Austin 2010

This weekend was my trip to Austin, TX with my college friends! I have a lot to tell and lots of pics to share so sit back..

Our friend April moved to Austin recently and since we always take some kind of trip (or 2) every year, Austin was a good destination. On top of this, it was April & Katherine's birthday so we got to celebrate that with them as well. There were 10 of us total.

We got to Austion around 10:30 am on Friday. April picked us up and we went to lunch at Shady Grove. It was a fun place with delicious food and a fun outside area. We checked into our hotel and waiting for everyone else to arrive. For dinner, we went to Matt's El Ranchero which was a huge Mexican restaurant.






Then we ventured on to a little place called "Highball". Its not little at all. It houses bowling, karaoke, a bar and more karaoke all in one place. A dream I tell you. We started with bowling:


This is Katherine. She had the WORST trip ever. I will get to that later...

They have several "private" karaoke rooms with different themes that you can reserve for your own party to sing it up. What a great idea! We reserved the Hawaiian room and the party took off.






So we got 2 hours in the private room. Then, we moved to the big dance floor area which also houses karaoke! We love a good karaoke spot. If you know me at all, you know I was in heaven. Here is where I fell in love with a washboard. It would not be a trip if Betsy didnt fall in love with a tambourine.


Then Katie and I brought the finale of "Total Eclipse of the Heart". We even had choreography.


Moving on to Saturday. We saw a "rally" from out hotel and noticed them marching to the capital.

We wanted to get closer to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out, we saw this:

Its not every day you see a rally to legalize medical marijuana. I actually saw a sign that read "Give me dank or give me death". Wow.
Saturday night we ate at Sandra Bullock's restaurant "Bess".


Then we ventured to the "Tiniest Bar in Texas"


Ok, now for the turn of events. The trip was great and we had so much fun laughing a whole lot. This was until the flight home. We (as in Me, Katie, Meg & Katherine) made our flight from Austin to Houston just fine. Then, we board for Birmingham. We are almost there and the captain says we cannot land due to weather so we are going to have to re-fuel in Jacksonville, Fl. REALLY? That is WAY not where we are going. So, we do this, without leaving the plane. Then, we try again. Circle Bham for what felt like days and again the captain says "sorry, we cannot land, we are going back to Jacksonville". So, this 1 hour flight has taken 8 so far. I just want to get off this plane. I have a meltdown (meltdown 1)So we pile off the plane and get in a long line that is going nowhere to find out our fate. They basically said "You can't get your bags, we are putting you on the 5:50 am flight to Bham, you can't sleep here at the gate and there are no rental cars opened. So, we "slept" in the Jacksonville airport. Oh, we had not eaten in 8 hours or so and nothing was opened. This is my view from the floor of the airport.


Long story very short, we made it home at around 7:30 am, with no sleep. We lived off of a vending machine snack and a coke that Southwest provided. Oh and I had to go into work for a few hours when I got back to Tuscaloosa. And scene.

P.S. Katherines trip went a little something like this: Slept way too late and made it the airport in the nick of time to find out she lost her license. Had to leave and miss her flight to go to the DMV. Made a later flight and hung out Friday night. Became dehydrated and stayed in the room all of Saturday to end up in the ER Saturday night. Then she was somehow dropped from her flight home. Ended up with us who spent the night in the airport. Bad trip is an understatment.