Snapshots from Texas

Barry and I recently went to Texas for the Austin City Limits Music Festival.  Here are some of the highlights.

Austin skyline, taken from the parking ramp where we parked

Entrance to the festival

We caught the last part of Sons of Fathers' performance

Listen to Sons of Fathers Roots & Vine

Courtyard Hounds, with Emily and Martie from the Dixie Chicks

Central daily schedule

Many people carried tall flags to make them easy to find

Looking toward the Samsung Galaxy stage where Muse played later

JD McPherson, maybe the most entertaining to watch

You can't listen to JD McPherson and be in a bad mood

Queens of the Stone Age, right before it poured.  The rain felt awesome after the hot, humid weather all day.

We started Day 2 by eating at Bacon, where everything on the menu has bacon.  I had the bacon waffle.

How can you NOT eat at a restaurant called bacon?

The lineup on Day 2 was just okay. We bought chairs and lingered at the back of the crowds while listening to the music.  It was even hotter than Day 1.

Sunset on Day 2

The crowd gathers for Kendrick Lamar.  Not my type of music, but he sure had a lot of fans and knew how to work the crowd.

End of Day 2, Austin skyline at night

At the recommendation of an Austin resident, we tried Ruby's BBQ

Overnight, my phone kept beeping with flash flood warnings.  It turns out that the Zilker Park area where the festival was held had about 11 inches of rain and flooded out.  Day 3 of the festival was canceled.  We went out to SoCo (South Congress Avenue) along with many other festival goers and avoided the lone lines, opting for Ms. P's Electric Cock fried chicken, one of many food trucks we spotted in Austin.

We then visited the Texas State Capitol building.

Loved the architecture!

Even though the festival was canceled, some bands found local venues to play in that night.  We got in line to see Franz Ferdinand around 5:30 p.m. and finally got in the doors around 9:30 p.m. when they were at the end of their set.  The Infest only holds about 650 people, so the employees were only letting people in if other people left.  It was worth the wait, despite rain and the long wait.  We were entertained by watching people and keeping updated via Twitter.

The next day it was time to head back to Dallas for our flight home, but not before we had some coffee from a truck.

We took some country roads to get to a meeting Barry had for a potential event next spring.  We saw lots of run-down places.

Getting to Dallas

Perot Museum of Science and Nature.  It was closed for the day when we walked by, or we would have visited.

We went to a Dallas Mavericks game where we saw some interesting characters.

Barry found great seats on Stub Hub, and we were trying to figure out if there were former players or pseudo celebrities there.

Dirk Nowitzki, the Mavericks star player

We stayed overnight in Dallas because our flight left at 6:30 a.m.

 Heading home--sunny on top of the clouds, but it was raining when we got home.

A big thanks to my parents who came and watched the kids while we were gone!  This trip wouldn't have been possible without their help.