ACL Time! How to: Music Festivals

Regrettably, I did not post this in time for Weekend One of ACL, but there's still plenty of time to prepare for Weekend Two, or any other Fall Festival that might have your palms wet with anticipation. Here are some tips from a 4th timer:

1. Honesty is (almost never) the best policy

Last week, I courageously asked my supervisor to leave early for ACL on Friday and she said no, but told me that she could have said yes if I'd been sick, leaving for a trip, or if my family was visiting. From this I have learned to bend the truth to the exact opposite limits of possibility. Get the flu, invite an imaginary friend to town, let your grandma die for the third time this year. Do what you must to gain a brief glimpse of freedom!

2a. Remember you're a human

In spite of your animal ears or alien attire, you still have to drink water, eat food, and walk/ride/roll yourself out when all the things end. See 2b. for recommendations.

2b. Granola bars

What a world! There are tens, if not twenties, of types of these things available to us at every grocery store. If ACL, save all your food calories for Amy's Oreo Shakes and eat these as meals. Mix it up or you'll end up hating Clif bars for life, until they introduce the new nut butter filled flavors upon which you will rejoice. Variety is the spice of snacks. And don't waste your time with any cereal bars. 

3. Treat your feet

If you're over 25 and not cool or hip, consider taking the insoles out of your running shoes and putting them in your posing-ass cool hip flat-bedded shoes. I'm old and this is a real suggestion.

4. Be open

Talk to the people around you. Ask them if you can touch their Zuru air chair because, what? If your friends are all going to a different show, go see the ones you want to see on your own. But don't be too stuck to your pre-planned schedule. Leave time for grass laying, traipsing, and general BS-ing. It'll all be fine.

5. Cancel Monday

I'm writing this after working on a Monday after Weekend One and so, yeah.

Wake-up Call

In college, I knew a friend whose mom was about to take a new job in education after taking several years off from the working world. The week before her first day, she started setting her alarm earlier and earlier so that she could practice waking up on time. Back then, I thought she was being a little dramatic. I wondered, could it really be that hard to adjust to a pre-8 a.m. schedule?

After my first full week of 7:30 a.m. clock-ins, I don't wonder that anymore. Now that the school year is in full swing and we barely have time to get dressed, work, eat, exercise, and take care of all the adult business like laundry/groceries/keeping the roof tied down, just to do it all over again the next day, I find myself wanting to squeeze as much fun into the weekends as humanly possible.

Fortunately, this one contained enough music, friends, tostadas, and new stomps around familiar territories to keep my summer-jonesing heart fulfilled. 

Concrete Robot @ The Sahara Lounge

B played one of our favorite venues for the first time. I helped our sweet Nicole warm her adorable new home. Our lady Lacey turned 30 in the midst of house shows, slip-and-sliding, and chicken sh*t bingo (if you didn't know, well, now you know). We even got to flex our cultural sides with the eye-opening Elliott Erwitt photo exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center.

The very smooth Wild Toast @ Trevor's house

Oh, and there were biscuits (unphotographed due to lack of time), pinatas (unphotographed due to lack of sobriety), and turtles (photograph below). 

Turtles at the University of Texas Austin

I'm ending Sunday with a happy heart and an inspired soul. I hope you, too, had a weekend to make your long weekdays feel like no big thang at all.

Full Moons & Frisco

This weekend got us into some happening "new-to-me" Texas activities. On Friday night, we went to my first Full Moon Swim at Barton Springs, and on Saturday I hesitantly rode in the band van all the way to Frisco, TX to watch B play a show. The two short days flew right by me, but I had a great time and learned some new, not really very surprising things.

Things I learned about Austin this weekend: Austin is a place where people of all ages will gather monthly to swim in 60 degree water at night, howl at the moon, dance, most likely get naked, and probably do some types of drugs. However, this time there were a lot of supervisors walking around the area so I think the naked dancing and drug-doing was not as much as during full moons of the past. Still, anything at Barton Springs gets a 10/10, would do again.

