And Then There Was Texas

You've heard about the first week of my epic trip to Florida and Texas with SBarr.

It is time to conquer the second half.

And it was big. Maybe equal in epic-ness (epic-nicity?) to the Florida half.

'Nuff said.

We drove north out of Florida playing Phoenix and Tenacious D interchangeably and unceasingly. I believe my lyrical memories of that drive will forever be intertwined with Sarah shouting "WHIP CRACK WENT HIS WHIPPY TAIL!" at me....while I shouted it at passing vehicles. We may have scared/annoyed Florida on our departure.

There was a pause for oranges and alligators before leaving Flaw-i-da.

Sar and I stopped in Mobile for the night and Sar treated us to a pimp suite of sorts. It was a reward for having slept on a pullout sofa for 2 nights and working hard to pack up her adorable Melbourne apartment. So we booked the Radisson Mobile, valeted the Corolla, headed inside....and found out what was going on in Mobile that night:

MARDI GRAS.

Oh....my.

We got gussied up, perfected our team Sar-Kate high five, had a shot with the speech-impedimented hotel bartender ("are you two shistersh?") and made our way into downtown Mobile.

We went dancing.

We made friends.

We bonded.

I made some phone calls (sorry, call recipient) and we headed back to our amazing hotel room to sleep in cloud beds.

The next morning we took our heinie's to Mobile's famous Tiny Diny for SOUTHERN BREAKFAST. We met the owners, old, southern, cotton-candy-haired Miss Susan and Miss Betty, who thought we were Dutch and insisted that we dance for them. It was confusing so we fled to the refuge of grits, sausage patties and biscuits.

So happy!

Satiated, we headed out of town en route for Houston. We got Sarah into her adorable Clear Lake apartment and Sarah showed me her new stomping grounds.

We made our way down to Austin to see mister Andy Marsden too.

In Austin we fell in love with...

Sixth Street

Alamo Roadhouse movie theatre (where we saw their Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version of Transformers AND a singalong of Moulin Rouge)

Fried Pickles and Guinness Milkshakes

BBQ at Kreuz BBQ

Andy's girlfriend, Raven the Raptor

And I named Andy's Lexus (picture not provided) Gail Sayers. So if you see him, say hello to Gail. And call her Gail. For she is Gail.

And with that all wrapped up, I headed home to snowy ol' Michigan! WHAT A TRIP!! Thanks to everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line who made it such a fun two weeks. :)

I want to say I'm grounded for awhile, but I cannot. On Thursday I'm off to Philly to see my aaaawesome cousins Gabby, Jacob and Dalton, and there miiight be a day trip to NYC in the works too, we shall see.

Then it's back to Michigan for a few days before I head out to EIRE FOR TWO WEEKS. Fiona, Fiona, Fiona (lol there are a few), Susan, Eileen, Stephen, Carmel, Eoghan, John, Marianne, Jake, Foggy Dew, Hogges & Figgis, Chapters, Marlay Park, Fallon & Byrne, Zara, Oasis, Lusk, Cork, Kerry....GET READY! :D I can't wait.

Just another chapter in Kate's Book Of Layoff And Relocation. Life may have given me a few lemons, but I think I've made some sweet, wanderlusty lemonade.