8/10/17 The Domain?

    We went out for a walk at The Domain, which is an area in north Austin filled with shops and restaurants.  This is about the third time we go down there and I honestly had no idea it was as big as it is.  In my head, it was a street with shops on both sides, I was thinking like La Cantera in San Antonio where basically it is a mall with no air conditioning.  The reality is that this place goes on for several blocks, and there must be at least twenty different places to eat.  Some looked really cool with sitting up on the roof, a lot of them had a second story balcony to hang out on.
    The biggest problem we experienced was the heat, and a lack of money.  We got there around 7:30pm, which was a little helpful to avoid the heat of the day, but since everything closes at 9:00pm, we didn't get to see it all.  The last time we were there with my folks we parked near the Dick's Sporting Goods store and made our way to Dillard's.  It was nice, but it didn't impress me too much.  This time, we were closer to Neiman Marcus and everything seemed different.  Upon looking at the map of the area, I get it now.  We were on the opposite side of where the Dillard's is at.  The only other problem of course once you get past the heat is you need money to hang out here.  This place is full of high dollar stores.  I personally went to look at Ben Bridge, the store there is bigger than the store at the mall and thus, they carry a lot more in selection of fancy watches.  I might not be able to buy right now, but I love looking at fancy stuff like that.
    We couldn't decide where to eat, most of the places seemed to be bars, people were drinking everywhere, and that is fine, but we really don't drink and we had Chubs with us, I don't think a bar is a good place for him.  We did get cupcakes to go from a specialty store.  It was cute, it even had an ATM type of machine you could get cupcakes from on the wall without talking to people.  I guess for after hours.  The cupcakes were something like $3.75, which is almost expensive for the treat, but it was a cute idea and they tasted pretty good, I had a s'mores cupcake.
    After all our walking around and deciding where to eat, we both said Pappadeaux at almost the same time.  That place does not disappoint if you like fish and a touch of fancy.  It is pricey, but man, I still say it is worth it, although in reality we can't be doing this type of eating every weekend.  Oh well, we were celebrating Wife being here for the last full week before starting another year down in La Pryor and running back and forth.