Totally Texas -- Last minute vacation destination: Austin

How to squeeze in a vacation as the kids’ return to school nears? Make it a weekend, if possible a long weekend, to some of the Texas attractions within easy driving distance.

Traveling without family last month, I combined a trip to Austin for a writing conference with sightseeing between classes and craft panels. I arrived the evening before the annual ArmadilloCon, wondering what tourist destinations I could hit that wouldn’t leave me too groggy for an early morning writing workshop the next day. My choice¾ the state capitol building at 11^th Street and Congress Avenue. I joined the surprising number of visitors who stroll the grounds of our quirky pink granite capitol building once daytime heat gives way to more bearable nighttime temperatures.

Parking was easy, streetside just outside the capitol grounds. The building‘s lighted exterior looks charming at night, there are plenty of easy to walk paths through the grounds, with their collection of native trees and collection of statues and monuments. Before the evening visit, I’d thought of the capitol building as dominating the downtown Austin skyline. But the capitol’s lawns are great places to view the rest of the skyline, including the, if possible, even quirkier Frost Bank Tower with its lighted crown of shard-like glass.

For directions and visiting information, I liked www.real-austin-texas.com/texas-state-capitol.html/.

Then it was off to our family’s favorite book store, the independent BookPeople, at 603 North Lamar. Its shelves are hung with handwritten notes of recommendation from staff members that helped me pick out the graphic novels my eight-year-old grandsons now love to read. For more information, see
www.bookpeople.com/. Although the bookstore has its own café, next to a magazine rack with a mouthwatering array of periodicals, it’s also across the street from a Whole Foods market where you can read and eat inside or out.

The big find on this trip was the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, 4801 La Crosse Avenue, on Austin’s southwest side. I’d been to the Wildflower Center years before, but it’s grown amazingly since. And not a moment too soon, with suburban development just across the street. Lady Bird Johnson (in public life, Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson), headed campaigns to beautify her state and the country during her husband’s terms as president.

Thanks to her, Texas highways are now homes to native plants and wildflowers. The center she founded is now administered by the University of Texas. Radiating off a central courtyard, it includes a viewing tower, child-sized educational playroom, gardens landscaped with Texas wildflowers, and trails through an arboretum of native trees. Except for the viewing tower, area generally are accessible to strollers and wheelchairs. New this year is the Luci and Ian Family Garden, with a shade house, small stream, grotto, and children’s play area.

The Wildflower Center is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Tickets are $9 for adults, $3 for children ages 5-12, free to children aged four and younger. Discounts are available for students and adults age 65 and older. Free onsite parking. There’s an onsite café, or bring your own meals and snacks to eat on the shaded picnic tables. For more information, directions, and special events, see
www.wildflower.org/.

On previous Austin visits with children, my family has also enjoyed Zilker Park, home to Barton Springs Pool, (see “Sixty-eight degrees of cool,” at this site, August 1, 2011) and the nightly emergence of resident bats from under the Congress Street bridge, (“Going batty in Austin,” June 13, 2011.)

(Next Friday, more vacation destinations less than a day away)

Wordcraft -- BookPeople standing tall since 1970

603 N. Lamar Blvd. (corner of Lamar & Sixth)

Austin

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Writing friend Robin -- the one who used to be a real estate agent -- looked around our favorite book store gathering spot in Dallas and said something only a person who calculates square footage could say: wasted space. Hard to believe when every bookstore still open seems to have cut back on the space allotted to tables and chairs such as those we sit at to sip, diss, and yes, sometimes, write.

So when I was in Austin recently for the Writers League of Texas conference, I went by BookPeople to see what it does to retain its title as the state’s premier independent bookstore. Ceilings were mostly low -- why waste space only dust motes can use? No spacious, uncluttered stairways. BookPeople stocks its stairs so thickly with merchandise I could barely push my way past all the other customers to get to the coveted second floor children’s section. All the other customers? On a weekday evening? Ka-ching and halleluiah! It’s a book lover’s paradise.

Of course it helps that BookPeople also has a great selection of books. Reading the many index cards of staff recommendations taped to the shelves was enough by itself to make my mouth water. And one of the things contributing to the traffic jam on the second floor was an author signing. Chain stores in my current city probably have to take orders from management at the national level on whether to host readings by local authors. BookPeople goes out of its way to sell books written by locals.

And don’t even get me started on the magazine section, with a significant stock of literary publications I haven’t seen on shelves in Dallas. And yes, there’s an unglamorous but functional coffee shop conveniently near the racks. If you need more sustenance, Whole Foods is located across the street. Read, leave to eat, and come back to read and buy.

BookPeople is open daily from 9 a.m. until 11 p.m. They’re closed on Thanksgiving Day and close early on a few holidays. For more information and the calendar of events, see www.bookpeople.com/

(Next Wednesday -- Larry McMurtry's all Booked Up, in his hometown of Archer City, Texas)