Austin | Aug 2010
3 night trip to Austin, Texas. Highlights of the trip included the State Capitol, Downtown Tour, Barton Springs, 6th Street and the bats on the Congress Street bridge.
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Driskill Hotel We learned on our tour of downtown Austin that this hotel has changed hands 6 times since it was built, usually because it was about to be demolished. I guess Mr. Driskill was too ambitious, and it was too expensive for people to stay there. There were plenty of people there when we visited, although it may have been for the air conditioning. It sure is opulent...
![<span id="date">_08/14/10_</span> <span id="title">Moonlight Tower</span>
Austin Trip, Day 2
Another action-packed day: walking tour of downtown, lunch at Chupacabra Cantina, swimming at Barton Springs (it was 102 today), ice cream at Amy's, shopping at Waterloo and Toy Joy, pizza at Home Slice and cupcakes at Hey, Cupcake!
On the way back, we stopped by this moonlight tower. This is what a plaque says:
<em>Austin's Moonlight Towers
This is one of the 31 original moonlight towers installed in Austin in 1895. Seventeen remain, each tower illuminated a circle of 3000 feet using 6 carbon arc lamps (now sodium vapor). Austin's tower lights are the sole survivors of this once-popular, ingenious lighting system.
1993</em>
<a href="http://www.jawsnap.net/Daily/year2/7157835_BfJPF#620000082_aUty2">[last year]</a>](https://photos.smugmug.com/Travel/Austin2010/i-w8Xvmq6/5/23cbebca/Ti/2010-08-14%20Moonlight%20Tower-Ti.jpg)
