Friday night: Original flight arriving in Austin at 10:30 cancelled. New flight scheduled in at 12:30, but connecting flight from Chicago gets delayed for mechanical difficulty. Boo. My airplane karma has not been working in my favor for Tory visits lately.
Saturday: Headed to the
Barton Springs Pool around 2pm. Weather was
fantastic - a nice dry 90 degrees and sunny. The 68 degree water was chilly, but we worked our way in and swam a while. There were dogs playing in a section of the river outside the pool that were fun to watch - one of them could catch a ball bounced off of a wall. There was also an older man in a thong sunbathing near us on the hill that was not as fun to watch.
After that, we headed to Chuy's - the place where Jenna Bush was busted with a fake ID - for a drink and dinner. The drink was a Texas Martini (also known as the Mexican Martini of
Trudy's fame). It's a combo of a margarita and a martini: tequila, cointreau, sprite, OJ, lime, and two olives stuffed with jalapeno pepper, served in a martini glass (salted rim optional). Chuy's offers free chips and salsa at the bar, then when we sat we ordered queso with guacamole - a combo that doesn't necessarily sound good, but definitely worthwhile. Dinner was a "Chicka chicka boom boom" enchilada. From the menu:
"Two roasted chicken and cheese enchiladas with Boom-Boom sauce"
The name of course attracted attention because of the old "boom chicka boom" camp medley, but once the waitress described "boom boom" sauce, we were sold. Essentially, it's a creamy spicy queso-jalapeno-chili sauce. According to
this recipe I found through the magic of
google that I plan to try out asap, it has the following in it:
5 jalapeno peppers
1 packet ranch dip or dressing mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 bunch cilantro or to taste
garlic powder to taste
milk to thin or thicken, as needed
Preheat broiler. Place whole jalapeno peppers on a baking sheet and broil, turning frequently, until skins are charred. Cool peppers; remove skin and seeds.
Process all ingredients in a blender, adding milk in small amounts as needed for desired consistency.
Stuffed, we headed back to T's apartment to clean up. We popped over to T's friend's house for a quick drink, then headed to
Midnight Rodeo! This place is huge (Texas style), with a large dance floor. On Thursdays they usually have line dancing, but it was just couples two stepping to country tunes on Saturday. A few couples were
really good - one guy was throwing flipping his partner through the air swing-style (I may have to teach Matt to do that). In the middle they had an interlude of pop classics (Shoop, Dont'cha), and segued back into country with Sweet Home Alabama.
We headed from there to 4th street, and miraculously found a great parking spot. We were going to meet up with T's friend at one of the gay bars, but the line was long. Just when we were trying to figure out where to go, Fido's across the street started blasting Mambo #5. We took it as fate and headed over in time for the "wave wave wave clap" part of the rotation dance from camp, and we were grateful to discover we've both forgotten pieces of it, after having it ingrained in "muscle memory" for so many years. We hung out in the courtyard until closing, listening to the equivalent of the camp soundrack from 1999-2003.
Sunday: Despite staying up until 4am, we rallied and headed to
Stubb's for gospel brunch at 11 with T's friend Rachel. We were seated upstairs so we couldn't see the band, but the music was piping through on speakers. The buffet was a mix of breakfast and bbq with biscuits, grits, brisket, sausage, bbq chicken, migas, and fried catfish. The Stubb's bbq sauce was really tasty, and even with a mimosa (served in a tumbler or a pint glass - whichever they had available) was under $30.
T had to make a stop by at an informal delegate post-convention meetup for about 20 minutes (where she had to give a mini-speech - yay!) then we headed to Amy's for ice cream on the way to the airport. It's like Cold Stone with the mix-ins, and they make their own ice cream. One of the flavors was Shiner - yep, BEER-flavored ice cream! They use Shiner Blonde for flavoring and it tasted great. We ordered Shiner mixed with chocolate chunks and it was amazing.
Sadly, it was time to hit the airport and head home. Cheers to another amazing weekend in Austin!
