A Day in ATX
Yesterday I was given the lovely gift of a day with an alarming amount of emptiness. In my opinion, a morning when you wake up and have nothing planned for the entire day can easily lead to the best day you've ever had. Don't get me wrong, it can easily lead to being in bed all day, whether that means sleeping or binge watching that new show you found (or lets be honest, binge watching that show you've seen every episode of at least 3 times) on Netflix as well. Now this can be a wonderful day if you are in need of some mental rebooting time but isn't what I would consider the best day of my life (and now that song is permanently in my mind, yay!). What I love so dearly about an open day is the endless possibility that goes along with it. You can turn it into something amazing because you have nothing holding you back, no time limits, no restraints. This is what I got to experience and it was simply lovely.
Wednesday I started my day early enough to be able to do a multitude of things but not so early that I felt like death getting out of bed. My roommate Tyler woke me up when he left for work at about 8:45 and, after asking him to turn on the Keurig, I proceeded to finish watching my episode of House from the previous night before getting out of bed. My best friend Clay had spent the night on the couch and was watching movie trailers when I came out to make some coffee. We both had clear schedules until about 7 o'clock and I had done some light research of things to do in Austin (you've never really seen all of the city you live in after all) that would keep us out in the fresh air and sunshine. This led me to wear my brand new top from the Kendall & Kylie line at Pacsun (I'll link it below if you wanna see it or their line). It is backless and I, as I do all backless things, adore it. We got ready and were out the door at about 10:15 heading to our first destination, the Austin Zoo.
Now to anyone else my age this destination would have seemed quite trite I suppose, but I Jordan Nicole in my 21st year had never been to a zoo before. This made my level of excitement resemble that of a three year old seeing Frozen for the first time. Then again, I was about as excited to see Frozen as that three year old so the conclusion must be that I am indeed a toddler. I am perfectly happy with this fact :) Clay thought we should attempt to go to the San Antonio Zoo for my first time but we simply couldn't get all the way back to Austin in time for his 8 PM rehearsal and see the whole zoo so we decided on the Austin one. I was fine with this seeing as I was just excited to be going at all. After driving about 30 minutes from my apartment and down some back, narrow and curvy roads we made it to the zoo. I had just had a garage sale with my Mama the previous weekend so I had a baggie full of about $27 worth of quarters and another $30 in one dollar bills. We decided this would be the day to use them! So we paid the $8 each in one dollar bills and bought our $2 bag of animal food with some quarters. The zoo worker handed us a map, we headed outside and we started my first ever zoo experience. Spoiler alert: IT WAS AMAZING!
The first animals I saw weren't particularly interesting but they were animals in a real life zoo so I was completely satisfied with the chickens and peacocks that were roaming around lose within the whole area. The male peacocks were glorious and just reminded me how sad it is that male animals in nature are typically more esthetically pleasing than the females. Oh well, guess that's why we have make-up ;) Clay was the most excited to see the big cats so we headed there first. We passed the bear cage on the way but it was sadly empty (This put a damper on my idea to make a pic-stitch with "Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!" which was just dream crushing). The tigers were out though and so was a lion. They were all so wonderful! I love cats and it is so cute how much big cats act like domestic house cats. We walked around and looked at all of the animals. We made our way to the monkeys before we left and they were so much fun! A lot of the animals had just gotten food while we were there so we got to watch them eat and we even got to feed some of the goats, sheep, deer and llamas :) Its so interesting how they all eat in such different ways! I had a new experience where I got to see animals, learn things, and spend time in the sun. If you are in ATX and that sounds like a good time to you, I would definitely recommend going :)
Now it had gotten to be about 1:30 and I was starving so we decided to go to Chuy's, one of our favorite restaurants in Austin. We usually like to go to the one with an outdoor area that is close to the apartment but since we were further south at the zoo we went to the one on William Cannon and ate inside. This actually turned out to be a good thing in the long run, I'm sure, because we both had pink checks at the end of the day and the time indoors was probably good for our skin! I adore their tortillas, which come with the tortilla soup that I always order (it's my favorite from a restaurant, but homemade is always better!) and I love to dip them in queso and their famous creamy jalepeno sauce. We had a great time in the air conditioning and as we walked out Clay commented on the state of my vehicle. Now I recently got a new car, its a white 2013 Ford Escape, and I had visited my parents the weekend before. The oak levels in Yoakum had been off the charts which left my car looking a little worse for the ware, bright neon yellow everywhere! I needed gas anyways and the gas station across the street had a car wash as well so I headed that way. This ended up not mattering though because Clay decided he wanted to hand wash my car since the weather was so pretty. We headed to Brodie and a car wash where during the course of washing my car and spending tons of my quarters Clay managed to complement soak my front half. After I calmed myself down we had a big laugh about it but I still secretly think he did it on purpose, that or he just has no hand eye coordination ;) My roommate Tyler had gotten out of class and called us to see when we wanted to meet up at our next destination when we had gotten to the car wash so we told him we were headed to Zilker Botanical Gardens next and said we'd see him there around 3:30.
