Everything is Bigger in Texas (Day 4)

March 12th

The day we were all dreading... the day we headed home. But we were going to make the best out of the little time we had left. Jed & I had a little time in the morning just to two of us to we grabbed Mathis new car and went exploring for a little while. Mathis & Nicki had talked about there favorite place to get breakfast tacos and how it was closed on Mondays so we weren't able to get them yesterday. Well, I think we found the place (Palm Cafe) and gave them a try for ourselves.

They were great! This is the area to come for breakfast tacos for sure!

After a quick bit to eat, we headed back to our new favorite gas station, Buc-ee's, to pick up a few things for the road. Then headed to meet Mathis & Nicki for a late breakfast/early lunch at Fork & Spoon.
Our next stop was to the outlet stories in San Marco! We racked up a few great finds. It is never enough time when you go outlet shopping. Before we knew it, it was time to head back into San Antonio to catch our flight. But we had to make 2 quick pit stops before the airport.

1. HUGE COWBOY BOOTS!
Tell me these aren't fun! We headed over to a mall near the airport that had huge boots out front. Completely random and perfect. We had to get pictures!

2. MORE FOOD!
We have quite a few hours in airports and car rides ahead of us to make it home so we tried our hand one more time at the local fast food mexican joint. Way different then anything we have on the east coast and lots better then airport food!

We had such a great time in Texas and can't wait for the next chance we get to go visit. There is still so much more to explore and you can't beat the company! Mathis & Nicki, thank you guys for everything! We had the best time. Let's do it again soon!

Everything is Bigger in Texas (Day 3)

March 11th

It was our third day in Texas and we still hadn't had a breakfast taco. Mathis & Nicki had always talked about these and how they missed them when they lived in VA. They even made them for us one time for one of our tailgates and I still dream about those tacos! So needless to say, I was ready to try them in TX. As Nicki & I were getting ready, Jed and Mathis headed out to get us breakfast tacos from Los Gallos Taco House and they did not disappoint! They were great. I think I could eat them 3 times a day, everyday. (But even as good as they were, if I was really honest, Mathis' were better.)

After breakfast it was time to head to Austin and on our way there we were able to stop by where Nicki works. It looked like such a cute campus!

We knew that Austin would be a treat today since a HUGE conference thingy was going on called SXSW (South By South West). I am still not entirely sure what it is but there were people everywhere and rumors of tons of celebrities.

We set off walking around Austin to see what we could find. The first thing we found was a cool big open area that people would spend time at or as most of us call them, a park that had really cool recycled sculptures.

It was just fun to people watch and check out the different shops that were all over downtown Austin. And before long all of that walking lead to a need for more food! Mathis and Nicki found us an AWESOME place to go to for lunch called Bess Bistro. Unfortunately for some reason they were closed for lunch that day but gave us half off coupons to check out there other place just around the corner. SCORE!

So we walked the extra 2 blocks to Waltons for lunch and we were not disappointed! The sandwiches were great and huge, they had a new kind of root beer for me to try and they have CUPCAKES! The building was super cool and had a really fun atmosphere.

After lunch, we headed back down into the heart of downtown Austin and SXSW. As we wondered down 6th Ave people were giving away all kinds of free stuff to promote there new products/tv shows/music etc. We were happy to promote anything if we were given free stuff! :) 6th Ave reminded me a lot of New Orleans in the day time. It is a closed off street with bars, restaurants, and little shops that lined the road. As we bounced back and forth between window shopping some one offered us a free comedy show and 2 free drinks. Now lets be honest... NOTHING is free but after a quick minute, we decided to see what it was all about.

Much to our surprise, it was all free! All it cost us was an email address so they could send us junk emails. As we got our free drinks (I got another new root beer. SCORE), we headed into the show. Jed and I were really excited that the act was put on by the UCB (Upright Citizens Brigade) out of NYC. We love these guys. We have seen them a few times in New York and have a friend that has taken classes with them.

They did a fantastic job and it was such a great surprise.

After our free show and drinks we head over to a different area of Austin. On our way there we found our first "real", opened cupcake shop, Polkadots. It was cute and the cupcakes were good but the location left something to be desired. We were all excited to check this place out and I think we all were glad we made it.

It was just a quick stop on our way to our next neighborhood. It was cute little area with all kinds of fun, silly shops. We had a great time checking out all the unique finds. This was also the perfect place to find dinner since there were plenty of food trucks around.

I was so excited to check out food trucks. I try and track them down all the time with no great success so it was awesome to have a handful of options. The first food truck we visited was Hey Cupcake. We made sure we had our cupcakes ready for dessert for after dinner.

