Visiting Austin

When I found out that QuiltCon was going to be in Austin, Texas, I sent a message to my college roommate Anna, who lives there.  I asked her if my friend Pam and I could stay with her and she graciously said yes.  Well, it turned out that Leila was planning to go to QuiltCon and was looking for a place for her and her baby to stay.  Again, being a generous hostess, Anna said she had plenty of room and Leila and her little Becca stayed with us too. 

Little did we know that we'd be staying on a ranch!

Anna lives in an apartment above the garage, while a family lives in the main house. 

The ranch is a small one, but they have some cows, horses, chickens, a rooster, and some peacocks.

This is actually a zebu, which is a relative of the cow.

moo.

This guy was tempting me to make him into dinner.  The morning after a VERY long day of travel, he decided that everyone should wake up at 5:00am.  He was persistent about it.  I suppose he was just doing his job, but these guys should have a snooze alarm built in.

I took a lot of pictures of these guys.  Peacocks are such pretty birds. 

It was so nice to see flowers!

Hee hee.  There was a "bull" for riding.  I'm pretty sure I lasted more than 8 seconds.  Yeah.

Me, Pam, and Leila

Pam, Anna, Anna's friend whose name I've forgotten! (sorry!), and Leila, and baby Becca

I didn't have my camera when we went shopping, but that was an interesting experience. There are several quirky stores and I'd never seen so many dismembered mannequin hands in my life. There was also a facial hair contest that Kim from My Go-Go Life tells about. They aren't kidding when they call Austin weird. Unfortunately, my friend Pam became very sick pretty soon after that last picture was taken and that was only our first full day there, so it wasn't a great trip for her. I was at the convention center a lot so I feel like I only got to experience a tiny bit of Austin, so maybe I'll have to go back some day.