BodesWell

Travis County

Posted on November 8, 2011 by jason5 Comments

And happy birthday to Angela.

Montgomery County

Posted on November 3, 2011 by jason1 Comment

We’re taking a little break from the South American traveling, but loading up on Texas traveling. Our trademarked family loop around Texas begins….

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And, if anyone around Austin wants to meet up for a cold Lone Star, we’ll be there Thursday and Friday. Look for us somewhere on S. Congress for First Thursday, or come have  a margarita under the oak trees at Freddie’s Place on Friday 5:30-8:30. See you there!

Houston folks – come meet us for a cold one at the West Alabama Ice House at 5 o’clock on Sunday!

Farewell Austin

Posted on December 22, 2009 by jason3 Comments

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.

On the Road Again

Posted on December 11, 2009 by angela8 Comments

We stopped for lunch in Giddings, about half-way between Spring and Austin and Jason checked the engine. The van had been running great since we visited Mark in Virgina, but seemed to be having a bit of trouble since we got to Texas.

There wasn’t anything noticeably wrong, so he decided to get to Austin where he’d tune it up. Just as he’s about to pull back onto the highway, his foot went all the way to the floor. The accelerator cable had broken. Lucky for us, he carries a spare. It was raining and muddy, but at least we were in a parking lot instead of the side of the road. Within a half an hour we were back on our way… and Bode got to experience the wonder of Whataburger.

Barely 15 minutes into Austin, our old hometown, a guy in a pickup truck passes us and yells expletives with ‘Go back to California!’ Ah, good times.

Jason and I each lived in Austin for 10 years before we moved to California. We have lots of friends and family here, so we always have fun when we visit.

It was still raining, so we made a quick trip around our old neighborhood before heading over to pick up our friend Mear and go see the Judd family. Hootie entertained Bode, and we got to catch up with some great friends.