Downtown Austin living

Saturday, March 6

Bev and I "moved" into our downtown Austin condo yesterday afternoon. It's a great efficiency condo that is recently remodeled and decorated. It's gorgeous! And it's very close to "the action" of downtown, and only about 8 blocks from the walking paths at Lady Bird Johnson Lake, fka Town Lake. Today we went for almost a two-hour walk and enjoyed a calm, 70-degree day. There were a LOT of people out enjoying the paths as well, with kids, dogs, friends or whatever. This climate is really agreeing with us, to say the least! Today we saw and more importantly, smelled our first blossoms of the year, which is pictured. Ahhh, spring in early March! We aren't used to having a spring at all, much less having one in the first week of March.

Last night we had a great dinner at Perla's. Since it's Lent, we had to suffer through seafood, like my crispy red snapper and Bev's scallops. It was fabulous! We highly recomment Perla's. We also listened to some great live music both before and after dinner. It was a vintage night in Austin. Tonight we met Molly and James and a bunch of their invited friends for James birthday party at the Alamo Draft House for a showing of James Bond's "Goldfinger" involving hilarious narratives by the Master Pancake ???? They basically made fun of the movie from start to finish, and we enjoyed it much more than the actual movie. Lots of laughs.

Our downtown experience will continue until Tuesday, when we'll go back to Courtney and Steve's. Wednesday I fly to Chicago for a few days of Bar leadership training, then return on Saturday. On Monday, March 15, we'll head to Florida by way of Greenwood, Mississippi to spend some time with our good friends, Tom and Anne Flanagan. Their daughter, Kate, and I share a birthday, so we'll celebrate together on the 16th. Then, of course, since the Caseys and the Flanagans will be together, we'll have to celebrate St. Paddy's Day too! Then it's on to Winter Park, Florida. On March 30, we leave for Dublin. So the fun continues...