The Driskill Hotel, Austin

Since we were in Austin for Melody's wedding last weekend, Greg and I decided to splurge and go on "vacation" by ourselves. We haven't been on an official vacation since well before we had kids, and it was high time! We booked a night at the Driskill Hotel downtown and shopped til we dropped. Fun!

We ate at Freebirds, (yum!) shopped at the Round Rock outlets (scored some sweet deals!), Tyler's (because it's cooler than Racket and Jog), Garden Ridge (disappointment!!!!!), and World Market (for wine and other fancies), and ate at FuddRuckers. Those places were all on my list for being "only in Austin" things, or "because Tyler doesn't have it" things. I am totally satisfied with our trip and don't feel like we missed anything. We even swung by the new Concordia University campus, and saw the remnants on the old campus. Sniff, sniff.. the place where I spent a huge chunk of my time from 2002-2005 is completely gone! Like, it's a huge hole in the ground now. The new campus is pretty, but it holds no meaning to me. I'll always remember those stinking old buildings and driving past the panhandlers in search of a parking spot.

Here are some pics from our hotel:

The staircase on the main floor


The floor


The ceiling


The mezzanine level


Looks ancient, but is sturdy and soundly built


Historic Painting of the hotel back in the day


The walls were covered in these ornately framed paintings, I think t his one is neat because it was near the cattle baron's suite and looks like a big gathering of the cattle barons.




Acting silly on the furniture. There were lots of fancy little sitting areas in every corner.


The details in the hotel amazed me! Look at how neat the flooring is!


There were also a ton of random bookshelves around the place. This one is in the tiny elevator lobby at the end of the 12th floor.


And even the rooms had neat details. I love how the molding on the ceiling creates a visual effect of an even higher ceiling, and they painted it orange! Who would ever think?


And here's us at the wedding, glam huh!