David and Jenn Wheat came to visit May 3, 2008. The tour of Austin included the capital building, (see picture). The best part of the capital building is the huge open rotunda. We found that if you stand on the star in the middle of the floor and speak you can hear yourself as if you are speaking into a loud speaker. This makes you feel like you are talking loudly but only you can hear it. This is because you are in the center of a round room and your echo returns from every direction at once. We also discovered that if you jump on the
walkways that circle the rotunda the floor shakes on the opposite side. I found this out because a big burly biker was not very happy that his floor was shaking when he was already afraid of heights. I decided to stop jumping. We also went to the Austin botanical gardens. There were plants of all shapes and sizes. The most interesting tree was a thorned tree of some sort. I guess this kind of tree does not like to be climbed.
