Austin Texas

Blue Corn Harvest uses local sourcing

/ Roadtirementvintage / 5 Comments

One thing we enjoy about traveling is the wide variety of dining experiences available. Georgetown is north of Austin and is a favorite destination for us when we’re in he Austin area. It is one of the locations for the Blue Corn Harvest restaurants.

Inviting entrance

Welcoming dining room

 

 

 

 

 

One thing that we like about Blue Corn Harvest is their use of local sourcing for their supplies. These places always have extra fresh ingredients for their offerings. Blue Corn also has a wonderful menu with something for everyone.

Sher’s Veggie Sandwich

Maj’s BBQ Burger

We were served warm sweet cornbread before the meal

We certainly enjoyed our lunch today. Sher had the Roasted Veggie Sandwich, stuffed with farm fresh veggies and topped with a bun sized mushroom. I enjoyed the 8 ounce BBQ burger with jack cheddar, onions and pickles and house made BBQ Sauce. Both came with hand cut fries.

Full service bar made good Margaritas

Adrian was our server and was most helpful. This was a very nice and comfortable place for a tasty lunch. The  food was delicious, service was great and the price was reasonable.

A fun luncheon with our granddaughter

/ Roadtirementvintage / 29 Comments

Things worked out great for us to have a fun luncheon with our just turned ten year old granddaughter. As her school was out this week Sher and I could take her out to lunch. This has become somewhat of a tradition with her when we visit family in Austin.

Our daughter-in-law recommended that we dine at Mandola’s Italian Kitchen. There are several locations of this Texas original chain. We picked one reasonably close.  Our granddaughter had been there before, and approved of this choice for lunch.

Well stocked dessert counter, one of two!

Wine bar, vacant for the lunch crowd.

 

 

 

 

 

Not only is the food menu extensive, but in addition you’ll find wonderful desert counters and a well filled wine bar. You order your meal at the counter, pay there and get your order number sign. Drinks and tableware are self serve with plenty of take home containers also available. Once seated you are immediately served a traditional basket of fresh bread with olive oil sprinkled with spices for dipping.

Fresh warm bread with oil for dipping

That’s a lot for a kid’s meal!

Our meals were brought to our table in a very short time. The presentation was good and portion sizes were quite impressive. Our Granddaughter ordered the chicken fingers and fries. She got three huge “fingers” plus a stack of fries. There was enough there for an adult meal.

Loaded chopped Italian salad bowl

Gnocchi with meat sauce

Sher thoroughly enjoyed her Italian salad overflowing the bowl with greens, fresh mozzarella, green & black olives, and tons of other delectable veggies. I really liked the Gnocchi with meat sauce. (Little Italian dumplings with a tomato sauce of beef, pork , garlic and veggies).

Main dining area decorated with soccer club flags

While the meal was very good and filling, what made this lunch special was the fact that we could share it with our granddaughter. Time with family is so precious. When family is far away it makes time intervals between visits seem way to long! The pandemic sure messed up our travel plans, and hopefully we’ll be able to spend more time with our scattered out kids and grandkids even more in the upcoming months.

 

Austin’s Lady Bird Lake at night

/ Roadtirementvintage / 47 Comments

The Colorado River runs through Austin’s vibrant downtown. Flanked by parks, bike and hiking trails and entertainment venues, the river also widens and slows, prompting the name Lady Bird Lake after LBJ’s First Lady.

Striking view at dusk

Groupon led us to Lone Star Riverboat cruises, offering a chance to enjoy a sunset cruise and beautiful views of the remarkable and interesting architecture of Austin’s skyline. Lone Star has both a double deck “paddle wheeler” style boat. Sher and I and our son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter chose to ride the open air pontoon boat for our sunset cruise.

Center building is either an owl or a nose hair clipper: locals laugh about it

Curved building is the new Google Headquarters, far right is one that looks like a thumb drive

We thoroughly enjoyed our slow paced tour up and down the waters. Our Captain of the craft gave a most interesting running commentary of the sights seen from the vantage point of the water. One interesting anecdote concerned the heights of the buildings. Formerly no Austin building could be taller than the State Capitol. However, one rich Texan donated a building that would be taller. Money talked, and the impressive skyline continues to grow in height.

Our cruise was slightly over and hour, and was reasonably priced with special kid’s rates and a nice Senior discount as well.

More on the Bent Oak Winery

/ Roadtirementvintage / 13 Comments

We had a great tasting experience the other day at the Bent Oak Winery. Located in what apparently is an older commercial strip building, the winery has a rather small entrance lobby, but it opens up in length in the tasting room.

