Got this wild idea to ride the bus into downtown Austin to have a burger and fries at Wholly Cow, where they use grass fed beef from the owner's uncle's ranch out in Fredericksburg. Son and Daughter had gone down into Austin on Friday to celebrate son's 35th birthday, and they'd had burgers there, and described them as being the best they'd ever had other than Gramma Jody's and mine. Needing a reason to get out of the house, and coincidentally not having the van repaired yet, I glommed onto this crazy idea and off we went.
This is the second time we've used the bus system since the van broke down, so I honestly did not know that it would take us 2 hours to get to a destination that would have been only 14 miles had we been driving. But at least we didn't have to find a place to park the van.
The burgers were good, as were the fries, but the prices were a little higher than I like to pay for a hamburger.
Given that the ride down there took so long, we realized that stopping for shopping on the way home was not going to fit into our plans, so we meandered up the road a few blocks, going from bus stop to bus stop as we waited for our bus to arrive to begin our journey home.
Tenth and Congress is one of those stops that nearly every Cap Metro bus stops at. It's almost like a transit station looking at the bus routes, since it seems you can catch just about any bus you want if you wait long enough.
So there we were, waiting for our bus, when this drunk dude comes up and starts pounding the big "you are here" sign with all the routes on it. I happened to be on the other side of the sign when he began to hit it, and I quickly moved away as I thought he was going to break it.
He then started moving towards the people lining the building, and they all moved away from him, including my son. The drunk man started following a young girl - mid 20's I think - and she kept moving away from him and he kept following her. She held up her hand, making a universal "STOP" gesture, which he ignored and she had to back away again.
At this point another man, mid 30's to early 40's, shouted to the drunk to leave the girl alone. That caused the drunk to hurl an expletive at the man, who called the drunk a name.
He turned to look to see if that was his bus stopping, and in that moment the drunk made a bee line to the man and doubled up his fist and threw a punch that knocked the man onto the ground! But Wait! There's More!!!
My eyes went from the man on the ground to the drunk who was running away, and I saw my husband in hot pursuit of the drunk. Before I could even form the words, "Bob! No!" my 70 year old husband not only caught that guy, but took him down safely just as he'd done when he was a young Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy. I'm sure nobody expected that! A bystander helped Bob hold the drunk down, because he was trying to beat up everybody, and they also prevented some angry bystanders from beating up the drunk.
My son called 911, and the Austin Police Department was there so fast you'd think they were delivering Jimmy John's sandwiches! (Jimmy John's runs ads in the Austin Market using the catch phrase "Freaky Fast Delivery")
The police officers were absolutely fabulous and I have nothing but good to say about how they handled the situation. God Bless Them Big Time!
We had to stay long enough to complete the interviews with the police officers, and to allow them to photograph Bob's injuries. We finally got on a standing room only bus, and started the trip home reaching our door at about 9 or 9:30, all of us feeling dead dog tired from the trip. I can't say as how this day has made me want to try another bus trip down into Austin, with the sole exception of maybe going to the Mall if we do it early in the day. But i do have to make a grocery run soon, and since my ticket is good until 4 pm tomorrow, I think I'll be using it for that purpose in the morning.
I may have to go alone, though. I'm sure you can guess why.
This is the second time we've used the bus system since the van broke down, so I honestly did not know that it would take us 2 hours to get to a destination that would have been only 14 miles had we been driving. But at least we didn't have to find a place to park the van.
The burgers were good, as were the fries, but the prices were a little higher than I like to pay for a hamburger.
Given that the ride down there took so long, we realized that stopping for shopping on the way home was not going to fit into our plans, so we meandered up the road a few blocks, going from bus stop to bus stop as we waited for our bus to arrive to begin our journey home.
Tenth and Congress is one of those stops that nearly every Cap Metro bus stops at. It's almost like a transit station looking at the bus routes, since it seems you can catch just about any bus you want if you wait long enough.
So there we were, waiting for our bus, when this drunk dude comes up and starts pounding the big "you are here" sign with all the routes on it. I happened to be on the other side of the sign when he began to hit it, and I quickly moved away as I thought he was going to break it.
He then started moving towards the people lining the building, and they all moved away from him, including my son. The drunk man started following a young girl - mid 20's I think - and she kept moving away from him and he kept following her. She held up her hand, making a universal "STOP" gesture, which he ignored and she had to back away again.
At this point another man, mid 30's to early 40's, shouted to the drunk to leave the girl alone. That caused the drunk to hurl an expletive at the man, who called the drunk a name.
He turned to look to see if that was his bus stopping, and in that moment the drunk made a bee line to the man and doubled up his fist and threw a punch that knocked the man onto the ground! But Wait! There's More!!!
My eyes went from the man on the ground to the drunk who was running away, and I saw my husband in hot pursuit of the drunk. Before I could even form the words, "Bob! No!" my 70 year old husband not only caught that guy, but took him down safely just as he'd done when he was a young Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy. I'm sure nobody expected that! A bystander helped Bob hold the drunk down, because he was trying to beat up everybody, and they also prevented some angry bystanders from beating up the drunk.
My son called 911, and the Austin Police Department was there so fast you'd think they were delivering Jimmy John's sandwiches! (Jimmy John's runs ads in the Austin Market using the catch phrase "Freaky Fast Delivery")
The police officers were absolutely fabulous and I have nothing but good to say about how they handled the situation. God Bless Them Big Time!
We had to stay long enough to complete the interviews with the police officers, and to allow them to photograph Bob's injuries. We finally got on a standing room only bus, and started the trip home reaching our door at about 9 or 9:30, all of us feeling dead dog tired from the trip. I can't say as how this day has made me want to try another bus trip down into Austin, with the sole exception of maybe going to the Mall if we do it early in the day. But i do have to make a grocery run soon, and since my ticket is good until 4 pm tomorrow, I think I'll be using it for that purpose in the morning.
I may have to go alone, though. I'm sure you can guess why.
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