Austin - A lot of things can happen for coffee

It was another boring Friday because i had a rather dull day at office. So when the uneventful release was over at midnight K and I decided to hit the roads for coffee at a Cafe in Austin. Well having to drive a hundred and fifty miles for coffee seem to be the last thing to be worried about.
In fact as the journey turned out we found that we had not worried for anything.

Day:March 12,2010
Time: 9.30 PM
Venue: HPL,Houston
Decision makers : K and I
Destination: Cafe Mozart
Distance:150 miles
Decision: Hit the road


Day:March 13,2010
Time: 12.08AM
Venue: Marquis
We hit the roads on full gear. There was music, and the roads at night were at their alluring best.

Time: 2.30AM
Venue: 30 miles to Austin

K woke me up in the middle of the drive to show me the lights of the city below. And man was'nt that a pretty sight.

These days we have developed a strong penchant for driving at night. Be it roaming around the streets of Houston in the dead of the night or driving around the 6 th Street in Austin for the nth time. Now, before you get any ideas let me make it clear that this trip was meant only to get coffee.
K does the driving and i for my part enjoy the sights,scenes and lights, occasionally describing them.

So when K jostled me up from my sleep i woke up to find her giggling away and telling me that we have reached but the cafe was not in sight, and we were safely parked in some parking lot.
When i looked around in that sleep induced stupor i almost felt that i was back in some residential colony in Kerala.
After all most of the places do seem to look alike at 3.30 AM in the morning.

We drove around for two more minutes and saw water and there were closed restaurants in the vicinity.
Finally to our shock and surprise we found Cafe Mozart closed.

Now blame the two know-it-alls who assumed to be open 24*7.

It was then that we realised that we had not checked the timings of the Cafe and ended up parking in front of the Cafe at 4.00AM
It was pitch dark and we almost thought that we should panic when we remembered that even though we had no food or water on us were were well stocked in terms of maps,mobile charge, K's new iphone and of course the naughty GPS.

We decided that we would go to a 24 hour open Starbucks,to our surprise there was none in the vicinity.

After trying unsuccessful attempts to wake up a few sleeping beauties we decided to hit it out on our own.
We drove around the deserted streets of Austin,paused to view the State Capitol in all elegance.

We headed out it to a Denny's and had an early breakfast.

After chit chatting and warding off a few un interesting advances we decided to take rest in the car, and as K dozed off in front of Denny's with a view of the Capitol dressed in beautiful hazes of white and golden orange ...i did what i did best...surfed the internet.

And the next time she opened her eyes, it was a bright beautiful day with warmth and sunshine in place of the cool starry night.

The Capitol looked different in the day time,probably more stoic.

Thanks to google, we figured out a few places of interest.

And yes now we were all set to go to our destination to get that coveted shot of coffee.

We reached the Cafe Mozart and man wasnt it worth the drive!

It was situated on Lake Austin,almost in the water on the banks.It had a serenity which hung over the place with the morning sunshine streaking in complementing the coolness of the river below.

There were wooden benches alluding old world charm.

People were trickling in and by the time finished our coffees the place was getting crowded.

K fell totally in love with the place, and vowed to come back again the same day.


We then headed to Lake Travis, and ended up at Bob wentz park which offered scenic views of the Lake.
The lake was clear and blue.

We lazed around all morning, sitting on the river bank and dangling our feet in the water.We dozed off on the boat docks soaking up the sun. It is a different matter that we emerged tanned three levels more.
We also walked the shore lines.

It was then that i realised that i lost my spectacles on the way, we walked another mile to retrieve it.And to my immense relief i found it where i left it and i thankfully remembered where i had kept it.
Now to our dismay K discovered that she lost her pendant. We walked back another mile to retrieve it from the boat deck.
Lucky us that we got what we had lost, not that we were worried that a black cat had crossed our path when we started the journey.


It was late afternoon when we thought of heading back when we realised we were completely dehydrated and starved.
Thanks to our planning skills we had no real food, but when we ransacked the car we found some vadas S had left for us, some snack from office, melted chocolates and some water.

On the way back there was another park which we visited. The terrain was beautiful and the shoreline was rugged and natural, but wait i think everything about the place was very natural ;).

We were super hungry and planned to get lunch at a nice restaurant. Unforunately the wait times were a minimum of an hour and we had to go a long while before we re fueled our selves.

We then head back to Cafe Mozart.The atmosphere was very contrasting now, from what we had seen in the morning.In the morning it was laid back, in the evening it was teeming with life.It was a different hue altogether.There was a boat sales going on next door and the place was swarmed.
I had my signature black tea with lemon and K insisted on having some dessert.

Once lunch was done we were recharged and decided to head back.

On the way as usual i dozed off when K woke me up and told me that we were running out of fuel.We took the exit and filled the tank.
Too tired from lack of sleep and exhaustion, we decided to take some rest.
It was at this precise moment that i appreciated K's super car. The seats were comfortably stretched and we slept off in the petrol bunk in front of a Texas gift shop as if we had no worries in the world.

An hour later K nudged me awake to tell that we need to get away from there before we became the local spectacle.
In our sleepy stupor we got off onto some road and realised it too late that we might have lost our way.

We were stuck at a feeder road.
It was pitch dark.
The lane that the GPS suggested looked run down.
The black cat that had crossed the road came back to haunt us both. But luckily for us, we did not open our mouths to mention it.

Gathering our wits we went forward and were on the right track soon.

By around 12 the next day we reached home. A total of twenty four hours on the road, all in the name of coffee!