When did they start building La Quintas next to Luby's? I thought the direct translation of La Quinta into English was "next to Denny's"?

Either I need to work on my map reading or lq.com navigating. I'm further south and there is a IHop next door.

The train ride was cool, but I'm not sure about Austin so far. Cell calls seem to take five tries to get thru. Yellow Cab, the "premiere taxi service," took two calls and an hour.

Tomorrow will be better. Looks like I get to make this trip again. Being a silly person, I left home without my tickets and had to buy again. The ones at home are still good for another trip or a refund.

Go get'em, Grashpr!

Austin is looking better already. Where else could you find a print edition of the ONION?

"Poll: 1 in 5 Americans Believe Obama Is a Cactus"

Two and a hour on a Friday with a game in town, you did well.

Meanwhile...several TFF'ers sit in agonized suspense waiting to hear how the Rail and Reel Deal worked out.

Pretty good so far. Got my first LBL fishies late this afternoon. Two young bass liked my Marabou Miss. Unfortunately, so did a tree. Caught a blugill on a 2.5" furled chenille worm - little fella must have been hungry. Got some bass attention from a clouser, but no takers.

Hope to get an earlier start tomorrow morning. After getting a car this morning, I had to visit Cabela's. Can't let them go unvisited when you are only eight exits away.

Saw a bunch of fishy looking water on the trip down. Maybe I should invest in one of those $400 hand cars.

Great stuff, sir. Keep at'em. Watch out for all those places that you could lose a perfectly good four hunnert dollar hand car.

Also:

Send a wire to the main office and tell them I said OW!

Send wire, main office, tell them I said "ow". Gotcha!

Thank God for google or i would never understand the references you guys make....

I had to look it up as well. Now I wish I had my 0.29 seconds back.

0.29 seconds??? Take a few hours and watch the movie.

No need to thank us for broadening your horizons.

Note to self: Check an Austin events calendar before planning a trip to LBL. There were events on both sides this morning. Tried the SE end, but couldn't find any flyable spots.

Wasn't that a dam I crossed? There should be a river to the east! Sure enough, I found one under the 111/183 bridge. They say "keep Austin wierd." Shouldn't be a problem - the water was flowing BACK toward the dam.

Found a little pocket with a bunch of juvenile and fingerling bass. Caught three about 10" or so and two gills on a mini-bugger.

These little guys were funny. My line would spook them, then they would come back to chase my fly. Saw several of them do a quick bite and spit. I thanked them for playing.

Did a lot more driving around than fishing. I stumbled upon a Half-Price Books and found an unused copy of "The Colonial Angler's Manual of Flyfishng & Fly Tying." Looks interesting.

So how was the train ride? Any pics??

The train ride was way cool. No pics uploaded yet.

Plenty of room - laptop bag rode the empty seat next to me. The seats have adjustable foot rests and leg rests. Best part is that you don't have to secure your tray and sit upright when they take off.

Two 120V outlets for each pair of seats. Handy for charging the phone, but I don't do much with the PC offline. Seems if they can put wi-fi on the east coast commuters, they should be able to put it on the long distant trains.