Here is the ultimate list of Free or Near Free things to do in Austin.
They are in NO particular order!
Carl and I didn't have a ton of money to spend we are poor newlyweds (someone told me you are newlyweds for 2 years! Someone else told me your a newlywed for as long as you feel....gag me!) I digress. There were PLENTY of activities to do while in Austin that were inexpensive. We even had more left over! You might want to print this off when you go to Austin!
This was for me NOT Carl. Leslie is infamous in Austin. He/She is a homeless tranny that hangs out on 6th street. I mean HANGS out. He/She usually isn't wearing much more than a leopard print thong and a halter top to cover his/her hormone induced boobies. Leslie has run for Mayor several times. Homelessness is his/her platform. Interesting huh?!?! Leslie usually hangs out on 6th and Congress during the day. We were lucky enough to see him on Friday night! We were walking down 6th street we heard a "HEY" and sure enough it was Leslie! It's like he/she knew we were looking for him/her. Don't worry I didn't touch him/ her but I did buy the magnetic "Leslie Paper doll Collection" for my fridge!
I vaguely remember going to Barton Springs as a kid. I don't know if we swam or not? Well we were HOT from walking around so we went to Barton Springs! It was $3 per person to get in. On the outside it looks like a HUGE public pool but when you look closer in the water you see that it's a natural spring complete with algae rocks. I was the first brave one to go in. It was a COOL 68 degrees! It made my feet feel awesome (they were throbbing from all the walking). We decided to go in at one of the walk in points. I ended up crawling to my final destination because the idea of slipping on the rocks was not one I wanted to experience. It was cold. I loved it. Sierra (our friend and personal tour guide) and Carl had goose pimples and shivered the whole time! BABIES! The best part was watching people try not to fall on the rocks while adjusting to the extreme cold! What can I say....I am evil. We didn't stay as long as I would have liked but the sun was going down. I will say that this activity is free if you go in after 7 PM but who would want to! I would think it's only for the Polar Bear Club members at that point!
3. 6th Street
While I see the appeal I think I am too old to really enjoy 6th street. I equate it to a brighter and cleaner walk on Bourbon Street in New Orleans (pre Katrina....haven't been back to see post....) They block off the street from vehicles at about 9 PM on the weekend. The only way to get from one side of the street to the other (other than good ol walking) is to take "Petty Cabs". Petty Cabs are men and women on bikes dragging a 3 person seat that take you to any club or bar for a donation. We chose to walk. It's good for the heart and to keep drunkenness in check! We did see the Pecan St. Cafe which my mom said was the ONLY thing on 6th Street when she was in school at UT. We went in to Babaloo, a cigar shoppe, and each picked out something to enjoy. The "I LoveLucy" reference was just too much for me to resist! We went to The Forbidden Fruit and met a future writer for "The Advocate". We watched the girls dance on the bar in Coyote Ugly. That was fun! We even stopped by and looked in at at The Dizzy Rooster that was made famous by "The Real World: Austin". We went to another bar....but I can't remember! We even had enough energy to walk back to the hotel! It was a long walk but we did save like 5 bucks by not getting a cab!
Ok. Now this is more MY style. It's more artsy. More hippie. More unusual. South Congress has a huge event every month called "First Thursday". The title is when the event takes place (duh!) and its a time that all the stores stay open later, the street is shut down, and more vendors are added in the street. It's a place for starving artists to sell their works. I wish we were there for First Thursday but alas we weren't. There was plenty to look at without being at First Thursday. First stop was "Hey Cupcake!" It's a charming vintage metal travel trailer. Much like the trailer in that movie that Lucy and Desi did together about traveling in the trailer...the name of the movie escapes me.... We had just had a fabulously greasy meal at Dirty Martins so we passed on eating a Michael Jackson Cupcake (you know...a chocolate cupcake with white cream cheese frosting!). It was tempting! Carl taught Sierra and I a ton! One of the places were full of Folk Art and Folk Craft. Carl just took a Folklore class at SFA and taught us that Folk Art is to look at and Folk Craft is to use! Learn somethin new everyday! I enjoyed looking at all the art, interesting antiques and amusing gifts. I was so tempted to bring back bacon flavored tooth picks to Ryan. There were plenty of paintings I wanted to take home. There were even antique medical paraphernalia that I wanted. I passed on all of it and just dreamed of the day that Carl and I will have enough money for original art (notice I said WILL). Day turned into night and the atmosphere was much more quiet than 6th street but still hoppin. We returned to eat at Homeslice on So Co and you could hear the live music flowing all down the street. The people were more casual and relaxed. Still much more my style. This street is what sealed the deal on my desire to move to Austin!
5. Geo Caching
Ok. If you know what this is then you know that you can do this ANYWHERE! This has been Carl and my new hobby for 2008. A couple friend of ours showed us the joys of Geo caching at the new year. If you don't know what it is then I suggest you click on the link and look at the "Getting Started" bar. It will become your addiction. In short it's basically a treasure hunt using GPS. It's an underground cultural phenomenon that's sweeping the world! Quite literally. There are caches on all 7 continents. My favorite type of cache is the urban cache because the marvel of a treasure in the presence of hundreds of people and they don't even know! Austin had several! We found the 4 we looked for. We started our hunt at midnight on Saturday so that it would be more covert. What a blast! I recommend Geo Caching even if you don't go to Austin. Just check it out!
What an AWESOME sight. I think this was the highlight for Carl. We were there about 45 minutes before the bats began their flight. The general rule is that they come out at sunset but nature has a mind of their own and we didn't want to miss it! We had front row spots on the Congress street bridge right where Ladybird Lake met the land below. Sierra (our personal tour guide) said that was the premo spot and right she was! You could hear the bats talking to each other determining the best time to all leave and shortly after the sun hit the horizon the show started. The bats that live under the bridge are Mexican Free-tailed bats and belong to the largest urban bat colony in the US! Isn't Texas cool? The bat is even our State Flying mammal! They started to trickle out one at a time. If you blinked you missed the first few "scout bats". Then they started to come out in droves. It was truly amazing how fast they were flying as a group making a swoosh towards the lake and then up over the trees, catching bugs the whole way. I would totally recommend seeing this sight. Unfortunately it's not a guaranteed sight!
I am pretty sure we did more but that's all I could think about right now!
Look below for the randomly awesome pictures!
This is a picture of The Bat Sculpture by the Congress Bridge (there is a cache very near!)
You can smell the bat poop when you cross the bridge! This is the view from our room!
Sierra hooked us up!
This is the guitar and knee of Stevie Ray Vaughn!
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