While we had an extra couple hours, it went pretty quickly, catching up online and getting dinner. We arrived home quite late and were ready to sleep.