Jennifer Plesko

This past weekend, we made our annual trek to the Guadalupe River. It’s a longer drive now that we’re in Dallas. Even though it’s technically supposed to be an extra 90 miles or so, I35 is the worst interstate in the history of interstates, so it took us five hours instead of three and a half or four. I suppose it didn’t help that ROT Rally was going on, so every biker in the continental United States was headed to Austin. And we hit Austin right at 5:00 pm on a Friday too. Awesome.

But we eventually got to Gruene and found the condo, and our spirits lifted. Best condo ever. It was brand new, had a flat screen TV in every bedroom, had an awesome view of the river, and it was in a great location just a few doors down from Gruene Hall.

One thing I love about that area of Texas is that there is music everywhere. It’s such a big part of the culture. Even when you’re floating down the river, there are people with radio coolers blasting music along the way.

Our first night there, hubby made friends with some random people in the elevator as he is wont to do. They in turn invited all of us to come down to the patio where they were cooking out and having a jam session. So there we were enjoying our own impromptu concert complete with vocals, three guitars and a set of bongos. Does that happen other places?

The second night, we made our mandatory trip to Grist Mill and enjoyed some more great live music in the biergarten. After dinner, most of our group went to the Randy Rogers Band concert that they’d paid $30 a pop for. No offense to the Randy Rogers Band, but they’re not worth $60 to me. So hubby and I decided we’d go to Gruene Hall instead. But we didn’t make it that far. He was so tired he was falling asleep at the table, so we just walked back to the condo and crashed. I gotta say it was nice. Especially when you’re nursing the world’s worst sunburn and all you want to do is wallow naked in a vat of aloe vera gel.

On the drive home, we decided to stop in Austin. We both used to live there, and we wanted to have lunch at one of our old haunts. We decided on Threadgill’s. They just so happened to be having a gospel brunch that day, so we got to enjoy some crazy awesome rockabilly/rhythm & blues gospel music while we ate.

Seriously, these guys were good.

By the time we got close to DFW, it was getting close to dinner, so hubby asked if I was up for driving to Fort Worth instead of Dallas to try Love Shack. We’d been talking about going there for months, but we never feel like driving to the Stockyards once we’re in Dallas. We gave it a try, and it turned out that there was live music playing at Love Shack too. Live music at two meals. How awesome.

At one point, I overhead a northern tourist say of the Stockyards “This is better than DisneyWorld! DisneyWorld is all fake but this stuff is real!” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that to call the Stockyards “real” is a bit of a stretch. But if there were going to be tourists at Love Shack, I was glad that singer was there to give them a taste of authentic Texas music. He didn’t have gel or highlights in his hair and wasn’t wearing a $200 Robert Graham shirt. He was in a t-shirt and bermuda shorts, just strumming on his guitar, singing songs by Charlie Robison, Willie Nelson, and Robert Earl Keen. That’s why I like Texas music. It’s not as prepackaged as many of the Nashville artists are today.

Does this look like a country band to you?

But then, that’s a whole other post.