The Return of the Tates.

Okay, so I realize that we've been behind on blogging, so to compensate for this we're going to hit you with an intense amount to satisfy your immeasurable desire for hearing what the Tate Family is up to these past few days. Let's start at the beginning of day 15, as that's where we left you and see where it takes us from there.

So we left our hotel in Kingsman in the morning to get to Hoover Dam as soon as we could. Turns out we all needed a bit of extra shut eye, so we ended up arriving at the dam just before noon. Ironically, we got to yet another milestone outdoor landmark of our nation and we arrived at the hottest part of the day, but either way we were stopped so we needed to take all the necessary photos to prove it. Despite the heat, we were able to snap a few good shots on the backside of the dam and then drove across it to get to the parking area and visitor center. The only downside about this national landmark is that the Hoover Dam actually is quite the money pit. It costs $7 to park your vehicle in a parking deck built into the canyon walls surrounding the dam, some $32 bucks to go into the welcome center and read about the construction and building process as well as gain access to an observation area, and another like 10 dollars more to go on a tour of the inside of it in addition to the 40 bucks you've already shelled out. PER PERSON (cept for the parking per car)! Wild, and since we're the Tate Family, we decided we'd somehow reroute the system a bit and really only needed to pay to park and we just got all our photos done from the top level of the parking deck. Honestly, I can read about the dam's construction online if I'm really itching to know the exact amount of people died while working for the CCC on the project in the 1930's. Oh well. Needless to say, we still visited the dam gift shop, full of dam novelty items, dam workers, and other dam tourists. All in all - great success! So, we checked the Hoover Dam off our list of things to see and kept moving back to Vegas to get ready for our flight.

We stopped off to grab lunch at a wonderful local Las Vegas specialty: Applebees. It was delicious, as expected and soon after we finished our meal we turned in our rent-a-car and headed for the airport. I'm sure some of you are wondering why I haven't explained much more about Vegas and the subject of gambling. After all that is one of the most popular reasons to visit the dry, hot, and flashy city in Nevada. However, this was a family excursion and the Tate men (or women) didn't particularly have time, nor the desire to devote extra energy into gambling. Therefore we didn't do too much and also didn't really lose or gain any extra dough.

So we waited for our plane after going through security and kicked it at the Vegas airport a while. That gave us a bit of time to blog and catch up, as well as get some photos and other assorted things situated. Honestly, the only downtime we have is waiting for our transportation, other than that the Tate Family is on the move. We flew to San Antonio and were there by 8pm central time. We changed a few time zones from pacific to central, so adjusting was a bit odd as we were all pretty cracked out still from our late night in Vegas a few nights prior. We finally got some grub at a local franchise known as "Freddy's" which is kind of like a "steak and shake" for anyone who's been to one of those, or a mix between a fast-food chain and a 50's diner atmosphere. Regardless, we got some food in us and went back to stay at the Antonian Inn and Suites, probably the sketchiest hotel in Texas, or in America. For instance, Kelsey found a note written on the outside of the hotel window that said "I C U little buddy." Check please? But it's an adventure right? Apparently, and if you had standards before, feel free to lower them with us as you read along. We don't mind!

So day sixteen started out with the Tate Family once again getting a bit more rest than we originally anticipated. Being that we traveled practically the entire day before, and changed some time zones, our sleep was a bit off and when we woke up and finally got out of the hotel, it was probably 9:30 or 10AM. Austin is about an hour or so away from San Antonio so luckily we didn't have to go too far to reach it. We saddled up in our tuna can of a car (we got another ford focus given to us...those are terrible by the way) and hit the ground running as we had quite a list of events to get done throughout the course of the day.

As soon as we got into Austin I took the family to a famous Austin staple. Stubb's BBQ. Austin is known as the live music capital of the world and even Sunday's are no exception. Stubb's BBQ is famous for its Sunday morning all you care to eat "gospel brunch." It's an amazing buffett with everything from fajitas, bbq, chicken, some southern-style cooking with a blend of tex-mex flare and above all else, a live 8-10 person gospel band playing while you eat! It was something completely unique and I think everyone enjoyed the experience overall. We wrapped up brunch and headed to the other side of town to the University of Texas. Located right off of the downtown of Austin, the university is really easy to get to and was a nice place to park and walk around a bit.

We stopped off at the Harry Ransom Center, which is a university owned museum and exhibit center where I wanted to take everyone in the family to see some of the newest pieces that I thought might be interesting. For instance, the museum houses an entire motion-picture exhibit that documents and features all of the vital roles in the movie production process. From the director and production assistants, to actors and editors, the museum has real scripts, letters, storyboards, and even movie props from films over the past century.

One example was a letter from Christopher Plummer (he was the male lead in the Sound of Music) to the director about how "he thought Mr. Von Trapp" should be portrayed. Things like this are the types of information you never hear about when you watch a movie or read about the film-making unless it's a big scene. So we found it very interesting.

Other exhibits were one of the original copies of the Gutenberg Bible (there's only 48 in the world I think), some of the original costumes used in Gone with the Wind, Alfred Hitchcock's original storyboard sketches, many of Robert DeNiro's personal prop collection, and even the film maker's association's prohibited words from the 1920s-30's (pretty hilarious: you couldn't use words like guts, tart, hun, punk, or lousy...).

After visiting the Harry Ransom Center, we walked down to the state capitol building to meet our other tour guide of the day. I booked a walking tour of Austin, and we met up with Ester, our residential tour guide to give us the history and low down on Austin and the greater area too. We walked down the main strip from the capitol and learned all about Texas' history, how it was an independent nation once before, and all of the other countries that have had hands in shaping the Texas that we know today. We also saw some of the unique architecture of the city, as Texas has been influenced by cultures such as Spanish, French, Mexican, and also the Southern culture that developed during the Civil War. Some of the buildings in downtown Austin even still have Victorian-style architecture which also was rather unique and unexpected. Needless to say, our family enjoyed our private tour with Ester and getting a local perspective on what life is currently like in Texas and where their culture came from.

Following our tour, we went and spent some time touring the Texas State Capitol on our own which was a nice inside break from the hot and humid outdoors. We were able to check out the senate chambers, learn a bit about Texas politics (fun fact: each state politician only gets paid $300 a month), and re-hydrate before making the trek back to our vehicle. It started raining pretty hard as we headed back, so after getting pretty soaked and waiting for some of the rain to settle down, we checked into our hotel and all got showers before dinner.

The last activity that I planned for the family was to be down at the famous Congressional Bridge by about sunset to see another one of Austin's unique attractions. Austin is home to one of the nation's largest urban bat populations, and maybe in the world. Each night around twilight 1.5 million Mexican free tail bats swarm out from under the bridge and fly out to hunt for the evening. To try to catch this amazing sight, we went down to the bridge and got a table at a local TGI Fridays to get some good photos. Unfortunately, after the sun began to go down, a majority of the bats didn't fly out all at once like usual as it rained earlier in the day and many of the critters that the bats feed on (mosquitoes for example) come out more frequently after a good rain on the river. However, we did see a good number of bats swarming around the pillars of the bridge after dark and a few stragglers that flew over our heads. So overall, not a complete upset. Following our dinner at TGI Fridays, we called it a night in Austin and got ready to get some shut eye. In the morning we were scheduled to head back to San Antonio to check out the sights and sounds there before catching an overnight train to New Orleans. I'll be sure to post those updates - along with Mom and Kelsey's new blogs (FINALLY) now so that you have plenty to read.

Yee-Haw,

~The Tate Texans