Farewell Austin

We spent nearly a week in Austin visiting friends and just hanging out. Austin is and always will be the funkiest town in Texas. When we lived here years ago, folks said Austin just wasn’t like it used to be. Now we go back and say it’s not like it used to be. But, it’s still pretty great.

Austin is the original Slacker town. It’s the best place in America to do nothing.

We hit some of our favorite old haunts, including Hut’s Hamburgers where we once spent every Wednesday for their 2-for-1 specials. After dinner, we invited some friends back to our place… it was parked right outside!

A few new trends we noticed in Austin:

You’re not cool unless you eat out of an Airstream trailer. They’re everywhere. There are even shopping trailer parks with Airstreams huddled around picnic tables and a fire pit. You can get anything. Crepes, cupcakes, even a pet store.

Skeeball is apparently back with a vengeance. My cousin Rachel is a defending city champ and will go to New York for the nationals.  She’s got a machine in the garage to practice. Who knew?

Oh yeah, and join a band. Everybody’s in a band. Or five. Come down for SXSW and never leave – it happens. You don’t really have to join a band – just have friends in bands and hang out with them and act like you’re in a band.

Seriously, it really is the best place we know of anywhere in world for live music. Great musicians everywhere. I’ve bumped into Alejandro Escovedo getting coffee. Years ago I was in line at the grocery store behind a very pregnant Shawn Colvin eating cheesy poofs out of the bag while the checker was scanning them. Yeah, that’s us in the front row on the Austin City Limits episode with Son Volt (don’t blink or you’ll miss us.)  We went to a birthdays party last week for a 10 year old and (I think) David Rawlings was there – it’s just that kind of town.

Live music everywhere, killer Tex-Mex, cool fun creative interesting people all over town.  Show up… do nothing… you’ll have a blast. Just don’t move here.