I got back from my trip to Austin yesterday, and my Dad and I had a lot of fun on it. I will admit, though, that we really didn't make much of a plan for this trip. We just decided to go and see what we could do once we got there. Great plan, right?

We ultimately decided to visit the capital. I had already been there a few times back in High School back when I was part of a YMCA program, but then I only had time to see a couple areas of the capital. Like the center of the building and some of the courtrooms. My Dad, however, hadn't seen the capital in over two decades. It had changed a bit since the last time he was there.

So my Dad and I parked and went into the building. And I will tell you that I was VERY surprised at how much freedom we had in walking around the building. The only security we had to go through were some metal detectors at one of the entrances. After that we basically went wherever we wanted. We went into the House of Representatives and the Senate, both on the second and third floors of the building. I tried to get a couple cool distant shots with my camera of myself by having my Dad on one side of the room while I went to the other, but I don't think they turned out too well.

We then explored the basement and lower levels of the building, finding a random ice machine along the way. There were also some really long hallways, filled with frames of the workers who helped rebuild the capital building in the past. I wanted to show my Dad some of the courtrooms I had been in back in High School, but the doors to them were locked. But we still saw some other stuffs that was cool.

Once we were done, we decided to leave the city before we got caught in the evening traffic. We managed to get out before it got too bad, and almost made it to a city called Temple before stopping and checking in at a hotel. We got back on the road the next day around 8:30 A.M. and decided to head back home. My Dad really wanted to take some back road to do this. He really likes driving on them so that he could see the country. I didn't have a problem with it, since it was a nice change of scenery. Even though I may or may not have dozed off a bit on the drive.

Technically, we didn't have any problems coming back home. We did take a wrong turn on the back road that we were on and somehow ended up on the highway we had taken to get to Austin. This wasn't a problem, per say, because we were still heading in the right direction to get home. But my Dad had wanted to stay on the back road for a while longer. By the time we realized out mistake, it was too late to turn around. But like I said, we were still heading in the right direction, just on a road we didn't want to go on. We got home safely in the end though.

Overall, my Dad and I had a blast on our trip. This is the second year in a row that he and I were able to go on trip while we were both on vacation from work. I don't know where we will go next time, but I will probably plan it better than I did this time.