“This building fires the heart and excites reflections in the minds of all…” -Temple Houston, son of Sam Houston

My brother and his wife and little boy moved to Austin, Texas last year and we went to visit them for the first time at Christmas 2014. Austin prides itself on being weird for a whole lot of reasons but there is a lot that is beautiful, too, including many of the older homes, the downtown skyline, the Colorado River which snakes through the city, and the gorgeous capitol building (which is also a source of pride because it is almost 15 feet taller than the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.). We had great opportunities to see the edifice from many vantage points around the city. It is this perspective, though, just a few meters from the building itself, with my newly-Texan family silhouetted in front of the façade, amidst the shadows of nightfall, which is my favorite.