A journey to the center of Texas: Part two.

From my Moleskine:

We walked around Austin and saw the sights ...



Yes, that is a grown man in a cap, karate shirt and UGGs. And a thong. Can't forget the thong.

Let's rewind.

On Wednesday we arrived at our hotel in south Ausitn, showered and headed to South Lamar for happy hour drinks and tacos at Maria's Taco Xpress. Awesome vibe. Great tacos. A great referral from Guy Fieri of Diners Drive-ins and Dives. We shared tacos al pastor (AWESOME) and picadillo tacos (pretty tasty) and their chips and salsa roja (too spicy for me) and we washed it all down with Negro Modelos (with lime=yum). In all, I think you go to Maria's for the tacos (duh) and the atmosphere. The patio is where it's at.

From there we headed downtown. The show was at Antone's, which is off of Lavaca, and within walking distance of the Texas Chili Parlor. We didn't have chili (sorry Matt!), but we swilled some beer (Bass ale for Dave and Tecate with lime for me) and we kept a half-filled suit from toppling over a barstool to his death. Friendly folks throughout, despite the fact that the place was teeming with Longhorns. If you're not a Texan and haven't been in too many Texas honky-tonks, this is as close to the genuine article as you can get to a classic watering hole for the inexperienced.

From there we hoofed it to Antone's to see Doug Burr and Son Volt. Great show at a decent venue. Earplugs are a must. I didn't have my camera all night because the tickets said they weren't allowed, and yet, I saw several. Bonus about Antone's: Lone Star tallboys.

We were there for the whole show and after the encore I snatched the setlist for Dave. It was the night's goal for him, to get ahold of the set list, and then he went and moved the goal posts: He wanted it signed by Jay Farrar, too.

So we waited and waited for Jay to come out. Dave finagled and stratergized until he realized that Jay had most likely gone out the back.

We walked back to the car and found our way to a Whataburger drive-thru and then we made it back to the hotel. We were in bed by 2 a.m.

Thursday we had all day to play and hang out. We got up and got breakfast at Kerbey Lane Cafe. It's a good spot, lots of great breakfast choices and several vegetarian items on the menu. Good coffee, too. After that we went down to the capitol (see previous chapter).

Dave has been to this hat shop downtown, across the street from the Driskill hotel. It's called the Hatbox. It is fantastic. It's near a lot of other funky shops and not too far from the Jamba Juice outside which we saw the half naked man in the karate shirt. I suppose he has a black belt in wigging people out.

We walked around downtown a bit until we were sick of it, which happened pretty quickly. The we headed over to South Lamar to shop for a bit. We ran into Fanny at Fanny's Fabrics and bought some beautiful fabric to cover our dining room chairs.

I asked fanny where we could find a good yarn shop, and she said I'd be blown away by Hill Country Weavers on South Congress. We headed in that direction, and despite construction, we found the shop. Oh. My. God. So much beautiful yarn. Some of the softest, squishiest handspun cashmere skeins... omg.

Anyway. They had a lot of yarns I'd never heard of before, and a lot that my LYS doesn't keep in stock, so I bought these three huge balls (that made Dave giggle ... "huge balls") of chunky microfiber yarn. It's enough to make a cardigan or a long vest. Something cool.

From there we decided to shop a bit on South Congress. There was a great antique shop called Uncommon Objects, and the co-owner had been at the Son Volt show the night before and recognized Dave. Neat!

From there we decided to grab a bite ....

Stay tuned for the next episode!