Things I learned about Frisco this weekend: The Frisco Bar has the nicest bartenders of any bar ever. They are just plain cool and friendly without even a hint of better than you bartender superiority. Also, being in Texas, Frisco has a Whataburger and that Whataburger serves honey butter chicken biscuits and that's really all a Texas town needs to be good enough for me. Thank you Frisco for your hospitality and Fouled Out for an awesome show!

Fouled Out @ The Frisco Bar

First Days

Today was my first day at school and we spent it doing 8 hours of arts & crafts, so I think you could say that I'm on the right path.

But all fun, cheetah borders, and elephant-shaped die-cutters aside, changing jobs is like entering a weird, alternate universe type time warp where you can never feel too sure if you're doing the right thing. No matter how deep your roots have grown, it can be unbalancing to suddenly pick them up and repot yourself someplace else.

The night before my first day of training, I found myself unable to sleep. You might think that after 28 years of being me, I'd confidently have it all in the bag, yet, here I was, inexplicably nervous, wondering where to sit or what to wear. Should I bring my lunch and be a lonely lunch packer, or go out to meet other people? Was I making the right choice for my yet-to-be-determined career goals? Do I really want to wake up before 7am every day? And the pang of uncertainty that always haunts us: what happens next? 

You might also think that after 3.5 years of living in Texas, I'd know better than to wear jeans for two days a row in early September, but that's neither here nor there. So I wore the jeans, went out to eat on the first day, and sat in any empty seat I could find. Some of the other questions linger, but the arting and crafting helped ease my mind.

How-to: Labor Day, Austin style

1. Find a lake house

Long, end of summer weekends beg for water. Rent a lake house, make a lake-residing friend, start a relationship with someone who lives on a lake, take over an abandoned dock, etc. Do whatever it takes! It's an investment in your future and you (probably) won't regret it. 

2. Let there be music

Concrete Robot @ Hole in the Wall

Few things could be called "Austin style" without live music. I followed in the footsteps of Spoon/St. Vincent/Doug Sahm/Natalie Portman/a bunch of other famous people when I was treated to my first show at Hole in the Wall on Saturday night. Then, on Sunday after the lake, our smelly, lakey selves wound up at a house show to hear our friend, Jimmy Dee's, angelic vocals. It was all super cool and musical and Austin-y. Plus, there were Oreos. Yay!

3. End it with a free day of yoga

I am only half sure that it falls on the same day each year, but this Labor Day happened to coincide with Austin's Free Day of Yoga which brings us tons of different style yoga and meditation classes all over the city. I was happy to help out with my friend David's yoga and meditation in the morning and to enjoy another yoga class in the afternoon. What better way to wrap up your non-laboring weekend than with your choice of stretching, kirtan chants, gong meditations, and/or reiki energy circles?

Bittersweet September

Like a great many good things in this cruel and mysterious world, my summer of complete and total freedom must now come to an end. The past week back at home has shown me that, as eye-opening and horizon-expanding as jumping around can be, life can sometimes be just as rewarding when you stay in one place, especially if that place happens to be Austin, Texas.

Bobal @ Empire Control Room

It's also taught me that real barbecue is worth waiting for and that unemployment is not without its drawbacks, since it is possible to max out your ClassPass 3 class allowance at 5 different studios. Time to get back to the working world.

I am taking a long, glorious moment of disbelief tonight to let my heart expand with gratitude for these past two or three irreplaceable months. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Grassy shoes at Deep Eddy Pool

There's No Place Like...

Thankfully in my summer planning, I saved the most coveted and anticipated destination for last...

New Jersey!

I spent a lovely week beaching, yog-ing, shopping, and eating with my mom, then clicked these heels all the way home to NY to watch my friends get married on top of a mountain. The day was perfect, the ceremony was beautiful, and later on there were sparklers and a bonfire. What (s')more can a girl wish for? Congratulations Cait & Jon!

Thanks to Mom, friends, and my favorite date for an unbeatable week!

7 Parks in 7 Days

On the last two days of our trip, we managed to visit three more National Parks, bringing our total to seven in seven days. What better way to celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service?

Plan your own route here.

