Oh the places you will go...

It seems pretty surreal that we are making this trip to San Diego from Bryan, TX.  When we left Bryan on the 27th, I was pretty
surprised how sad I was to leave.  In my 70 days there I grew to like the place pretty well.  Now it isn't the greatest place in the world and I'm sure that I would find things wrong with it the longer that I lived there but the twin cities of Bryan/College Station are pretty cool.  I mean it is a typical college town but the student's at least seem more respectful and it does have some interesting stuff to see.  For instance we went to the WeinerFest on the Saturday before we left which was AWESOME in a weird sort of way.  Imagine taking a bunch of dogs and dressing them up for a costume contest and then pitting them against each other in a race to end all races.  Craziness ensues.  

The campus itself has quite a few interesting things.  For instance how many places can you find a monument dedicated to roughnecking, a oil drilling rig and a monument to the past mascots where there is their own scoreboard so they can keep track of whether the Aggies are going to run out of time or not.  My favorite was the sign for the local Hillel group though.  This place IS amazingly friendly and I am sad that we have left.

So we are now on the second leg of our cross country tour.  This route is a little more wandering then the one to TX.  We actually started going south to San Antonio because I wanted to see the Alamo.  The Alamo is pretty small for the surrounding area.  It is kind of like seeing the Arch in Athens.  You are expecting something just a little smaller than St. Louis and what you get is something MUCH smaller than St. Louis.  Same here with the Alamo.  There is also not much of it left after all it was a fort and it was kind of beat up and abused.  We also visited the Riverwalk while there eating at the oldest restaurant there.  I started calling it the Venice of Texas and John said the canals reminded him of the Small World ride at Disney World.  

After we paid our respects to the Alamo, we stopped by Barney Smith's garage to look at his toilet seat cover artwork.  Now I know you are thinking we must be crazy but this guy is awesome.  We found his museum by going to www.roadsideamerica.com which has to be one of the coolest places to find random and interesting places to stop by on your next road trip.  Back to Mr. Smith.  He is 87 years old and has been making his folk art toilet seat covers for over 40 years.  He is up to 858 and is aiming to complete 1000.  Some are funny, odd, and amazingly creative.  John and I signed the Georgia toilet seat to mark our visit (we decided that one made the most sense right now) and then toured his collection.  He does not sell or loan his collection out but we did get a souvenir for our Christmas tree of one of his fired ceramic toilet seat ornaments.  He is an incredible man and so humble taking all his "fame" in stride.  If you are in the area, give him a call.  The museum is only open if you call him and he will meet you with so much enthusiasm so that you can see and share in his "little" hobby.  

After spending an extended time with Mr. Smith, we headed to Carlsbad, NM.  We stopped by Enchanted Rock which is a giant hunk of pinkish rock sticking out of the ground.  It is kind of like Stone Mountain in GA except nothing is covered on the side of it.  I took over driving and the Garmin decided we should take a more back roads route after visiting the Rock so we headed to middle of nowhere TX where there were a few loose livestock roaming the roads :)

The scenery in West TX was as we were told - nothing too remarkable.  The scenery changed subtly but it was not too dull; however, there is a problem with roadkill especially the amount of skunks that are apparently killed.  It seemed the whole drive was sprinkled with eau de skunk or the smell of gas/propane/yuck.  We made it to Midlands, TX for dinner (hometown of First Lady Laura Bush and childhood home of "W" Bush).  We decided to go ahead and make the push to get to Carlsbad.  It was a crappy drive in the middle of the dark.  The road was rough and it was super dark.  No moon or anything.  We kept our eyes open for alien encounters but we saw nothing (at least nothing we remember).  Finally we made it to Carlsbad at 11pm and were completely exhausted.  

