My friend Julie turned 50 in April of 2018. She wasn’t excited about the number,
but she was excited about going on a trip to celebrate it with her
friends. After much debate and prodding
to pick a date and place, she chose Austin, Texas. And due to her roller derby conflicts during
the spring/summer, we booked a weekend in September. A nice excuse to prolong birthday
celebration.
Our cast of characters that were able to join were
married couple Cathy and Herb, Lisa, Cincinnati Kathy (Lisa’s friend from,
where else? Cincinnati), the birthday girl, and yours truly. Party headquarters was a modern Airbnb house
not far from downtown. Here’s a rundown
of our weekend.
Bats. Most of us had seen the famous Congress
Bridge Bats. I
witnessed this phenomenon last spring but was hoping to see larger numbers in
the fall. On our first day the weather
was chilly and rain began to fall when we reached the bridge to wait for the
bats to emerge at dusk. We waited. And waited.
And waited. And shivered. And waited some more. We watched the kayaks below. We watched the people on the boats
below. We prayed. Our stomachs rumbled. No bats.
After 1 ½ hours we gave up and found food at the Banger’s Sausage
House and Beer Garden, then continued on to Little Lucy’s Donuts
for dessert. Despite no bats, it was a
fine start to the weekend. (We tried
once more on our last night to see the bats, but still nothing. What is going on?!)
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| We may not have seen bats, but we saw a beautiful sunset. |
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| Later on we saw some bat-shaped bike racks. Does that count? |
Texas Stars. Rain continued the next day so we toured the
Texas State Capitol building. An unusual
choice. It was really cool and we were
fascinated by all of the Texas stars we saw throughout the building. Chairs.
Light fixtures. You name it, it
had a star on it somewhere. We needed
our donut fix for the day and stopped at VooDoo
Doughnut.
This place has the craziest donuts I’ve ever seen. I’m partial to cake donuts so kept it pretty
simple, but the others went all out. Man
can’t live on donuts alone, so we had pretzels and beer at Easy Tiger. More carbs!
Any place that has Tiger in the name is good with me!
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| Rotunda in the state capitol |
Roller Derby. Our main attraction for the day (heck, the
weekend) was the Texas
Banked Roller Derby, more specifically, the Calvello
Cup, named after a well-known roller derby
personality Ann
Calvello. What
a night! If you clicked on the Calvello
Cup link, you saw that the dueling teams were the Rhinestone Cowgirls vs. Putas
del Fuego. (Go ahead and look up the
meaning of the second name.) Banked
roller derby is a little more “show” than flat track. They have pillow fights, and other
shenanigans during breaks. And if it’s
your birthday, you can go onto the track and get spanked by the teams. Beware – they hit HARD. And they don’t smell like roses (in the video below you can see me holding my nose). I guilted Julie into going onto the track
since it was her birthday trip, and since my birthday was upcoming, I went with
her. I just wanted to go onto the
track. A way-cool girls band performed
before the bout and during breaks. Check
out Midnight
Butterfly if you get a chance.
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| Calvello Cup action. |
Janea. As luck would
have it, my good friend Janae lives in Austin!
We spent our day in Austin last spring with her and her friend Janna,
and she was able to meet us at the derby.
And she’s the one who tipped us off on the birthday spanking
ceremony. I met Janae when I played with
an Athletes In Action fall team back in 1997(?) and trained in Cincinnati,
where she’s from. She’s lived in Austin
for the past several years and I’m so thankful I got to connect with her. She’s one of those people who you don’t see
for a long time, but you pick up right where you left off. All we do is laugh together. She’s awesome!
San Marcos
River. The
next day we took a leisurely tubing trip on the San Marcos River. Such
fun to sit back, relax and enjoy the water and scenery (including really cool
tress and roots, and lots of turtles).
Fitting into a tube can be a challenge for us tall folks. My butt sits a little lower than most, but I
was still comfortable. Give it a
try!
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| Lisa, Cincinnati Kathy and Julie floating down the San Marcos River |
ABGB. After tubing we cleaned up had refreshments
at the Austin Beer Garden Brewing Company.
Every Sunday they have live music and dancing. I packed my cowboy boots just for ABGB and it
didn’t disappoint. (My packing skills
were put to the test fitting size 12 cowboy boots in a carry-on bag and having
room for other clothes.) We visited ABGB
last spring on a Final Four side trip and I turned down a dance offer from an
older gentleman, then felt guilty. This
time around I was more receptive, and when tall Edd approached me to dance, I
obliged. What a small world it is – he
went to high school in Indianapolis and I enjoyed hearing about his life
path. You can meet some really cool
people if you open up a little.
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| Me dancing with Edd. |
University of
Texas. We
had time before our departing flight to see the University of Texas
campus. Lunch at Fricano’s Deli
and a little shopping at the University Co-op.
While at the co-op we saw a real Texas star – Hall of Fame former Lady
Longhorns coach Jody Conradt. Julie gets
points for her eagle eye and stalking photography skills. I’d never met her or played against her
teams, but I played at the same time she coached and she knows my coach. I introduced myself, telling her where I
played, and she was very nice and seemed pleased to talk to me. She looks fantastic at (then) 77-years
old. I will admit as I walked away, I
was sweating a little. She’s a legend,
after all!
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| "Stalking" Jody Conradt |
Airport. Austin’s airport had some fun shops that we
perused before taking off. We had a
close call on our connecting flight through Atlanta. As we landed, I checked my watch and saw that
our flight home was boarding. I ran
ahead to save a spot for the others but they held the plane for us. Again, sweating! Whew!
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| Birthday girl |
Julie may not have been thrilled to turn 50, but I’m
thankful she allowed me to come along for a fun weekend. I hope she enjoyed herself – I know I
did! Yeee haw!