Nurtured by Nature

Sometimes when you’re lucky enough to find yourself on a long vacation, you notice that similar things keep happening to you over and over again and, because of them, your vacation tends to take on a certain theme. On our latest road trip adventure, that theme turned out to be the power of Nature to make or break our plans.

We discovered that when we drove along, flying by the seats of our pants, without forcing or timing anything, we would end up seeing unexpected, mesmerizing stuff like this:

Lake Powell, AZ

Beginnings of the Grand Canyon

And whenever we planned, plotted, and Yelped our way into a city, Nature would remind us of her right to step in and throw us a different agenda. We realized this when we were forced to sprint through the second half of our Sedona vortex hike as threatening storm clouds rolled in. And when the list of hip bars and restaurants to visit in Phoenix was cut short when we stepped out the door into the dust storm/thunder/lightning filled night. The next day, flash flooding on the interstate interrupted our quest for the best sopapillas in Albuquerque and kept us pulled over until after the restaurant had closed. And I already told y’all about the forest fires.

Storms in Sedona

During our time in the campgrounds, our bodies learned to adjust to the schedule of the sun. We woke up early, stayed outside all day, started our fire as the sun dipped down, and went to sleep once the cinders settled into ash. We didn’t need much more than the excitement of the changing flames to keep us entertained until bedtime. When we traveled to the bigger cities, we tried to fight this newfound rhythm and go against the flow of things, but Nature had different plans for us. However, she had already let us graciously cool off in our campsite river after a 102 degree day in Zion and given us so many other lovely gifts on the trip, so we weren’t too upset about our updated schedules. Plus we still ate other sopapillas in Albuquerque and our trip to Phoenix was saved by a bomb-a** breakfast at Matt's Big Breakfast. Thanks Matt! (Asterisks because I'm pretty sure my mom and her friends make up 90% of the readers of this blog).

Sunrise outside Albuquerque

So, Nature, we dedicate our trip to You. We are feeling more grateful than ever for the constant reminders of your power and our own efforts to bow to you as we sit back and appreciate the way things are meant to be.

Utah, Part III

Summertime camping at popular national parks means the excitement waking up well before you want to, sometimes driving to multiple campgrounds, circling loops of tents, and asking around to find out who is leaving and when. Arriving at the right place at the right time means you'll be able to secure your spot for the night. Luckily most campers are friendly and they'll let you stake your claim to their site while they pack up, or they are park rangers and will let you know which sites have already opened or are about to. We felt very fortunate to be able to camp where we wanted every night without having to wait in huge lines or battle anyone for a section.

We followed B's family's recommendation to enter Zion from the East, which turned out to be excellent advice since you drive from not-Zion into a tunnel, and when you pop out, you're in Zion. It looks a lot like this:

We seemed to be having even more "right place, right time" success because we soon saw a man pulled over taking pictures of bighorn sheep. B had recovered from my moose/branch and bear/deer confusion in Yellowstone, so he agreed to pull over too. I'd finally found the animal that I'd waited the whole trip to see:

We saw another one about 2 minutes later, but it was so still and so close to the road that I thought it was a statue and didn't take any pictures. Note that if you see a very life-like animal in a national park, it's probably not a statue!

Zion was also the first place that I've ever been afraid of heights. Like paralyzed with fear, turn around, I'm not going levels of afraid. We had decided on a hike to Angel's Landing since we found it in a book of the most beautiful hikes in the world. On the way, there were signs reminding us to bring a lot of water and telling people who are afraid of heights that they should reconsider. It was 102 degrees and we are not afraid of heights, so we were more worried about death from dehydration than any height-related nervousness.

No problem. The majority of the hike was like this:

And B was wearing his "Vacation Dad" outfit so I felt very secure.

We got to what we thought was the last segment and it seemed a little scary, mostly because there were a lot of people on the trail headed in opposite directions, but we didn't think at all of turning around or not going to the top. We even took this photo saying, "Ha! Too bad for all those people who are afraid of heights. They don't know what they're missing."

