TRAVEL + EXPLORE
“ Austin Keeping It Weird”
The theme around Austin, TX is to keep the place weird..while I do usually see some strange things going on there it is never really too far out. Austin, TX is the state capital, home of the Burnt Orange and White University of Texas Longhorns and a rapidly growing Start-Up/Tech meca rivaling even Silicon Valley. Trade out the weird things for wild things for my experiences though but usually most of my trips to Austin were in college during eventful weekends so maybe I was just going there looking for wild things to do (never disappointed lol). Most of the people there are similar to other Texas residents (Country) and friendly, which is still an odd thing to me to this day but any. The purpose for going to Austin was a trip with some friends of mine and even though technically it was a business trip for a developing podcast group called Dollars and Decisions we still set aside time to have fun, and honestly being there for doing the work part was fun it was almost an insight to what the travel vlogging life is like (I Enjoyed it to the fullest)
My brother and I arrived around 8pm on a Friday night and honestly that night we checked into our room at the Ramada after that it was time to sleep haha so not much that night to speak of.
Saturday morning however we woke up close to 9am to link up with the rest of our crew and cruised I-35 in a Jeep Wrangler to grab some breakfast tacos at Mi Madres.. (If Youre Reading This You Need To Go…) after breakfast we came back to the room to handle our business obligations which was supposed to be the “work” part but we were enjoying every moment of these few hours conversing about some really important issues (racism in america, future of the workforce, social media etc.) and sharing copious amounts of laughter to keep the conversation flowing.
After that part of Saturday the workload was complete, then time to get things popping!! Starting with moving around Austin near Congress St and stopping to grab some video footage and a pepperoni pie at Home Slice and for Texas pizza I give it 8 out of 10 actually. Following the cheese, grease and pepperoni stopped at Allens Boots which is apparently a popular spot for cowboy apparel.. (NEEDLESS TO SAY, I WASN'T WITH IT LOL) but just to say I did it and learned that Cowboy Boots are expensive as HELL!!! Had no clue…. Will never catch me in a pair voluntarily hahaha or saying “Yee Ha” for any reason inside my actual control. But the visit was educational and able to checked off “The list of things that I can say I did” (yea there’s an actual list I made). Unfortunately, about 20 minutes after Allen’s we kept walking and just looking around at different shops and dives when the weather decided to monsoon on us for about 20minutes and testing our track running speed in order to get back to the car, not get drenched and not ruin non-waterproof electronics. So finally getting back to the room we waited for the rain to clear out, while waiting we decided to record a few more podcast episodes for the show and finally around 9pm it was dry enough to hit the streets again and because a few of us had started sipping a little Crown Royal Vanilla (responsibly lol) we all agreed it was time to hit the Famous/Infamous 6th Street in Downtown Austin!!!
2 Shots and 1 Drink in on 6th at The Jackalope we moved around bars and ran into another longtime friend from DFW Metroplex and you know what happens when you run into good friends at the bar...More Drinks!!!! hahaha. After a few more drinks, and a sadly hilarious scene of watching a friend get rejected by girl that he thought he had we stopped somewhere on 6th for another quick slice of late night pizza then caught an Uber back to the room (No Drinking and Driving people). Sunday was pretty much a relaxed day on the road in the passenger seat reading How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie giving my brain some much needed wisdom and knowledge after a night of alcohol consumption. We got on the road to leave Austin around 2pm in order to get back to Dallas-Ft.Worth at a decent time in the evening.
It was a much needed short and productive trip. I cannot stress enough how much I recommend expanding business trips outside of your routine environment even it is only in the form of a road trip 2-3 hours away, go and do it, you might be able to get some good food, learn about a place you would never find yourself, get rained on and end up with a few free drinks all in the name of growth and exploration. Thank you, to the Dollars and Decisions crew that invited me to go to Austin, TX for a great time, next time I need some recommendations of other places to visit and things to do, let me know below in the comments section thank you in advance. Until next time ATX.
Tecumseh_X