ACL 2011!

Ah, Austin, I love thee. What a great place we have here in Texas. I love Austin. The food, the people, the culture, the parks, and the music!

My husband and I drove down on Friday and our friends joined us Saturday and Sunday. We stayed at the cutest little place called Zilker Cottage. It was about a mile walk to ACL and worked out pretty well for us. This place was awesome and I loved the patio! The landlords of the property were so nice, very accommodating, and easily accessible by text!

This festival has great music to listen too all day. The fun part for me is discovering new bands that I come to love. But, the second best part is the fantastic food that Austin has to offer! Fort Worth, take note! 

There is the absolute best Taco place in Austin called Torchy's. Every time we visit we it is a must that we stop and eat there. This visit, we ate Torchy's every day! They have a food booth at ACL every year too which makes it all the more easy to eat Torchy's every day. I am drooling right now just thinking about it. So, for Sunday,what better thing to do than have a Torchy's breakfast taco. 

But, since there are so many other fantastic places to eat in Ausin...we needed more than just tacos so...Gourdoughs was the next breakfast stop. All thanks goes to our friends who went scouting breakfast for us. OMG. Gourdoughs is not messing around. Let me tell you, talk about heart attack waiting to happen, but oh soooooooooooooooooooooooo freaking fantastic!  

Jeff had the "Mother Clucker." 

Of course I had to taste it and yes, it was ridiculous, kind of like chicken and waffles. 

I had the "Flying Pig." The best doughnut I have ever had and I ate the whole entire thing and did not regret it one bit!

Then, we ate even more at the festival. Another festival favorite is Boomerang's Pies. This is the best dang meat/veggie pie ever! Guinness Steak and Potato Pie our favorite. 

Yes, we eat a metric ton during this weekend every year. But, I justify it by all the walking that we do. It is a weekend I look forward to every year! Oh, and the music was fantastic too!!

ACL

Well, I took a break from making the hat and went to ACL. I need to adjust the pattern because it ended up way too big! But, for using a pattern for the first time I did end up learning some new sewing techniques and I think I can get it right the next time I try. ACL was a nice break! Jeff, some good friends, and I went down to Austin last Friday and stayed the whole weekend. It was the first time I have ever been to the festival and it really was a great time. Much to my surprise the weather was nice and not too hot! I can't hang with the hotness. We stayed at a La Quinta that was very close to the festival. On the way down there we were kinda sweating about how we were going to get to the festival because there is no parking on site. You either have to be dropped off by personal car, taxi, walk, or ride your bike in. Now, our motel was close, but not close enough for me to walk there and back everyday. When we arrived to check in, we were told there was a shuttle for $5 to the festival. So, we hopped on the shuttle and met Frank, he was our driver. He was hilarious, even though his driving was a bit frightening. I don't think the defensive driving course he took a few weeks ago helped. Pretty much every time we were in the van with him we almost met our demise. I recall a few huge dips in the road he flew over which meant everyone in the van flew out of their seats. But, old Frank was reliable and got us to the festival and back to the motel every time. He even sent us off to the festival on Sunday with a chocolate rice crispie treat.


We saw Manu Chao, G-Love, Erykah Badu (she is pregnant by the way!), Beck, Gnarls Barkley, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, The Black Keys, and the list goes on. Manu Chao was by far my favorite. He plays an awesome show every time. This will be the 3rd show under my belt and I hope to make it more than that! Erykah Badu and Gnarls Barkley brought the house down! Sharon Jones is just your regular female version of James Brown, awesome! I was a little disappointed with Beck. He came on strong for the first half of his set, then it went downhill from there and he ended way early! He was to play until 10 but finished like 20 minutes early. But it was all in good fun!





By Sunday we were exhausted! You have to walk at least 3/4 of a mile to meet up with Frank after the festival because they close all the streets up because when the festival is over at night there is like a mob of 40,000 people walking down the street. Usually we made that 3/4 of a mile walk like champs but buy Sunday there were parts of me aching that I did not know existed. So, we hopped on a rickshaw which was the best decision we made all weekend long!















ACL is a nice relaxed festival. The city does an excellent job making sure everything runs smoothing and that everyone is safe and has a good time. You can even swim in Barton Springs if you get hot! Now, you can't beat a deal like that. ACL is where it is at, yo!

Cheers!