Day Eighty One - Austin, Texas

Thursday, March 15th was Day Eighty-one. We're getting close to the end and I'm not impressed. On Thursday morning we were driving along and I saw that a dog adoption event was going on outside a Petsmart. I yelled, "Stop the car! PUPPIES!" Barry basically squealed to a stop and we played with the puppies for awhile. This one is Luna. I loved her and tried to convince Barry that we needed an additional dog in the Buick. One of the arguments I employed was, "It's fate because I used to have a fish named Luna but I sold her in a garage sale and I miss her so much!" When I told the adoption lady that story, she didn't seem too impressed. Seriously, how cute is this puppy?!

Later that day, Susie drove us west of Austin, where everything is hilly and beautiful. We were in a moving car so I don't have any successful pictures of the landscape! Boo. We also stopped at Lake Travis. It's been dry here for a long time, so the lake level is down. See how the trees only grow to where the lake used to reach?

We got that picture and the next few because we were at The Oasis. It's this amazing restaurant and bar that has about a million decks. There was a sign that said it was perched 400 feet about the lake. It's probably more like 450 feet now that lake is so low! Here's the sign and a shot of some of the decks.

Susie and Barry sitting out on the deck!

 Those islands you can see in the lake are called Sometimes Islands. Sometimes, like now, you can see them and sometimes you can't.

Here are Barry and I out front.

A shot with the view behind us.

Here are all three of us - Susie, Bear, and me. Why am I posing like a cheerleader? I don't know. I look peppier than normal in this picture, though.

On the way out, we saw this contraption. Maybe it was a spaceship? It was cool.

Barry just informed me that it was like the little spaceship they used to travel from the space shuttle to the moon. I didn't even know they needed an "in-between" vessel.

After The Oasis, Bear and I went downtown to see The Shins. It was a free outdoor concert and it was really fun. Here they are rocking out. It's funny because The Shins don't really rock out. They're pretty mellow.

This is one of their songs. I tried to take a video but it was too noisy around us. Youtube has my back, yo.

After the concert, we went to Opa! for Greek food. It was really good but the live music was a country singer, which I had been lucky to avoid until then. We're in Texas, you know. Boo, country music. The falafel was delicious, though!

Susie's daughter Emilee has a really sweet dog, Ben. He's really long, has a large head, and wants to give kisses all the time. He also loves Charlie. One night, Charlie was sleeping on the little couch in the room where Bear and I are staying. Ben came in and jumped up there, too. This is the first picture I took.

Ben is very snuggly. He likes to be close. This is the next picture I took.

This is the last picture I took. They were still spooning like this hours later.

Close up.

Charlie is going to be lonely without all these dogs!