Austin Can Stay Weird. (AKA the post that is all about food)

One month in—3 months to go.

It’s Week 4 of the travel season. I spent the week in Austin. Don’t get me wrong. Compared to the rest of Texas, Austin has a lot to offer. It’s got great food, a nice river and apparently there is quite the music scene (I wouldn’t know).

The traffic, however, sucks.

I’ll totally throw it out there: I’d rather be driving in LA. Maybe because I wasn’t expecting it. There aren’t actual people in Texas are there?

Fact: Yes there are. And they’re all driving insanely around Austin.

I had some really good visits and meetings though. Meet some really nice people and made some good connections.

Although I felt like I was working every single waking (and some sleeping) hours of the day, I tried to get out of the hotel for a bit and join the land of the Normal.

First stop was Sandra Bullock’s restaurant “Bess Bistro.” I love me some Sandy B. She’s my favorite, so Friend Z and I met up for happy hour. The place was small, but super cute. It was Southern Trendy, if that makes sense. We had Shrimp Bess (If any more butter was added into the dish, it would be illegal) and Friend Green Tomatoes.

I’d never had FGT’s but both of us loved watching the movie, so Friend Z and I had to try them. In general, I find red tomatoes gross. However, fried and green were really, really good.

Realistically, it was probably the fried part that won me over.

I also went to this fantastic

café for a few hours called Halocyn. It was super cute---and a really good place to get some work done. The coffee was not only delicious, but it came with Animal Crackers.

Friend Z and I came back here at night and ha

d their S’mores kit. You literally make S’mores at your table. Complete with personal open flame and bucket of Emergency Water.

On my last night---spent in San Marcos, TX I drove to this tiny town called Lockhart. It’s abo

ut 20 minutes in some direction from where I was. Lockhart is apparently the “BBQ Capital of Texas” There were like 4 or 5 BBQ pits in a two foot radius.

I chose to try Blacks. The oldest family run BBQ in Texas. I’m not a big meat fan…but I’ll admit. That was some good eats.

I took mine to go (which you should never do when it comes to BBQ—see below) and drove to an empty field (not hard to find)where I watched the Texas sunset. It was beautiful and peaceful. A quiet moment that I really needed.

I ended up spilling an entire cup of BBQ sauce all over the car floor, but it wouldn’t be Texas without a little mesquite in t

he air, right?

I will also put it out there that RBD #1 happened in the fitness room of my HIX in San Marcos, TX. It wasn’t pretty. Them tears not gonna get me down for long as thankfully it only lasted an hour and I was running on the treadmill the entire time.

Talk about extreme multi-tasking skills.