Showing posts with label Capital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capital. Show all posts

Monday, July 9, 2007

A Capital Idea

We are already on our 54th post and even though we live in the Capital City of Texas, we have been remiss in featuring pictures that reflected that.

This was taken on Congress Avenue which effectively wraps itself around the Capitol Building after wending its way north from deep in the south of Austin on the other side of the river (which is really Town Lake in the downtown area). Congress Avenue north of the Capitol is ho-hum with state offices but it is Main Street Austin from the Capitol (at 11th Street) to the Congress Avenue Bridge (which has a seasonal population of a million or so Mexican free-tailed bats) and is a hip emerging neighborhood for a dozen or so blocks south of there.

The historic sign identifies the old name for 10th Street. Once streets running east and west had tree names. The famous 6th Street (famous for bars with a propensity for young drinkers now) was once Pecan Street. Apparently 10th was Mulberry. The sign had for some reason lost the 'E' in Mulberry so I sort of edited it in to satisfy my sensibilities. FFP was distressed as we stood there looking at the sign yesterday. He's an editor at heart. (I also turned up the light on the sign itself since the Capitol was so bright in the setting sun.)

For those of you interested in more obscure views of the city, they are sure to come soon! But we just had to show the Capitol since we are in the Capital City. (And we also needed to clear up that capital and capitol thing. And it seems that sometimes capitol is lower case if you aren't referring to the Washington one. But this is Texas folks. And, even though the building was built after we became part of these United States and left for the Civil War and joined up again, we never forget we were an independent nation. So, yeah, we give it a capital 'C.' It's a capital idea. And there are lots of banks downtown so if you need a little capital...you get the idea.)

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Downtown...backwards

That's an Austin skyline. But backwards. And, no downtown doesn't have a multi-story billboard. This fantasy skyline is reflected in the window of the Salvation Army Thrift Store, which is in the strip center at 1100 or so S. Lamar. (This center has the Alamo Drafthouse South in it and that's why I was there last Friday.) I'm thinking a mirror in the thrift store's furniture department or some other reflection accounts for what looks like a giant screen appearing in the middle of downtown. Click on the image for a larger version if you want to look further into this illusion.

And for those following along at home I do believe you can see the condo building going up where we will one day live if all goes well. And the Capitol Building peeks out nearby.

As I've mentioned here before, I'm somewhat obsessed with shop window pictures but we will keep them to a minimum here and I'll satisfy that obsession on my other blog.