Downtown Austin

We drove up to Austin this week... so different from Houston. Less roadways, more traffic. The bumper-to-bumper Austin traffic seems so much worse than Houston, and no matter which highway you're driving on, there are thousands of cars either ahead of you or behind you. We spoke to a long-time Austin resident and he said that there was a old-guard segment of Austin society who didn't want that city to expand, so they kept nixing the new roadways that were proposed.  Their belief was that if not enough roads were built, people wouldn't move into Austin.

So wrong.... whoever wanted to live in Austin moved there anyway, turning the existing roads into virtual parking lots filled with slow-moving cars.  New highways have since been built, mostly by outside contractors who got the jobs done quicker than the local builders.... but the increase in population was far ahead of the new roadways, so Austin remains firmly entrenched in its own traffic madness.  And the people who complain the loudest about the current traffic problems are the old guard who didn't want the roadways built years ago. City planning gone very wrong.

While we were in Austin, we had lunch in "The Noble Pig," which is a recommendation from the Diners/Drive-Ins/Dives program on the Food Network.  Whenever we travel anywhere, my husband searches out one of Guy's favorite restaurants in his endless list of best-places-to-eat.

I was a bit skeptical when we walked into The Noble Pig.... I don't eat meat much at all, and their menu was filled with all kinds of sandwiches filled with beef, pork, and whatever other kinds of meats are available up there. I was happy to find a vegetarian option on the menu.... a sandwich similar to a "Reuben" with grilled mushrooms in place of the meat. Between the grilled mushrooms and onions, home-made sauerkraut, delicious cheese on just-baked bread.... totally delicious.

The city of Austin has a slogan which is on everything from sign-posts to tee-shirts to coffee mugs:  "Keep Austin Weird."    In my opinion, they're doing one fine job.