Category: Texas

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Philosophy Texas USA

Why the bleep would I want to go there?

Lubbock CVB logoThis post is about going to those sucky places. Maybe they aren’t so bad.

These are destinations that (at least initially) evoke no sense of excitement or anticipation in your family. When you tell friends your travel plans to Boring Town, they say, “Uhh, hmmm, that’s….interesting.”

Let’s take Lubbock, Texas, for example. The city that Buddy Holly and Waylon Jennings got the heck out of. Sights include, hmmm, the National Ranching Heritage Center (exhibits of spurs and bits!) and ummm, the American Wind Power Center (windmills!)

“Lubbock or Leave It,” sing the Dixie Chicks.

The legendary folk/country Texas vocal group the Flatlanders (Butch Hancock, Joe Ely and Jimmie Dale Gilmore) didn’t name their group “Guys from a Nifty Place,” they named it “Flatlanders.” ‘Nuff said.

OK, so why am I whipping up on poor Lubbock? Because I just don’t think you can designate a place Yuckyville until you have physically been there to investigate.

Ergo, I need to travel to Lubbock before I can pop off about it.

Good thing there’s a visiting RMS Titanic exhibit enticing me to go up there. My daughter and I like the movie about the doomed passenger ship, and I’ve long been interested in its artifacts, so here’s my chance to see something I’m interested in plus check either the Lubbock or the Leave It box.

The exhibit only runs until January 1st, 2007, so I’d better get the family loaded into the minivan and make tracks to northwest Texas.

You never know when a lowly burg holds hidden delights.

One of our best trips while living in the Netherlands was to the industrial seaport of Rotterdam. Awesome place with unbelievable architecture and a fun September Harbor Festival that my kids loved. Believe it.

And you know what else is around Lubbock? The acclaimed Llano Estacado Winery. If the town is that bad, I will at least be able to drown my sorrows in a classy joint.

So try not to ever completely write off a destination. Put it in the hopper and look for an excuse to go sometime. Because you never know how a place might turn out.

Update later on 20 November 2006: Here’s a Frommer’s article on “Favorite Underrated Cities,” including Cleveland, Ottawa, Bratislava, St. Louis and some other surprises.

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Texas USA

Finding the Good Stuff: Music in Austin.

I didn’t manage to post this yesterday as promised, but I did find and unpack the cereal bowls, so there’s some progress on the move-into-the-house front.Here’s what I’ve discovered about the “Live Music Capital of the World;” the number of offerings is ridiculously large and (duh) many aren’t set up for children unless you think it’s a good idea to traipse into Antone’s with them at 10 o’clock at night.

Outdoor venues like the Backyard can work with older kids, but tickets can be pricey since they book national acts. I found another outdoor place that has terrific free local music from spring through summer, but since we just arrived in midsummer I never had a chance to take the kids to the Shady Grove Unplugged concert series sponsored by awesome local radio station KGSR. You can be sure with performers like Joe Ely, Ray Wylie Hubbard, the Mother Truckers and South Austin Jug Band, I’ll be all over this place as soon as I finish unpacking cereal bowls.

Most people know about the legendary music festivals in Austin: the Austin City Limits Music Festival this coming weekend and of course, South by Southwest (SXSW) in March. Many don’t know that SXSW is a music and film and interactive (Internet/blogger/digital world) event; there’s so much going on you could stay up for days, although that may not be terribly family-friendly.

I told my teenage daughter that I’d get her a wristband and take her to see some bizarro Norwegian band playing at 2 a.m., and she’s still trying to figure out if I’m kidding.

The festivals do make an effort to include children’s events, recognizing that just because we music lovers have had children does not mean that our concert-going days are over. ACL Festival offers the Austin Kiddie Limits performance area which this year includes one of my favorites, Joe McDermott.

If you happen to travel to the Austin area and just want to know what’s playing while you’re there, take a look at the Thursday XLent section of the local paper, the Austin American-Statesman. There are even more comprehensive listings in the free Austin Chronicle, which also comes out every Thursday and is distributed to hip restaurants and bookstores all over town….here it is online.

