Austin, TX
Some places just speak to you.
Chicago. That was one place for me for a long time. The gap between "I should really visit Chicago" and actually getting there was about 7 years, which wasn't for lack of trying (or lack of traveling, for that matter). I had work trips that fell through, I visited other places where I actually knew people. You have to prioritize your destinations, and anywhere I had a free place to stay always won out. And I fulfilled other travel dreams in the meantime - New Orleans, that road trip through the Carolinas, work travel wherever and Seattle and so many Bay Area and Vegas trips. But then I got to Chicago, and it felt special. Weirdly, in the two years since then, I've actually been back 6 other times for work, but I still think it's an awesome town.
Austin wasn't exactly like that, not somewhere I'd been yearning to go for years. But I develop a taste for anywhere I go, and by the end, I was already missing it.
Thursday we landed and grabbed a RideAustin to the Hyatt Place near the convention center. Not my first choice, but we had Hyatt points that paid for 2 of the 3 nights - earned, actually, as an apology from the Hyatt Regency I stayed at during an aforementioned Chicago trip. (Not sure exactly what happened, but there was a party next door, underage drinking, the police, etc and they gave me an apology card with 25,000 Hyatt Gold points. Fair trade, IMHO.) And good thing, too. Austin hotels are surprisingly pricey.
After settling in, we headed right out to a Tex-Mex joint around the corner where we had our first-ever queso. The place was giant and empty, and we devoured the snack before taking a quick walk down by the river and back down Sixth Street. We wondered how we were going to survive the insanely humid weather. Back at the hotel, we freshened up before heading out to crawl Rainey Street, a redeveloped district of historical homes that now function as bars/restaurants. Because they were once residences, they have giant porches and backyards, now used as patio space. It seems like every place in Austin got the memo that string lights make every outdoor space look really cool, and Rainey Street was a great introduction to the sort of hip-rustic aesthetic.
We went to a number of places, which blur together, but some of the standouts were:
- Half-Step - the BEST bar group in Los Angeles is 213 Hospitality. Their bars are consistently high-quality and forward-thinking, even if some of the trends they implemented first are now so ubiquitous they're cliches. Their only bar outside of Southern California doesn't disappoint, with a fantastic happy hour and picnic table seating.
- Craft Pride/Via 313 Pizza - great local craft beer and a trailer in the back with Detroit-style pizza. It started to sprinkle and a fellow played nice, mellow, melodic electric guitar.
- Little Lucy's Mini Donuts - not generally a donut person, or even a dessert person, but the hot donuts smelled amazing and we consumed them under the awning at Half-Step while waiting for our ride back.
Friday we went over to Veracruz to accomplish another one of our Austin food goals - breakfast tacos. One thing I love about Austin is how no-frills businesses can be. Like, you got money for a trailer? You got money to open a restaurant. Plop it on some land with a few strings of lights and some tables, and you're good. The tacos were great, but we couldn't gorge ourselves - we had other food plans later. After a quick ride over to the State Capitol - couldn't see much in the time we were there, but I got teary in the rotunda thinking about Wendy Davis doing her filibuster - we walked to the holy grail... Franklin Barbecue.
I was indifferent to Franklin - I could have skipped it. My husband wouldn't have considered the trip complete without a visit, but we were both in agreement that standing in line for 3-4 hours wasn't exactly ideal. Franklin accepts pre-orders where you can skip the line, but the catch is that you have to order 5lbs of meat. Which is ok if you're planning a party or something, but for 2 people, the amount and expense is slightly ridiculous. We went back and forth, but we figured that you either have to pay in dollars or time, and time is just more valuable on vacation. A $75 deposit 6 weeks in advance it was.
