THE AUSTIN TEXAS BREATHTAKING STATE CAPITOL BUILDING

Hello all,

This week I am vacationing in awesome Austin, Texas. If you have never been, you should go. There is so much to see here. They have the bats at Congress St.. chicken shit bingo, beautiful parks, great shops, and an abundance of history. The only thing they don't have an abundance of though is parking. It seems like finding a place to park anywhere here is always a chore, so be forewarned. Yesterday My daughter and I decided to check out the Texas capitol building in Austin. It was very crowded when we went, and there were many school kids there taking tours. The capitol building, in case you didn't know,  houses the seat of government, where Texans meet to make laws for the great state.

Le me start by saying this place is HUGE. It was a lot bigger than I was expecting. The building was rebuilt in 1888, when the original burned down. The building anchors four blocks on Capitol Square, It measures 566 ft. by 288 ft. and cost more than 3.7 million to build.

AUSTIN TEXAS BREATHTAKING STATE CAPITOL BUILDING

The building is beautiful, even though we were fist met as we came in by metal detectors and Texans with really big guns.  The south foyer has marble statues of Sam Houston and Stephen  F. Austin that greet visitors upon entering. It also has 2 large 19th century paintings by William Henry Huddle. This also is where their tours begin. My daughter and I found the tour very informative, but decided to slip away and do some exploring on our own.

AUSTIN TEXAS BREATHTAKING STATE CAPITOL BUILDING

There are 13 sections in all in this massive building. The south foyer where you enter, the treasurers business office, which houses two antique business machines. Then the rotunda and dome. The terrazzo floor on the first level shows the Great Seal surrounded by 6 the seals of countries whose flags were flown over Texas in 1936. It also displays many portraits of past governors and busts. The building in all displays portraits of all the past governors. The tour guide said they would only have enough display room left for 24 years of portraits.  Located in the dome, there is a massive star that was installed in 1958 and measures 8 ft. point to point.

AUSTIN TEXAS BREATHTAKING CAPITOL BUILDING

AUSTIN TEXAS BREATHTAKING CAPITOL BUILDING

Next they have an agricultural museum which displays the state's old agricultural products. Then there is a secretary of states private office, a senate chamber, governors public reception room, house of representatives chamber, legislative reference library, supreme court courtroom, court of criminal appeals courtroom, a ground floor rotunda, and a capitol extension.

While we didn't get a chance to see many of these things, we still enjoyed our look around. The building is truly breathtakingly beautiful and a sight to see. The grounds were equally beautiful with many statues to see. There were many people out picnicking when we went.

Across the grounds from the capitol building, we ventured into their visitors center. They had many fun hands on exhibits. They even had ones for the kiddos where they could play dress up in old time vintage clothing. Of course my daughter and I did partake in this. They also had several movies you could watch about the history of Texas. One room in particular we found interesting was the artifacts room where kids could pretend to dig. The visitors center proved to be a lot of fun, They even had a great gift shop where I finished a lot of my souvenir shopping. The capitol building is definitely one place you should stop at if you're ever in Austin. Our next stop, Barton Springs.

AUSTIN TEXAS BREATHTAKING CAPITOL BUILDING