Zilker Botanical Gardens

The Botanical Gardens are beautiful. You can spend a nice relaxing afternoon here wandering around amongst the flowers, ponds and greenery. Springtime is the most colorful, but you can still enjoy the gardens in the summer and fall as well. We went in the fall. Admission is free, but you may have to pay $3 for parking unless you're willing to park a little ways away and walk.

We're going to have to return again and explore more (and blog more) because I just realized after browsing online that we somehow completely missed the really cool looking Hartman Prehistoric Garden on our first visit.

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Round Rock Outlets

The Round Rock outlet mall is not nearly as huge as the San Marcos outlets, so if you like to get your cardio by shopping you will prefer San Marcos. However Round Rock still has a good variety of stores, and is also very pretty since it's outdoors. If I must shop, I prefer to shop in an outdoor mall. There's something about indoor malls that just makes you want to stab yourself. If you feel the same, you'll like Austin.

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