By Joe Bridgeman

One of the nice things about Baylor is its location. Waco is a wonderful, blossoming mid-sized town itself, but another benefit of living in Waco is your close proximity to some of the bigger cities of Texas like Austin and Dallas. So, for my birthday weekend, I decided to take an excursion to Austin to see what the city had to offer.  Being from out-of-state, I had no idea what to expect.

We set off for Austin early on a Saturday morning. After about an hour and a half of driving, we arrived at our first destination: the Sherwood Forest Faire. Turns out that this place is one of the largest medieval villages around with more than 100 permanent structures. I definitely felt transported back in time as I walked around and was heckled by shopkeepers and gypsies. I had to exercise the utmost self-control to not purchase a whole set of hard leather armor and a large sword. Oh, and we had a lunch feast in a castle. That was different.

After the feast, we waddled out of the village to go sample some more of Austin proper. This included inspecting the antiques inside a shop on south Congress Avenue, gawking at the capitol building, strolling through Zilker Park and watching the sunset on the edge of a cliff overlooking the river, the Austin city skyline and the rolling green hills surrounding the city. Yeah, such a place exists!

We headed back home to Baylor after a pleasant dinner, and I thought to myself how nice it was to be able to take a simple one-day weekend excursion to one of these unique, Texan big cities. Weekend excursions to either Austin or Dallas are a favorite among the student body because the cities have much to offer, and Waco is placed right in-between the two!

If you find yourself getting antsy during the school year, just remember: a mini-vacation is just a drive away.