Read it carefully for appearances at the UT Student Union folkie haven Cactus Cafe, Stubb’s BBQ, Threadgill’s, Gruene Hall, The Broken Spoke honky-tonk dance hall, Ruta Maya coffeehouse, One World Theater or the downtown Paramount Theater.

When looking for recordings of local tunes, look no further than Waterloo Records at 6th and Lamar. The only problem is that everything is filed alphabetically rather than by genre, so you’d better have at least some idea of what you’re looking for or your brain will explode by the time you plow through “G.”

Oh, well, you can always just run next door to funky Amy’s Ice Cream or across the street to the Whole Foods flagship store to fortify yourself.

Have a good time in the Cosmic Cowboy town.

Note: This is a 22 September 2006 re-post of a 15 September 2006 previously published item, from a Google cache. I am re-creating some recent posts that disappeared in a BootsnAll server crash. The original comments were unfortunately lost.

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Texas USA

Not Dead Yet: Going to the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

Well, the challenges of moving from one state to another with husband, two kids, four cats and about 17,000 pounds of household goods has rather taken the wind out of my writing sails this past summer. But, as the headline (and Monty Python) say, I’m “not dead yet.”

Our stuff arrived day before yesterday to our new Texas house, and the prospect of cutting into one more box and failing again to find the cereal bowls has me running to the computer. I have all sorts of family travel ideas and links to write about but can’t seem to find time in between appliance deliveries, cable guys, starting Cub Scouts….and where are those cereal bowls?

So here’s a promise: to get back into the writing swing of things, I’ll post up a travel item today on the Austin, Texas music scene in honor of my two Saturday tickets to the Austin City Limits Music Festival. My husband and I are looking forward to jumping right in to the lively local music scene & having a date together. Still, there’s plenty of stuff around here for kids to hear as well.

How about this: a blog post about every 4-5 boxes? That should get my writing going again AND get the house unpacked.

Note: This is a 22 September 2006 re-post of a 14 September 2006 previously published item, from a Google cache. I am re-creating some recent posts that disappeared in a BootsnAll server crash. The original comments were unfortunately lost.

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Texas USA

Summer Family Fun in Austin, Texas.

In honor of my soon-to-be new home, I have a collection of fun things to do with kids in the “Live Music Capital of the World,” Austin. If you want a searchable calendar of upcoming events, click here.

(Please forgive my less-frequent blogging this week and next as I’m in the throes of moving; I hope to return to a more frequent posting schedule on Monday, 19 June. Until then I’m shooting for about every 2-3 days.)

Anyway, it’s always an all-American good time with the AAA baseball team based just north of Austin in Round Rock — the Round Rock Express playing at Dell Diamond. Go on a Friday to see the fireworks at the ballfield.

Summer baseball too hot and “boring” for your teenager? How about heading for “SoCo,” the newly-hip South Congress Avenue area for some shopping and people-watching. The Austin Chronicle has a comprehensive guide as well. Your Goth can shop at Blackmail, where everything’s, well, black, and those wanting color just go next door to see the rainbow of clothes at Vivid.

As long as you’re in South Austin, grab some French crepes at Flip Happy. Even New Yorkers seem to have gone ga-ga for Texas food.

If you’re an indoor kinda family, the Paramount Theater has a spectacularly great summer film series; how can you miss seeing the classic Texas flick Giant, in Texas, on the big screen? (It’s scheduled for August 12 & 13.) You know what’s really depressing? The Paramount is also highlighting the 25th anniversary of the release of Raiders of the Lost Ark this year. Sheesh, seems like yesterday that I saw it for the first time, then went right back out and bought another ticket to see it again!

For additional air-conditioned options, there’s the venerable Book People book store (you can search their Calendar for kid’s events and kid’s authors making appearances) and of course you should pick up a copy of the new book The Tao of Willie….Willie Nelson, that is.

Really.

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Texas USA

Austin City Limits Music Festival Frenzy

Musicians & Austin Skyline (photo courtesy Austin CVB)Over on Austinist they’re amazed that folks have already snatched up the early bird tix for this music event, which is September 15-17 in Zilker Park.

Well, duh!

Get some (tickets) and take the (older) kids to hear wonderful music in the Live Music Capital.