Austin Powers

Another day of food, fun & heat.  We started our day with a drive to the state capitol building and our own self-guided walking tour.  Of course it was under construction and they had scaffolding set up around the dome but we still managed to take some neat pictures.  Next we found a parking spot at the trail entrance to Lady Bird Lake (formerly Town Lake).  It's a trail that follows the shore of the Colorado River - not the same Colorado River flowing through the Grand Canyon.  It was too hot to do much walking and I was dressed in a skirt so that nixed the idea of renting bikes, but it was still an enjoyable walk.

By this time we were hungry so we went to Home Slice Pizza which we saw near the Continental Club & Guero's.  What a great pizza joint!  It's got the college feel like Woodstock's and the freshness of Pizza My Heart.  I ordered a slice of pepperoni pizza with a Boylan grape soda.  I don't think I've ever heard of the soda company, but it was a delicious grape soda made with cane sugar.  And the pizza slice was wonderful and had a cornmeal bottom crust.  We sat at the bar and got to watch the guy toss up the dough which is always fun to see.  :-)

After a pit stop at the hotel to use the gym and shower we headed out for an awesome night on the town.  Our first stop was Antone's, a blues club founded by Clifford Antone who was a mentor to Stevie Ray Vaughan.  We went to see our second BlueBonnet's performance.  They rocked the stage again but I didn't think this performance was as good as Tuesday's.  Maybe it was the smaller, older crowd...

We watched the first two songs of the next act's set before heading out to dinner at Fado Irish Pub around the corner.  I ordered a Smithwick's to wash down my Smithwick's flavored mini burgers.  The beer was refreshing as usual but I could not pick up the flavor of the beer in the burgers at all.  A bit of a bummer, but then I really wasn't expecting much.  Before we decided on Fado for dinner, we noticed a small outdoor stage set up between two other buildings in the area.  I wanted to check it out after dinner, but unfortunately no one was playing yet so we walked back to Antone's to see what was going on in there.  I think if I had known anything about blues music I would have really appreciated what was going on in there - two female artists were doing a duet on stage and they said they hadn't worked together in years.  The audience was loving it and I really enjoyed what I heard.  But like I said...  I know nothing about blues and so I can't tell you who they were or what they were singing.

We left Antone's after that song and again walked around the block and found our way to that outdoor stage.  A great cover band was playing so we watched them from the sidewalk for a few songs.  I found out they are called Suede.  Mom and I both enjoyed them because they rocked out the classics as well as current songs.  Very cool.  Even cooler was the venue - Cedar Street Courtyard.  Check out the link to see what the venue looks like during the day.

The night was young and we wanted to see more Austin so we decided to take a pedicab tour of the immediate area.  The guy we chose to ride us around was working his first shift ever and we were his very first customers so that was kind of special.  His more experienced co-worker rode along beside us to point out some of the cool stuff around us.  They intended to take us down 6th Street where all the action is, but couldn't because the police had the road blocked off to traffic.  Apparently every Thursday thru Saturday night the street is closed down for pedestrian traffic only.  That should tell you how hip it is.  This was just a Thursday night and there were thousands of people out on the streets and in all the different bars & clubs.  It looked like a scene from an MTV spring break - sans naked people.

We got out of pedicab and headed east.  The first place we found that looked interesting was Friends Bar.  They had a live band playing - Sam Riggs Band.  They were just okay for me.  I think they played some covers (none of which I recognized) and an original song that I had no way of knowing.  We left after about three or four songs to walk around more.

We poked our heads into a couple of places to see what they were like and made our last stop at Pete's Dueling Piano Bar.  By far my favorite stop for the evening!  This dueling piano bar was very similar to others I've been to but this crowd was so much fun. The place was pretty crowded when we first arrived (thinned out a lot by 2:00 A.M. though).  There was a young guy standing next to us at the bar that was so drunk I'm still trying to figure out how he never fell down.  He was swaying so much he was actually losing his drink due to it sloshing over the sides.  He was a fun character to watch because he knew all the songs and was very into it.  My mom requested some Go-Go's music so the blind musician came up with a medley for us that you can watch here.  Too funny!  The other cool thing to happen here was when someone requested they play Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA."  They called people up to the stage who have served for our country and the rest of us in the audience stood on our feet and belted out the tune.  A very cool sight indeed!

So we called it a night when Pete's closed down and I was sad to make it my last night in Austin.  We knew there was nightlife down there but we never expected anything like 6th Street.  There is truly something for everyone in that time.  No matter what your music scene is, Austin is the place for you.