Thennn we got over that hump and saw the real Angel's Landing summit, which features a 2-foot wide ridge trail with 1,000+ foot drop offs on both sides and looks like this:

So I made us turn around and go back down! (Sorry B!) I don't regret it now since we later read that Angel's Landing is one of the deadliest hikes in the world and fit, reasonable people die there just from stumbling or missing a step. Maybe I'm getting old, but when we hiked another of the deadliest hikes (Huayna Picchu), it did not give me the same feelings of terror that this one did. I only took this one photo of the view in my frenzied fearful state:

We descended, avoiding the feisty rock squirrels, to do some more tourism, and I felt ok about it. But if you are a normal, athletic, confident person who wants to do it, Angel's Landing does look pretty cool and you should do it! Otherwise, Zion is a breathtaking place where you can find many other ways to entertain yourself. 

Utah, Part II

Utah's national parks are a world of dreams and magic.

We hiked the Fairyland Loop trail in Bryce Canyon to get a view of the canyons from all angles, and I can't recommend it highly enough. We spent the whole day in a constant state of amazement, and when I walked out of the tent at night to head to the bathroom (squat down at the edge of our campsite), I saw the biggest shooting star of my life. Thank you Utah for your incredible skies and scenery!

Utah, Part I

I didn't have many expectations about visiting Salt Lake City for the first time since I hadn't heard much about it, but the name implied that there would be a lake... probably a salty one, bordering or surrounded by a city. When I dreamt of going there, I imagined taking walks near the lake, watching the sunset over the lake, or maybe even doing a few lake-related activities besides swimming because the stinging of the Dead Sea taught me better than that.

Silly me. We had an Iceland situation on our hands. 

From our pre-trip research, which tended to occur in the last hour of driving before reaching any of our destinations, we learned that the lake is 30-60 minutes outside the city and that people don't go there. Allegedly it's hot, smelly, and full of flies. So we changed our plans and instead climbed up to fancy Park City to eat delicious sandwiches, take pictures with animal statues, and watch the sky turn pink.

Then we went back down to take pictures of LDS buildings and sleep, since a city full of Mormons doesn't offer much in the way of nightlife. On to the next!

WOW-oming!

Phase 3 of the trip brought us to a new state for me and a new phenomenon for both of us: forest fires!

As we crossed into Wyoming, we began to notice a lot of smoke in the air and started to hear gas station gossip about nearby towns being evacuated due to wildfires in the area. We had a "wouldn't it be cool if...?" moment* and, about 10 minutes later, the universe provided. 

*"Wouldn't it be cool if we could see a wildfire up close while we're conveniently protected by our car and far enough away that it won't impact our lives or our travel plans so we can go to Idaho and eat square-shaped ice cream in peace?" It was pretty sobering to see rows of homes about to be eaten by the flames and the firefighters who were in the air spraying water from helicopters or on the ground trying to push the fire back from the road. We felt guilty taking pictures while so many people's lives were being uprooted, but once-in-a-lifetime experiences sometimes call for photos and so we summoned the war photographers in us and proceeded.

While we were busy looking back at that (^), we didn't notice that these were slowly sneaking up on our right:

The Tetons!

The Tetons gave us shelter and an unbelievable view for the night while we entertained ourselves with long hikes in inappropriate footwear. B showed off his fire-building mastery and I cooked dinner on my brand new Coleman 2-burner camp stove, which I would regrettably end up breaking on the second night of camping, but which would be fine since I'm afraid of gas explosions anyway.

Next, we went to Yellowstone and decided to do everything in one day, a decision that was exhausting but one that we still stand by. The stones were really yellow, Old Faithful erupted while we were in the parking lot, and I learned that branches often look like moose antlers and your driving partner can get upset if you call out too many animal photo opps that are actually not.

The Earth was full of hot springs and gurgling pools and was feeling very alive! WOW-oming certainly lived up to B's nickname for it since I don't think we said any words other than amazing, incredible, beautiful, awesome, and long breathless wowww's for most of this phase of the trip. We would have loved some more time to explore, but Utah (and showers) beckoned.