You pick up the order from a trailer in the back, and you're not allowed to eat on-site. Our plan had been to go to a nearby brewery called Hops and Grain and share the bounty with whoever was there - a guerrilla act of kindness. I wasn't quite sure how it would work, and we felt a little ridiculous showing up to the brewery with all that BBQ, which smelled amazing - everyone in the place definitely noticed us. We set up a makeshift buffet - we'd purchased paper towels, plates, and plastic cutlery - ordered beers for ourselves, made ourselves plates, and then I went up to every person in the brewery to let them know that we had extra Franklin BBQ and they were welcome to some. One guy sitting solo at the bar was overjoyed ("Are you serious?!") and got some immediately, but everyone else was more hesitant, almost like people are suspicious of strangers offering them free food. Overall a tepid response so far, so I stepped onto the patio and hollered "Hey everyone, we have a bunch of Franklin BBQ inside, come have some." Within 30 seconds 8 people came inside, including 4 large men who had been on a "BBQ and Brewery" tour of their own design. They hadn't included Franklin on the tour on account of the line and were thrilled to be able to try some. One of them gave me a hug and then bought our next round of beers. Other folks in the place said that they'd always wanted to try Franklin but had never been able to before this. All in all, about 10 people partook, so I felt like that was our good deed for the day.
Barton Springs
Later that day we headed to Barton Springs Pool for a dip in a freezing natural creek/pool. The water was soooooo cold and deep, so we headed over to the shallower end (4-5 ft) and basically hung out in the water for 45 chilly minutes. We defrosted on the lawn and then went back to the hotel, where we hemmed and hawed over what to do for dinner. We eventually settled on Gordough's which was awesome, tried to have a low key drink in the beautiful Driskill Hotel (and did have a drink, but the place was packed with film festival goers and industry doofuses we usually try to avoid at home), wandered Dirty Six for a minute and then pretty much went back to the hotel. We are very cool.
Saturday we woke up early so I could panic about doing something I'd always wanted to do - inner tubing on a river. River tubing has been a bucket list item of mine for years, but for some reason I had a last-minute urge to google the river conditions, the depth, the swiftness of the river, etc, and came across some yelp review from someone who said they'd been stranded on the river for hours. That terrified me, so I actually called the tubing company and talked to a very nice man who assured me that we wouldn't be flying off rapids and we'd have a guide kayaking along the whole time. After a quick brunch at Stella San Jac, we walked over to where the bus was going to be picking us up and took an incredibly old bus to the San Marcos River, stopping for beers along the way. It was us, a bachelor party, and two other couples (including one who had been at Franklin when we had the previous day! Small city). It was not as tranquil or relaxing as I'd hoped, where you laze down the river drinking beer. Sometimes there were harrowing points where we were careening down the river, running into foliage/branches (I actually shouted "DUUUUUUUCK" at Edward so he wouldn't get beaned by log), sometimes we were moving insanely slowly and bringing up the rear. Mostly I was on edge worrying what was coming next. I was actually relieved when it was over. Maybe I'll do it again, but probably just at Hurricane Harbor.
In between panicking
After we got back to the city, we freshened up for dinner and headed to the bridge to see the bats. We waited around for like 30 minutes, but then bounced when we decided that time is money, and headed over to South Congress. We ended up eating dinner at a semi-crappy Mexican place and then going to the swanky Hotel San Jose for a drink at their courtyard patio bar. It was a gorgeous space with nice music and lighting, and we'd just received our drinks when I heard someone call my name - it was my cousin, his wife, and friends they were staying with. We'd been aware that they were in town and weren't sure that we'd be able to get together, so running into them spontaneously was a nice surprise! We ended up hanging out on the patio until they had to go home to relieve the babysitter, and Edward and I went across the street for Amy's ice cream.
Sunday we packed up and left the bags at the bell desk, then got some breakfast tacos at Mi Madre. We also went to the LBJ Presidential Library, which was great - I cried a lot, listening to the phone call between LBJ and Jackie Kennedy. We still had some time to kill and headed over to East Austin to enjoy some final drinks at Craftsman and Stay Gold. Then we grabbed our bags and headed to the airport, where Jason Segel was on our flight. Pretty, pretty, pretty good weekend.