Adios Austin!

This morning we're getting ready to head out to the airport to get on the flight home. So this post I'll try to sum up the last couple of days. Wednesday night we went out on the town to catch more music. At Maggie Mae's we found Vallejo (pronounced "Va-yeh'-ho", or "Va-ley'-ho"...or as their front man quipped, if you're from Alabama you'd pronounce it "Valley-joe"). These guys were really good, playing a kind of Tex-Mex rock style (Norteno maybe?). The addition of the extra percussionist on congas and other instruments really sets off this style of music. Similar in a sense to Santana, although Santana's sound is quite different (more soulful perhaps, less edgy than these guys). Later on that evening we caught the last couple of songs from Hosea Hargrove, a three-piece blues ensemble. The front man was this old blues man, sitting playing guitar. He looked like he was really old, especially once he got up since he seemed to have trouble walking, but man, he could still play solid guitar. And sing, too! They were really good, making playing the blues look really easy. I bought their CD and it's pretty decent although they've added more instruments to it, which almost obscures the quality of the three-piece simplicity we heard that night.

Thursday was the last day of SC '08, so we took a few minutes to walk around the exhibits floor. There were various gimmicks around, here we had Sun's Java bike that they let passers by sit on. So I tried it out. It's a little longer than my Harley, as it's much more of a chopper than my standard softail.

Thursday night they bussed us out to Star Hill Ranch for the reception. Some kind of noreaster happened to have blown in so we were all freezing while queuing up for barbeque. As it often happens at these things, there are never enough food tables for the number of people that show up, which more often than not results in long food lines. We waited half an hour freezing our butts off for a plate of BBQ. The food was good, and after washing it down with a couple of Negro Modellos (Mexican beers), we felt a bit better. Eventually we got in out of the cold to listen to this country band in one of the buildings at the ranch. They were good, we did some line dancing, and watched some really good two-steppers. They inspired me to go look for dance lessons when we get back. On the way out we patted and said good bye to the beer-toting burros (Mexican for donkeys—they were really cute) and got on the bus.

So that's it from Austin, TX. We're all packed, suitcases a bit heavier than what we started with, and ready to go. We love TX and look forward to coming back. Adios! (PS. That's me at the Ginger Man—a bar with 80 beers on tap, just wanted to give credit to the place. It's right next door to Fodo, an Irish pub we had dinner at one of the evenings. Wherever I am, I can always go for bangers and mash for dinner :)