Austin, Texas
Well, what can I say about this beautiful city? Uh.. it's beautiful. :-)
It's a nice place to grow up. I've been here somewhere over 13 years and lived in all parts of town, from the southernmost suburbs to downtown to far north.
What's interesting about Austin?
Anybody who likes boating, fishing, or even just swimming, will love Austin. There are five lakes which cut directly through the city. That's a misnomer for the most part, because they are really just very slow running segments of a river. I assume it used to run faster once, but they dammed it in a couple or three places for hydroelectric power some years ago. I guess we neglect the impact that has had on the environment, for all the hollaring there is about this lizard, or that owl, or the other little birdie. Austinites are normally very casual about everything, except the environment and intolerance. It's not as bad as Seattle, yet.
Check the expert demographics and abbreviated history here.
Neat trivia about Austin, none of which I've meticulously verified.
The Colorado River (yes, yet another river which doesn't run through Colorado named the Colorado River...) runs directly through what used to be called the town of Waterloo. Waterloo changed names back in 1838 or thereabouts, when it was renamed Austin to prepare it for receiving the capitol of the glorious free country of Texas, recently liberated from Mexico. Because Texas is the only state which was ever its own soverign nation, for a period of almost eight years, as far as I know, it is the only state which may fly its flag at the same height as the United States flag. Our state capital building is (supposedly) very marginally taller than the White House by several inches. Since the war of the North and South, it has been made an unwritten law that the buildings of the University of Texas (and I'd guess many other southern colleges) may not have major entrances which open from the north. This was an acceptably quiet way to show less hospitality to northerners.
Here's some thumbnails from Austin back in the late 1800's. My estimate is about 1890 or so. I'm not sure exactly where the photos were taken, except the first one seems to be from the capital building itself, facing south towards Congress Avenue. The other two are in the same general vicinity, but I'm not convinced they're from the capital. Several of the more interesting architectural features still survive today, so I'll try to hunt them down and pinpoint them. Notice the train running down what looks like 2nd street with two boxcars in tow, and the horse-drawn carriages clopping up and down the cross-street (Red River?). I am quite sure that the horse-drawn carriage was in use until at least 1900, considering I once lived in a house which contained quarters and stables for its carriage and stablemaster, which was built in 1887, and is still in fair condition, just off Guadalupe and 29th street.
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Here are some sights from a more recent era. Watch out, the full sized images are big!
 Botanical Gardens (198k)
|  Barton Springs (14k)
|  Loop 360 Bridge (209k)
|  Congress Avenue Bridge (189k)
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