So, while I have been admittedly quite woefully inattentive to my blog most recently, I am pleased as punch to say that’s not for want of inspired adventure nor for want of a plethora of photos to share.

Austin is, as everyone knows, delightfully eccentric. Keep Austin Weird is a motto I can get behind. But I’m not sure that we had a concrete sense of what to expect based on that. As such, we were quite surprised by some of our findings. For example, we have always pictured Texas as a bit of a tumbleweed wasteland. Turns out, Austin is incredibly lush. Moreso than San Diego, certainly. So below, you will find elements of our excursion to Hamilton pool, a spectacular swimming hole fed by a waterfall that’s just 45 minutes outside of the city. We also had our first Airbnb experience, and it was a truly wonderful one. We stayed with a woman named Robin who has a marvelous old historic prairie home that’s just blocks from the hipsterfest that is the South Congress area. She also has two rescue dogs that proved to be an absolute delight, and she fed us a lovely breakfast daily. All for half the price it would have cost us to stay in a nearby motel.

We first trekked out to Texas’ oldest cemetery. Forgive me if you feel it’s morbid, but as a graphic designer, I was enthralled with all the beautiful stonework from the 19th century. Another charming aspect of Austin is the food truck culture. We thought it to be not bad here in San Diego and pretty intense in Portland, but Austin blows ’em all out of the water—every three or four blocks is another parking lot filled with permanent food trucks doling out every manner of delight you can think of, with every manner of characters hanging about that you can think of. You may notice there’s a dude in a pink bunny suit at one of the spots we bar-hopped through… well, that’s just classic Austin.

Yep, our time in this city kinda knocked me out. From delicious café experiences, to lots of weird art in weird places, we found goodness. Our trip to Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon for chickenshit bingo (which is a VERY LITERAL kind of experience!), Airstream cupcake heaven, Zilker Park’s Barton Springs Pool (which is a largely natural giant pool in the center of the city and is totally radical), retro vintage bowling at The Highball (Scotty kicked my ass), drinks at the continental club (where we watched an übercowboy in big hat, jeans and jean jacket, boot and spurs strut in and begin to play some wickedly good jazz), walking the dogs around the prairie homes of the hipster mecca that is South Congress, spectacular signage galore (forgive me, as a graphic designer I am addicted) and generally having a truly wonderful time. Keep it weird, Austin.