True Blue

Shot on the road to Alabama.

The Deers of my Youth

This photo of a deer hung in my bedroom as a kid -- probably for the first seven or eight years. What's unusual is that this picture does not come from my home in Alabama -- it comes from a bathroom in some east Texas gas station. Given that the picture showed up in my bedroom in the 70s, I'm now legitimately curious about its origins.

I'm not saying my parents were inspired by the decor of a Texas bathroom; rather than a lot of people must have loved this deer.

Bonus tip: The artist painted this photo of a deer from a photo as his model, or through analyzing a lot of wildlife photos. The giveaway is the out of focus background -- not something we see with our eyes in day to day life, but something you see all the time shooting with a long lens.

Shippin' Out

We left Austin in the morning, headed across east towards my home town in Alabama. Standing between us was Houston and Louisiana -- which we felt like we could do standing on our heads after West Texas.

Puttin' On the..

If you don't come to Austin to see Stephen (and who wouldn't do that?), come to see the Alamo Drafthouse. These guys, particularly the 6th street location, is awesome.

Here's the elevator pitch:

"Imagine if your movie theater was run by nerds with good taste in movies, and they served alcohol and good bar food."

It's hard to go wrong in a theater with drinks -- given sufficient alcohol, most movies are watchable. :)

They also really care about the quality of the movie watching experience: this story broke right after we left, and that gives a flavor for the type of establishment they want to run.

Miss B

Despite the wait at Chuy's being more than an hour long, B responded with her typical grace. ;)

Chuy's

We really want to try 'official' Tex-Mex while we're in Austin, so Stephen mentioned this place, which can accurately be characterized as "One of those places with crazy crap on the walls". Basically, my takeaway was that If Chuy's is Tex-Mex, then it's Mexican food with every cream/sauce/whatever as heavy and rich as possible.

I think my one sentence Yelp review would be this:

"If you would like to eat Mexican and contract gout, then this is the place for you".

Austin Lights

After Stephen's, we came back to our hotel. B did her 'early to bed' thing, and I was back out on the streets of downtown Austin. Stuff was really starting to pop -- just enough light from the bars, and just the right number of people to have that moment when stuff was happening.

Naturally, this was when my camera decided to break. :\

This is one of the last usable exposures I got from the evening -- was trying to capture the mood of the night life.