This morning we woke up after a fitful night sleeping to head out to Carlsbad Caverns.  We realized we didn't miss much last night on the drive.  There is nothing on the roads except brush and the occasional tree.  Also we found that Carlsbad smells a lot like gas of the human variety but once we got out to the Caverns all was better.  Incredible vistas getting to the caves.  The national park has a boarding area so that Vicky didn't have to stay in the hot car and we were able to take our time in the Caverns.  We spent 2 whole hours to walk just the Big Room trail.  Crazy big and spooky all at the same time.  One of the rangers explained that there used to be more lighting (including red, green and blue-groovy man) in the 70s but is now reduced in lighting (and color).  It's pretty amazing and we wished we had more time to hike from the natural entrance, but next time :)  By the way I finally figured out what my superhero skill is - humidity girl.  You can't tell so much in this photo but as the cave got colder and wetter, my hair got bigger and bigger.  Ahhh...I love my hair :)

We headed up to Roswell after chowing down at the park and picking up Vicky (the now very cranky chinchilla).  Roswell was less than spectacular.  I was expecting Alien central and there is like a block of alien stuff.  The shop we went to had this deal that you could get your picture taken in front of a green screen which puts you in a number of alien themed scenes.  Unfortunately they closed just as we were getting through the museum of alien contradictions (are there UFOs, are aren't there, you decide).  I was seriously disappointed since that was all I really wanted was the stupid photo but we got an alien ornament and headed out for Starbucks (yea coffee).  Then came the long, boring, monotonous drive to Albuquerque.  Yep we were somewhere between nowhere and BFE.  We hit a little scare when the car decided to bring up the empty light somewhere around "holy cow nothing but grass" and we were easily 45 miles from the next gas station.  I've never done math so well to realize that we might be pushing to the gas station.  Luckily we made it and switched drivers (my heart had enough of the stress).  Then off to a sunset worthy of the picture on the NM license plate and our descent into homebase for the night.  It is overall been crazy and tomorrow should be even more interesting.  Stay tuned!

Austin City Limits Music Festival Epilogue

So what if I'm in Albuquerque on my way to Califonia, I've got more to say about Austin City Limits.

So, Dawn and I called it a day early but I wanted to go to Stubb's BBQ in Austin, if for no other reason, Todd turned me onto the sauce years ago.  As an added bonus, the Black Keys were tearing it up on the stage at Stubb's there was no need for any wrist band, they could clearly be heard over anything else in the bar.  Anyway, Dawn and I were kicking back, enjoying some appetizers waiting for our main meals to come out.  When I see someone coming up the stairs, and I think, that dude looks familiar.  Where do I know him, then I realize DJ Dangermouse was coming up some sort of VIP enterance from the basement.  I was trying to play it cool, and yet get Dawns attention.  You know that kind of closed mouth, through gritted teeth, "hey dawn, look over there...isn't that DJ Dangermouse?"  she finally gets the hint and looks up.  I decide I want to shake his hands, were both Athenians after all, but he dissapeared into a VIP section before I could.  So, feeling I may have missed a chance, I went back to my meal, and then discussed our near brush with fame again, when, who should walk in bigger then life, but Cee-lo, much more outgoing, it was easy to catch his eye, shake his hand and tell him what a good show he put on, and they we we're from athens, but really enjoyed our visit to Austin.  Somehow, the Athens talk sparked the interest of one of the entourage, and we talked with him about Athens some, as he was also a native Athenian.  He was helpful in getting DJ Dangermouse over, and we got to shake his hand too.  He was much more resereved, and although appreciated meeting a few fans and talking about being from Athens, he clearly did not want to be a center of attention, so he was also quick to leave.  No matter, we had now met Gnarls Barkley.  How cool?  Well, the guy from the entourage was busy picking up a actress/model or something.  Well, because they were VIP's they got food on the house, and they had a big plate of leftovers from food that they weren't going to eat.  Packed in a take out box, the entourage guy I guess on the basis of our conversation, decided to give the food to us, with a little speech about how he didn't want to insult us, but if we wanted it, we could take it.  So we did.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Gnarls Barkley('s entourage guy's) leftovers.