Colors of Colorado

In case you haven't been paying attention, Colorado has been busy making all the other states jealous by having just about EVERYTHING to offer. The whole time we were there, it felt like nature was performing a personal show for us, and she was certainly pulling out all the stops. Making up for all the hours of flatness and windmills of the Northwest Texas drive, we crossed the NM-CO border during this sunset: 

And made our way to Denver to spend a few days with B's sister, Kelsey, who should sign up for AirBnB a.s.a.p. because she is an incredible hostess who makes us feel better than at home every time we visit. Thank you Kelsey! She took us all over the city, and of course, to Red Rocks, the concert venue of all concert venues.

Red Rocks provides enough entertainment in itself that I would see anyone play there, but lucky for us one of the most musical geniuses of all musical geniuses, Sufjan Stevens, came through to knock our socks right off.

Among the red rocks, Father Sky and Mother Earth continued their dazzling dance by giving us this (these) rainbow(s):

After our short stay in the Mile-High City, we headed over to the Higher-Than-Mile City to find out what summer in a ski town is like. I'm sorry to break it to Killington, Mount Snow, Smuggler's Notch, and all of the other East Coast resorts of my youth, but Steamboat Springs is the real deal. Much like the rest of the Colorado, I can really only describe it using superlatives! It was the first time in my life that I wished for summer to immediately turn to winter.

We spent the rest of the week hiking, tubing, eating, and shopping our way around town while enjoying some uninterrupted family time and our 2,000 sq. ft. porch! There were so many more sunsets, more rainbows, and more unforgettable views that we sometimes had to laugh in disbelief.

If you're still not convinced about Colorado's beauty, here is what the backyard of a regular old Chipotle restaurant looks like there:

We were sad to leave on Sunday (and even sadder that our alarms were set for 5 a.m.), but we packed up the car and rolled onwards to see what the rest of the Wild West had waiting for us.

A Wandering Whirlwind

We made it through Colorful Colorado, Wild Wyoming, I-Don't-Know Idaho, Utopic Utah, Astounding Arizona, Not-so-bad New Mexico, and now we're back in TOO BIG Texas! I had my first square ice cream and we learned that dust storms are a real thing to watch out for.

I imagined The Road having a lot more internet than it actually did, so I've got a backlog of adventures to tell you about. To start off, here are some signs from some states:

Hope your Monday was even half as good as an unemployed yogi's spent buried in loads of laundry, grocery goods, and car crumbs!

Namaste.

Happily Home

I've been back in my Austin home for a whole week and it's easy to see why I missed it. Before I pack up and leave again, it's been nice to take the time to appreciate some stillness.

Right now, home means...

This place:

This gardenin' gal:

This musical man:

These life-changing tools:

This ol' thang:

And a whole heck of a lotta these:

We leave tomorrow morning for Colorado, and I can't write you a post about packing since I've barely done that yet! At least my backpack didn't have time to gather any dust. See you soon!

Travel, Behind the Scenes

As glamorous and thrilling as it appears in social media posts, at times in real life, worldwide travel can look a little different. It's not all laughing and playing and feeling #blessed as the pictures would lead you to believe. Sometimes it's boring. Sometimes it's exhausting, scary, or emotional. Even taking a small step outside your comfort zone can leave you feeling a bit raw.

Sometimes "travel", a word we've come to associate with adventure and luxury, means swallowing your pride and sleeping on the floor of the airport for ten hours! Sometimes it means wearing the same pair of socks until you can smell them from outside your shoes! Sometimes it means getting homesick, even though you feel silly since you're only gone for a month and the home you're missing didn't even exist until a few years ago! But it's a feeling and you're having it. It can even mean eating grilled cheese for the 25th day in a row because your host mom is respecting your vegetarianism and you are thankful, but would like a little variety! 

Sometimes it means carrying all your stuff on your back... and your front!

In reality, there are train cancellations, miscommunication, lost suitcases, and layovers. For all the good it brings, travel can also be uncomfortable, confusing, and exasperating. And then, of course, we remember the new places, friendships, and cultures it leads us to, and somehow it all works itself out. Travel can mean so many different things to us, but in my brief 28 years of experience, it has always-- and I mean the every-single-time type of always-- been worth it.