Unfortunately, on Monday's not all of the food trucks were opened but the ones that were, were fantastic. I love the idea of the food truck culture and this place did not disappoint. We all ordered different stuff from different truck and just hung out on the picnic tables enjoying our dinner.

After dinner we head back home to enjoy our cupcakes and get everything together to our last day in Texas. :(

LAST UP: Saying Farewell

Everything is Bigger in Texas (Day 2)

March 10th

Today we started in Gruene, TX which is just down the road from where we were staying. Once a month, the town hall (Gruene Hall, Texas' Oldest Dance Hall) in Gruene has a Gossip Brunch and we were fortunate enough to be coming on that one Sunday in March and Mathis & Nicki were on the ball enough to get us all tickets before they sold out.

I completely understand why this sells out so quickly! This was so much fun. Every aspect of it they were on top of it. The location was so much fun, the wait staff was on top of it, the food was so great (I ate WAY too much), and the music and talk was awesome!

We caught our blessing and what felt like no time, it was all over and it was time to go about our day. Gruene is an awesome little town so we spent some time checking out the antique shop & general store.

Today we tried to get our first cupcake in Gruene at Gruene Flour Cupcakery but cupcakes and Sunday's don't agree and even though the sign said "OPEN". They definitely were not.

But we weren't going to let that keep us down. There were other places ready for us to explore. In typical Castro fashion, Mathis & Nicki took us to The World's Largest Gas Station, Buc-ee's. I know that it sounds ridiculous but we could have spent so much time in there! It was so fun! It had everything but my favorite had to be the little beaver mascot. He was just so cute!

We had a big day coming up heading to explore Austin so we took the rest of the afternoon off, that we were all suffering from a food coma from the amazing brunch so we huge out for a little while at the house watching movies and swapping stories. We tend to always be running in everything we do so it was so nice to just hang out and relax for a while.

That evening, we headed out for dinner and live music. So we headed back down to downtown Gruene and checked out Adobe Verde. We hung out for a while just snacking on chips and listening to live music by Fallon Franklin. She was great! We even ended up buying her cd on the way out. Dinner was great on the atmosphere of the restaurant was so fun.

NEXT UP: Austin

Everything is Bigger in Texas (Day 1)

March 9th
Oh.My.Gosh! What a fun trip!!

We had the opportunity to head out to Texas to visit some awesome friends, Mathis & Nicki. We were so excited for the trip but I was OVER THE MOON when we got a package from them 2 days before we left with a Travel Itinerary of all the things we were going to do and see and most importantly, EAT while we were there. It also had the Texas Monthly magazine for us to get caught up on everything Texas before we got there. It was so amazing and so thoughtful for them to do that!

So on Friday night, we headed south to Charlotte so we could catch out flight early Saturday morning. We had the chance to go to dinner with Joel & Leigh and the girls to celebrate Joel's 40th birthday that was coming up on Monday. Even though we hit a LOT of traffic on the way down, we were still about to meet them at the Penguin Drive-In downtown for dinner. This place is so much fun and I am so glad we had a little time to hang out with them.

Saturday morning came early and thankfully we didn't have any issues with flights! We landed in San Antonio around 10 that morning and we hit the ground running! We headed immediately to THE place to see in San Antonio, The Alamo. Jed has always wanted to go to the Alamo because of Pee-Wee Big Adventure. He always wanted to go into the basement to get Pee-Wee's bike, but just like in the movie, we learned that there is no basement of the Alamo but Jed wanted disappointed for long. As we were headed to our next stop, Jed got to meet The Mouth of the South, Jimmy Hart. He was over the moon when he got to get a picture with him!

Our next stop was the Riverwalk. This area is so much fun and Mathis & Nicki were gracious enough to be total tourists and get on the Riverboat so we could float down the river and learn all about the area. It was really interesting for me to learn that and see all of it from a boat.

After all the morning excitement, we headed to lunch at La Margarita's and had a chance to catch up with Mathis & Nicki before running again. We were able to walk though a ton of markets and shopping areas. The stuff was great but I wasn't ready to get anything yet since we had tons of shopping time ahead of us.

We spent the afternoon shopping and siteseeing. Mathis took us by where he worked, different areas of San Antonio and even made a trip to a wall of graffiti so we could get another picture on our bathroom wall.

After all of our touring around, it was time to slow down the pace. We stopped for happy hour for a few drinks before our dinner reservation. They found this way cool place that has the longest wooden bar in Texas called The Esquire Tavern. It was right on the Riverwalk. We weren't able to sit overlooking the river but I think we had a lot better seats to get the real atmosphere of the restaurant and we watched the Baylor Bears upset Kansas in basketball!

We had tackled a lot today so we decided to call it an evening after dinner but we had a great time exploring San Antonio.

Next Up: Gruene & the Gossip Brunch w/Texas Twist