The End.

Austin City Limits Music Festival Day 3

So, yea, I'm writing this on the eve of us starting our trip to California, but so what?  I've got more stories to tell about ACL fest.

Day 3:  The Short Day.

Short because we got our latest start yet, and we knew we weren't going to stay for the final act, the Foo Fighters, because we'd already seen them.  If we saw them, we'd break our streak of seeing bands we'd never seen before.

Did I mention this festivals commitment to mass transit and eco-friendly solutions?  Hence the bike racks.

We had a half a mind to see something when we got there, but stumbled over to the Massacoustics, on the basis of a very Paul Mcartney-esque song we heard.  We got a real kick out of this duo, note the drummer sings, drums, and plays bass all at the same time.  If they come around, I'd suggest you see them.

Close encounter of the famous kind, Part One:  Dawn and I headed over the the merchandise tent to get some T-shirts and music.  Who do I see wandering around the back of the tent, John Popper of Blues Traveler.  It's just before their autograph session, and a few more until their music set.  So he even, got closer, but I didn't get a good picture.  He gave the guy in line next to me a promotional copy of the upcoming release.  So, I was close, but not that close.

Neco Case was a folksy act we decided to see.  She has songs about sea animals taking eating each other.  Like Patty Griffin on day one, her quieter set had to deal with music bleed from other stages, once again, the Austin Ventures stage in particular.  The audience had another factor detracting us from the show, and that was The Racounters.  Well, not the band members, as it was their fans.  They had the stage after Case, and a break.  But they started filtering in, trying to get up to the front of the stage during the Case set.  This by itself, was annoying, but it's a festival, so you deal with some boorish behavior.  Even worse though, is they'd wedge themselves in in packs of six or what not, then get on their cell phones, and call their freinds to try and triangulate and meet up, in the center of a crowd of people trying to watch the music on stage.  Racounters fans?  You are assholes.  It got to the point where other people were telling them to shut up.If you think there was any less enthusiasm because it was Sunday, you would be wrong.  Blues Traveler is playing in the right of this photograph.  The crowd stretches out to the left.  There was maybe 20000 in front of that stage.  Our next show goal was the main stage seen at the center of the photograph.Gnarls Barkley pushed though a energetic music, pushing them selves at the end of their current tour.  Straining voices, sun in their eyes, and heat causing them to strip off articles of clothing, the put on a great, profanity laden show.  At one point, Cee-low gets the crowd to swear with him, and then sing-songs into the mike how he likes to swear.

So ends our festival experience.  Dust covered at dusk, we make our way to the exit before most of the crowd, to head into Austin for some dinner, satisfied with our ACL festival.  So many acts, so much fun what else could we want for?

Austin City Limits Music Festival Day 2

Day 2 offered some of the harder choices for the bands we don't know very well, or had seen one way or another already. So, we got there in time to see a band we had very little information about, but the crowd was thin, so we hung out, waiting for We Go to 11. We noticed that the crowd was kind of younger then most of the other shows we saw, but we thought little of it, and grew more concerned about why they missed their start time. Fifteen minutes later, we figured out why.

We got to Eleven is like 12 years old. Well, definitely not old enough to drive. Can't you see the argument at the security gate. (No really, they're a band!)

We then moved on to see the Fratellis, a hard rockin' band from Scotland. The lead singer apologized for putting on a bad show, and complaining about playing at 1:30 in the morning. We don't know if he was jet lagged, or is so Rock and Roll 1 in the afternoon to us is one in the morning to him, because he's still drunk from the party last night.

The heat got to me and Dawn by the time we go to see Back Door Slam, a group that can be favorably compared to Cream or any of the number of british 60's blues rock combos. They played a good set, but Dawn and I spent most of the set sprawled out on the blanket. It was cool feeling the bass rumble through my chest.  We also managed to get the self portrait (seen at the top) was done here too.

