Austin = Awesome

We had a good vacation.  Easy travelling, fantastic and relaxing hotel, delicious delicious food and fun times.  There was also sunshine, nice people and the best smoothies ever.  We've been back for a couple of weeks now and I've failed to post anything because I just don't know where to start.

So here is a start.

Christopher's lunch... and dinner.  And lunch.

You can almost see Christopher way back there.

Bar-B-Que.   Franklin BBQ opens at 11 and the meat that is roasted for ~30 hours is gone in two or three hours.  Knowing this was the deal we arrived a tad before 9:50 and already there were 35 or 40 people in line.  But we were on vacation so stood in the sun until we got our food around noon.  Christopher ordered 2/3 of a pound of brisket and pulled pork (each) with a sausage, potato salad and cole slaw on the side.  Not being much of a beef/pork girl I had planned on leaving that for the diehards and ordering the roast turkey.  At the counter I learned that the turkey had butter (dairy = bad news for me) and hastily decided on a half pound of pulled pork with a side (pint) of baked beans.  I figured I'd eat mostly beans and save most of the meal for Christopher later (we had a fridge at the hotel.)  But I accidentally ate it all.  I didn't share even one bite or manage to get a picture before it was gone.  It was, in a word, amazing.

Remnants of my lunch - that's a BAD vegetarian!

The Texas Two-Step.  Thursday night found us heading to the Broken Spoke, a genuine honkey tonk, for a country dance lesson and some Texas Two-Step.  Christopher and I managed to get the basics (sort of) and spent a couple of hours dancing off all that bar-b-que to an awesome live band, Jesse Dayton.  The best part were the "regulars" - older men who spend many an evening at the Broken Spoke.  They all wanted to dance with our beautiful friend Annabel but a couple asked me to dance as well.  Rather, they asked my husband if they could dance with me.

The hotel!  Not knowing Austin or being much versed in hotel stuff in general we had quite a hard time figuring out where to stay.  There were many posh and hipster-y places recommended that were either booked, very expensive, lacking amenities or a combo of all three.  In the end we got a deal on a generic Embassy Suites but it was fantastic.  We were in a great location, the room was very comfortable and quite, it came with a gym, pool, hot tub, etc, as well as a complimentary happy hour with snacks, beer, wine and well drinks.  The breakfast was a site better than your average hotel breakfast and included cooked to order omelettes as well as the cereal, eggs, oatmeal, muffins, bacon, fruit, yogurt and so on.  The room was extremely comfortable and had a little living room with a door to a closed off bedroom.  It was particularly great to bring happy hour up from the bar to watch the sunset.  Killer cocktail discovery:  Cranberry juice, lime, tequila!

View from our room during happy hour.

Brew-B-Ques and smoothies.  Friday we'd had aspirations of renting bikes and doing the ten-mile loop along the river and/or heading up to Mount Bonnell.  But we were tired from the previous day's walking to BBQ, standing on line for BBQ, touring the capitol, walking to the Whole Foods headquarters, basking in the sun, walking along the river, country dancing and in general staying up too late!  And it was cold.  So we walked to get weak coffee.  I also had my sites set on a place called Juiceland.  Originally I didn't have it on the itinerary because honestly, who goes from Portland to Austin and decides to walk a mile to get juice?  Clearly the same girl who packed raw broccoli for a travel snack.  And it was fantastic!  The best smoothies I've ever had.  We actually managed to work multiple visits into our couple of days.  Along the way to Juiceland, however, we ambled past Uncle Billy's Brew-B-Que.  We poked our heads in and it looked and felt like a real brewery.  Full up on smoothies we popped in on our walk back and had a sample tray.  And it was a real brewery! We had a chat with a couple of the people working there and they are seriously NW inspired brewers with a decent array of pale ales on tap.

Torchy's chicken fajita taco.

Other highlights, in short:

We stumbled across a wedding.

• Mexican martinis (dirty, of course) - a margarita in a martini glass with olives and a splash of olive juice
• Finally read Cloud Atlas - the book is worth the hype and more
• Austin's equivalent of Portland's Pearl District
• Guacamole with pureed chipotle and toasted almonds
• Torchy's Tacos - I would happily have all my meals split between Torchy's and Juiceland
• Watching TV in bed on one of the two TV's in our suite.  With cable!
• Austin farmers' market and the ginger sandwich cookies and mesquite smoked wild Texas pecans we got there
• Raw broccoli salad with cashew cream
• Hop Doddy burgers, including a black bean burger with avocado, arugula, caramelized onions and a fried egg for me
• Bridesmaids in cowboy boots
• Feeling totally relaxed for four days!