One Great Weekend After Another - Tacos-Waterfalls-BBQ

The first weekend of October brought a piece of MN to Austin. My sister came to visit. She was the first guest to our B&B and she left with rave reviews. I'm sure she created and left some positive feedback on Trip-adviser but for now let me share some of the fun we had together and you my readers not here with us missed out on. You may notice the welcome to Austin sign is from MN, if you did right away, pat yourself on the back for quickness ;)

She came in Friday around noon and being a Taragos, I knew she loves salad bars so I took her to my newly fave restaurant Jasons Deli for a tasty expanded salad bar. After filling up, we stopped into SuperTarget so she could buy some things she forgot and we could ease into the Austin experience beginning with familiar stores. After that we did some sightseeing driving with a stop at Mt. Bonnell. Since this is a tourist-based blog I'll violate copyright law's and paste a bit about Mt Bonnell...."Austin's Mount Bonnell is one of Austin's oldest tourist attractions being documented as far back as 1850. It is the highest point within Austin City Limits at 785 feet, but is actually smaller than Mt. Larson directly across from Mt. Bonnell but located in West Lake Hills. A wonderful place to picnic in the sun, Mt. Bonnell contains views of Lake Austin and the Pennybacker or 360 Bridge as well as wonderful vistas of downtown. The area is a short hike from the road and there is no entrance fee.   It's a great place to catch a picnic and enjoy some amazing views!" - the web.
After a stop there we did some driving north so I could see if there was a park like I saw in this photo I have of Austin. Long story short, there's no round lake, its part of the river (lake austin) and the park is a golf course but nonetheless we explored via a car parts of North (hill) Austin and saw a giant shopping mall. On the way back we saw some palm trees for her to photograph and by me missing a turn we saw 40 cars on the side of the road. Explorers we are, we stopped to investigate and since I knew it was the greenbelt thought maybe something exciting would await us. We saw people come up the trails a bit wet so looked at a posted map and saw that there was a falls down the trail a bit. We noted this and proceeded home. I let her relax by the pool while I made some Amatriciana a.k.a Bacon Spaghetti. MMM that sounds delicious you say, well since your spending some time with me here today I will make your day brighter and make whoever you feed happier and share the recipe with you since its still in my gmail box.

Amatriciana

Bacon - cooked and chopped
One large can of diced tomatoes
1 can of tomato sauce
1 large yellow onion - diced
6 large cloves of garlic - minced or garlic press
Dried red pepper flakes
Salt & Pepper
1/2 cup red wine

In a skillet, cook 1/2 pound of bacon until crispy, take out of pan, and put aside.  Remove some of the bacon drippings until there is just enough covering the pan, add a few table spoons of olive oil and the diced onions  to the bacon fat on medium heat, cook the onions (add a little salt to onions) for about 15-20 minutes (until they are transparent looking), then add the garlic, and cook them together for about 3-5 minutes.  Add the 1/2 cup of red wine, simmer for another 3 minutes,  add the diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, and the chopped bacon, then add red pepper flakes (add as much or as little as you like, depends on how spicy you like your food) simmer the sauce for an hour - (first half hour covered, the second half hour to uncovered) Add salt and pepper, serve over whatever pasta you like (I usually use regular spaghetti pasta) and serve with fresh grated parmesan.

While the sauce was simmering, I ran another beer to my sister at the pool, (what a guy) and then drove off to pick Summer up from work. My diners said the pasta was fantastico and after we had a drink and did a nice little after dinner walk through the wooded path behind our place. We had a couple more drinks, went to the hot-tub, did an adventure walk to the other hottub and then called it a night.

Day 2 - Saturday. Plans for this day had been made the night before and the day was themed around tacos, waterfalls and bbq. We started by going to the farmers market for breakfast tacos and kombucha *which they did not have this time but the nearby grocery store with a bathroom did =).
We then drove to the spot near where MoPac Hwy and 360 Hwy meet, parked alongside the road and went for our hike. I brought a pair of swim trunks since I knew the water was clear in the stream and would maybe want to take a dip. That was a great idea because we had found a little oasis.

Slowly dipping in the stream, which really wasn't all that cold in the nice hot sun.

For the tourist who didnt bring a swimsuit on this one trek, clothes worked great.

The rapids were quite powerful but gave a nice cold back massage as well.

The upper part of the area is above, the lower part includes the large open area and also the "hot tub like circular rapids area"

When the rocks are slippery and the rapids are strong it's best to crawl. (even I fell once)

Some like to lounge with the rapids rushing towards them.

Some like to dip just a few of the ten toes

Others like me like to test there strength by getting into the rapids and holding themselves back from flying with the water. (little kids were doing this but I was weary if I tried, I would fly into a rock or something....)

 Now you got a glimpse of the stream in the middle of the Barton Creek greenbelt. For my observant fanatic followers *ha you may notice that this stream looks a lot like the one which was featured in the initial Man Bike Wild. We'll you are correct and I believe this to be the waterfall the woman of the woods was referring to. I must have biked right past it but it was early in the morning and perhaps people were not yet wading in it, either that or on the other side its hidden from the path but in this area I definitely could have walked my bike across the stream. However, now I know the grass is not greener on the other side as the path on both sides have quite the tricky terrain for a novice mountain biker. 

After our water adventure we had continued the tacothon with a visit to the original torchy's tacos trailer park stand for some deliciousness. So you don't confuse this taco stand with taco b(h)ell quality aside from the great guac here's descriptions of my two favorite tacos.
Green Chili Pork Taco - Slow roasted pork carnitas simmered with green chilies and topped off with queso fresco, cilantro, onions, and a lime wedge served on a corn tortilla with our green salsa
The Democrat
shredded beef barbacoa and onions topped Off with fresh avocado, queso fresco, cilantro and a lime wedge served on a corn tortilla with our green salsa.

Sorry for making you hungry but this blog post is close to finished so fear not. Only problem is your not near a Torchy's Tacos and those fast food joints don't come close to the real thing. Stop down and visit, we'll take you to Torchy's. The outdoor trailer park location or the indoor restaurant. Its up to you.  After our second round of Taco's we came back. Took a shot to start the mid-afternoon (which wasn't as good as I would have hoped. OJ and Stoli Raspberry....then we had some more coronas and sat by the pool. When dinner time came we went to Rudy's BBQ. MMM. Braised Beef, baby back ribs, sausage, cole slaw, potato salad and we cant forget the delicious banana cream pie pudding cups. Oh those and everything else there is sooooooo good. Hmm....so after we got take out from Rudy's we came back feasted, had some more sips of beers, jumped in a hot tub, conversated and called it a night. Next morning, I made my fabulous breakfast scramble and we went downtown to souvenir shop, went back to the stream with swim suits this time, yet it was colder so funny thing is none of us really got wet, then we hit up a resturant that had too long of a wait so we ate at a bad taco place which we won't go to again even though it wasnt much worse than a Taco Johns and then it was time for stacy to leave. Pardon the rush through the last day but Friday and Saturday were so packed and fun, we were all pooped by the time Sunday came and after all this writing I am pooped too so if there are grammar errors its because I didn't read through it like I sometimes do. Closing thought, come to visit and this and much more can be in your future. Cheers.