From there we went to see Erykah Badu. Great set of soul/funk. She was as out there as ever, comparing presidential elections to the changing of managers at bowling alleys, and talking about the 4th world war. Perhaps he most fun we had at a show to that point.

We then meandered back to see Mason Jennings, no relation to Shooter or Waylon, but music more like Jack Johnson, G. Love, good stuff we liked his clever song writing, and laid back sound.  Another nice surprise for us.

Evening fell, and we wanted to see the Black Keys, but never really got close enough to the stage to enjoy the show, and were constantly buffeted by people moving through the crowd, either closer to the stage, or away from the stage to see one of the nights headliners, Beck. We chose to do like wise.

Beck put on a great show, played "Loser," "Where it's at," "Que Onda Guero" and even covered Bob Dylan "Leopard skin pill box hat." Great light show. What was odd, according to the schedule cut his set 15 minutes short. Never having gone to a Beck show before, we were surpirsed by the lack of intersong banter, but whatever, it's Beck. We were way in the back, but still it was cool.

Another dusty day ends, what surprises will day 3 bring? Stay tuned.

Austin City Limits Music Festival Day 1

One cool thing about College Station and Bryan are the proximity to some of the other cities in Texas. One of those other cities is Austin. A town known for many things, one of which, close to me is music. So when Dawn suggested we go the Austin City Limits Music Festival, and was able to find reasonably priced three day passes, we decided to go.

Day 1:

We get to downtown Austin and find a spot to park at a meter at 3:30, and this is cool because we can fill the parking meter to take us to 5:30 which is when they stop checking the meters.

The festival worked with the city's transportation services to run shuttles from a downtown park to the festival grounds, I'll just say the operation of these shuttles was incredibly efficient, and we often spent more time walking to the point to catch shuttles rather then actually waiting for the shuttles. That was very cool, and much better organized then other shuttle services I've seen.

But really, this is not a blog entry about busses, it's about the festival.

Upon getting to the grounds, the first act we have time to see is Del the Funky Homosapien, who I knew from Gorillaz. Dawn and I sat in the back of the crowd to get the lay of the land, and make it easy for us to get to the Patty Griffin Stage.

We also decide to try and document ourselves each day.

We did start far away from Patty Griffin, but we eventually moved ourselves closer to try and block out sound spill over from other stages, most notably the Austin Ventures stage by the food tent. The shows there were routinely too loud all weekend long. I felt Patty put on a good show, and I was excited about the next acts we wanted to see, G. Love and the special sauce, and David Byrne.

After the Patty Griffin show, we started making our way across the park to the other stages. That's when we got our first view of how ow many people would be at the festival over the weekend. It also means that we were too far back from the G. Love stage to enjoy the music. Onto David Byrne.

Now, I had heard that Byrne dosen't do the Talking Heads music any more, so needless to say, I was more than pleasantly surprised to hear Life During War Time, I Zimbra, and Once in a Life Time, among other Byrne and Talking Heads songs. Byrne, being the art school guy he his, had dancers in a number of his songs. Their routines though sparked a debate between Dawn and I. Dawn was not pleased with some of the choreography, I thought the geeky dance moves were of Byrne's creation, and meant to invoke the Stop Making Sense concert movie. Turns out David Byrne address the dancing in his own blog. So, maybe I am a sucker.

I really felt like that was going to be the highlight of the night, but we went to two more shows, the Swell Season, (famous for the song Falling Slowly,) but they experienced multiple sound issues, both from their own equipment and spill over from....Austin Ventures Stage! We decided we would need to see them again sometime.

So, we decided to end the night with Donavon Frankenreiter. That to me was the biggest surprise of the night. I really enjoyed the show, and there was a lot of crowd energy and interactions. Plus, G. Love joined him at the end of his set to play a few songs. So, we got to see G. Love anyway.

A good start for the Weekend.