A Taste of Tel Aviv

I fell hard for Tel Aviv and was dragged almost kicking and screaming away after a way-too-short introduction. 

This city is full of life and energy, with restaurants and bars packed with young people spilling out into the streets until the middle of the night, every night. It's quite the opposite of all my mom's fears about the dreaded Middle East.

We stopped to look up directions one day only to have 3 different people and a police officer offer to show us the way. Theirs is an innocent friendliness, too, not the kind that comes with a price or a stalker like in some foreign cities. The Israelis seem genuinely incapable of seeing you unhappy. 

We had planned to have dinner one night with my dad's former colleagues who now live in Tel Aviv. In typical Israeli fashion of going above and beyond, they picked us up from the airport, gave us a guided tour of our neighborhood, introduced us to three different flavors of halva, and ordered five desserts off the menu so we wouldn't have to choose. They even tried using their local charm (and hebrew) to talk our hotel receptionist into giving us a room with a seaside view.

Halva, a traditional sweet made from tahini or nut butters

And we confirmed it wasn't just the people we knew who were like this-- bartenders talked to us through dinner and delivered complimentary shots, a local man in the ocean talked to us for an hour sharing facts about his country and asking about the U.S., breakfast waiters served up mimosas and delicious homemade bread with smiles-- everyone seemed like they were constantly paying it forward without expecting anything in return. Their enthusiasm was practically bubbling over-- about Israel, Tel Aviv, and life in general-- and it was contagious.

So all I can say is, if you can, get here as soon as possible! And for goodness' sake give yourself more than two days! Plus a gigantic thank you to the Steins for showing us such wonderful hospitality and introducing us to so much of Tel Aviv!

Our Big Fat Greek Vacation

Crete is an awe-inspiring land of contrasts-- a conflicting mix of old and new. It's hot, but relief comes in lightly on the sea breeze. It's rocky, but those rocks run right down to the soft sandy coast. It's dry as you head inland, yet its edges are surrounded by unforgettable water colored 10+ different shades of blue. It's got local families with naked babies bumped close up against suntanned couples on their romantic getaways. It's a place to relax, and a place to come to life, with nightly rounds of Ouzo and dancers jumping, yelling "Opa!"

It's baklava, and then more baklava... Oh wait, that's not a conflict at all. We barely managed to pull ourselves away from the temptations of our all-inclusive resort to explore nearby Heraklion, but here's what we found, plus a beachy sunset for good measure:

Magic the Dog

When traveling in Europe, Americans often cite the dining out experience as a major difference in cultures. European servers take their time, and allow you to as well. Since most of them don't work for tips to the level that American servers do, they won't hurry to turn your table or even bring the bill until you request it. For westerners this can be, at best, relaxing, and, at worst, anxiety-inducing.

My mom and many of my girlfriends can attest that, by U.S. standards, I'm one who likes to linger. I've left checks unturned and had water glasses refilled long past my welcome. But last week, at a cafe in Luxembourg, when my uncle's friend Mike lights his second post-meal smoke, I feel an impatient tapping in my knee as my hands start to fidget in my lap. Thirty minutes later, as he considers a third, my American eyes roll skyward in disbelief. But grey clouds roll in across the sky threatening sudden rain, so we stay.

I sit under the cafe's tarp, the traces of our shared crepe long gone, and I'm forced to come to terms with my culture. I become frantically aware of my heart beating and my fingers purposelessly grasping at each other under the table. My mind dances in circles away from the conversation, fooling itself into thinking there is somewhere else I need to be.

But in the middle of the third cigar, something changes. A couple settles into the table next to ours with their brand new puppy in tow. His playful confusion and naive curiosity manage to distract me, and most other diners, from my plight. I forget how long we all crowd around, smiling and sharing the spark that only a baby animal can bring. When we leave the cafe, I ask his owner for the dog's name, and she translates for me, "In English it's... Magic". I smile and thank her. As I pet him and say goodbye, I wonder what other magic I've missed in my haste.

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