I hadn't been to the Zilker Botanical Gardens since I was about 7 years old and my family took portraits there (insert absolutely humiliating shot of me at age six).
The matching outfits really just bring the whole thing together, my lack of hair and teeth help too :)
We beat Tyler there but decided to get out and walk around without him. The second we got out of the car I knew this was going to be one of my new favorite places in Austin. It is gorgeous and so serene. If you want to get to be in nature and outdoors but not have to be in a loud and crowded environment this is the place for you! I took so many amazing pictures (as my phone was dying and I wanted to cry). Tyler joined us after a bit and we walked around the whole area. It was so nice to just be together outside. I would tell anyone who is in Austin and wants to have a nice afternoon outside to head to the Botanical Gardens. It is only $2 for Austin residents and $3 for visitors, that's such a great deal! :)
Isn't he just so cool? ;)
Roomie love :)
We got so hot that we wanted to head over to our favorite snow cone place in Austin, Sno Beach. It is conveniently located just down from Zilker Park so we braved the traffic and headed that way. It was delicious and we had a nice time together. Clay & I wanted to go mini golfing next but Tyler had a rehearsal to get to so we went our separate ways from there. ***My phone was dying at this point so I left it in the car to charge and took the pictures of our snow cones with Tyler's phone. I should have sent them to myself right then but I didn't.. So now I have no access to them :P***
With Tyler forging the path we bravely took on the challenge of taking a left across four heavily populated lanes. The only reason I made it out is because I had Tyler's help and I was grateful because it made us get to Peter Pan Mini Golf in only a few minutes. I had only been once before this, a year earlier, and was really looking forward to it. I found that I am not naturally gifted in hitting the ball far distances but I am really good at putting! It was nice to be good at something at least. We had such a nice time and got to have more sun time, but we were drained after doing one side so we decided not to purchase the other side too but if you are interested they have two complete 18 hole sides and they are both so fun! Its only an additional $3 to get both sides which is typically worth it. It's great for all ages, we saw some grandparents with their six year old granddaughter there and they were having a wonderful time! You can even bring your own alcohol so thats cool :)
We left mini golfing and went to get some food because after a full day in the sun we were hungry again. We picked up Chipotle and ate it out by the pool. Even after a full day outdoors we just wanted more fresh air! It was such a great day and when I laid down that night I was proud of what I had turned my empty day into. If only all empty days could end up this good. On the other hand, can't they? :) Go out there and take the endless possibilities with you!
Some of the website I looked at for things to do in ATX
http://365thingsaustin.com/2011/05/02/25-best-things-to-do-in-austin-texas/
http://www.austintop50.com/p/top-50-things-to-do-in-austin-this.html
http://www.tourtexas.com/content.cfm?id=124
Links for things we did
Kendall & Kylie Pacsun line: http://www.pacsun.com/content/kendall-kylie.html
Austin Zoo: http://www.austinzoo.org
Chuy's: http://www.chuys.com/#/home
Zilker Botanical Gardens: http://www.zilkergarden.org
Sno Beach: http://snobeachatx.com
Peter Pan Mini Golf: http://peterpanminigolf.com
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