The entrance lobby

Another view of the tasting room

 

 

 

 

A variety of seating is offered. There are traditional tables and chairs, high tables with barstool type seating and several couches with coffee tables for your glasses. Our seating consisted of a beautiful heavy wood picnic sized table with individual cushioned bench seats. Our hostess, Joan, was a most helpful and friendly sommelier. For a tasting of five different wines the Bent Oak presents each one at a time, with sufficient time between pours to enable a true appreciation of each wine, leading to a very relaxing experience.

One of our pours.

The tasting list

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our tasting of whites started with the ’18 Chardonnay CA Chalk Hill, followed by the ’19 Viognier TX High Plains. The 3 reds led off with the ’18 Pinot Noir Reserve CA Russian River. Next came the ’19 Sangiovese TX High Plains. We finished our tasting with an exquisite ’19 Aglianico TX High Plains.

Joan took our picture! See the actual oak branches on the walls? Bent oak, that is…

We enjoyed a bag of handmade sweet/spicy pecans for munching between our samplings. Across from us sat a couple of nice young men. We enjoyed talking with them, discussing what varieties of wines we enjoyed the best. Joan was taking part in our conversations, adding wonderful and informative details. Sher and I decided on a bottle of the ’18 Chardonnay CA Chalk Hill and a bottle of the ’19 Aglianico TX High Plains to take with us. As part of our tasting, we both received a complimentary wine glass with the Bent Oak logo etched on the glass. We will most likely go back here while we are enjoying our time in the Austin area.

 

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema schedules Planet of the Apes

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Full size statue from the from the 1st movie

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is a nation wide chain of “dinner and a movie” entertainment. While they are closed due the COVID-19 restrictions, their website still shows a scheduled showing of the 1968 cult classic “Planet of the Apes” for August 30th this fall. Whether this showing happens remains to be seen.

Sher and I and our Austin family went to one of these theaters during our Winter Texan stay this past year. The seats are large and comfortable, and the table for your dinner is more than adequate. Food was good, too. We saw and enjoyed  Little Women.

Anyway,  I wanted to show you the huge statue in the lobby of the theater we went to

Ad for an Ape movie marathon

in Austin. The statue is from the actual movie Planet of the Apes. I asked one of the employees where it came from. Turns out the owner of the theater chain also owns the rights to the Planet of the Apes franchise. There were movie posters for all of the Ape movies displayed in the lobby as well as ads for an APE movie marathon of the original five movies.

Have you seen the Planet of the Apes movies? Can you name the original five titles? Might be a good topic for a “stay at home in isolation” set of trivia questions. Stay safe, dear readers. Don’t go ape!

 

Texas distillery now at 100% hand sanitizer production

/ Roadtirementvintage / 6 Comments

Treaty Oak Distilling in Dripping Springs, Texas is one of the best whiskey distilleries in the Hill Country west of Austin. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has shut down their restaurant and their distillery. To at least keep some income coming in, Treaty Oak is now only producing hand sanitizer.

According to KXAN TV, the NBC affiliate in Austin,  on March 26th reported that the FDA is allowing distilleries to produce hand sanitizer. It must be at least 80% alcohol, have no other ingredients and be in a bottle with appropriate labeling. Starting next week Treaty oak will only produce the sanitizer, thus allowing some employees to remain working.

Last November we visited Treaty Oaks Distilling. Little could we guess back then that this distillery would be in the fight against a killer virus. You can read about our 2019 visit here. 

Back in Austin and the sunshine

/ Roadtirementvintage / 6 Comments

Sher and  I thoroughly enjoyed our time in Seattle with our daughter, son-in-law and grandson for the past 3 weeks. On our way out there, we flew Delta from Austin to Seattle with a layover in Salt Lake City. Scroll though our blog for recent posts about the highlights of our Seattle trip.

Real winter in Seattle 2020

Before we left someone commented that we were nuts going to Seattle in January. Guess they were right as we were snowed in for three days the first week we were there. Seattle does not have the road equipment to handle snow! Oh, and Seattle maintained its reputation of rain, fog, rain, fog and more rain. We witnessed the sun one day, I should say about 3 hours, while we were there.

Returning to Austin we had the de-ice process at Cincy airport on a heavy frost morning

This is the first time in over 10 years since we have traveled by air. (You know, with an RV you don’t need planes!) Next time we fly we’ll have one large suitcase to check and each of us will have a small carry on bag. It was a pain carting those “carry on” size suitcases and stuffed smaller bags around. Coming back we flew Delta from Seattle to Cincinnati for crying out loud. Now I know what they mean when they say “red eye” flight. Left at nearly 11 pm, got into Cincy about 6 am. Got in to Austin about 10:30 am.

Welcome home!

Once in Austin, we got back to the La Hacienda RV Resort. Got the RV out of the storage yard, parked in our new site, hooked up the utilities and got things somewhat back to normal. My were we tired! Got carry out fast food for supper. We’ll hit the store next day. It was good to get back to our RV.