Austin and back in 5 days

This past weekend we had an amazing experience. We drove to Austin and back to Albuquerque leaving Thursday and returning on Monday with a gig on Saturday night. Thursday was one of the easiest day's of driving out of them all. We drove to Cloudcroft and stayed with Aaron's uncle. We visited the Western Bar had a couple of drinks, played some Domino's and met someone who operates music venues in Dallas, and Denver. I never knew a trip to the Western Bar could be so productive. We woke up Friday to make the Drive to Austin. We got out a little later than anticipated but that is to be expected. I would rather hang out than drive and that's what we did. Bacon and pancakes and coffee before we hit the road. The Sacramento mountains are absolutely lovely to drive through and one of the real treasures of New Mexico.
    We stopped in Hope NM for potty break and then drove and drove and drove. It was about Big Springs TX that we realized. This town is where we need to find a gig. Stopping here would make the drive into Austin a little bit easier but hindsight is always 20/20. So we listened to lots of music we like to listen to our friends who are musicians. We played Kevin Higgins, Eric Hisaw, Bebe lala, Worm-Hole, and Laura Cygne Meyer. It is amazing to have so many talented friends. Once we hit the hill country of Texas I became disoriented as to what direction we were going I am used to the landmarks in NM that give you a sense of direction, I don't know what to look for in Texas as this is only the 2nd time I have ever been to Austin. Needless to say the drive eventually ended in the dark and we found our hotel a great Chinese food resteraunt ate some dinner and went to bed.
    Saturday Show Day. Show days are always exciting and I tend to wake up a little early pumped and ready to share music with people. We had many hours to go so we decided we would go shopping for stage clothes(Austin has great thrift store shopping) We were looking for clothes but seeing as I am a skinny guy it usually takes me about 14 to 21 seconds to go through the entire inventory of shirts that fit. So I am wondering around the Goodwill. I don't buy knick-knacks, I am an addict of music books( not biographies) music theory and history books to be specific. I am looking around and I notice on the shelf a title I have checked out a few times from various libraries across the country. THe Folk Songs of North America by Alan Lomax. Oh my god I was a giddy little child for a few minutes I have been looking for the chance to purchase this book for years and here it is in a Goodwill for $1.99 Woo, woo, woo, hoodily, doo! After we finish shopping we return to the hotel for normal gig day relaxation activities, shower and nap.
    Now it was on. Time to go to the new venue that we have never been in which is always brings up some nerves. This place we are playing is the Carousel Lounge and apparently we share the stage with a pink elephant. There will be bands from 3:30 in the afternoon and they will go until late and we go on at 6. The first band was called the Squids and they played punk music from the 80's and 90's and the refreshing thing is they just play punk they didn't act punk. Good little band that was playing some killer tunes. I really dug the tone the bass player was getting and it was a really basic rig. So they finished up and it was time for us to get ready to go. It seems from the pictures that I touch my right breast with my right hand for good luck while setting up. The things we find out about ourselves. We played an hour show. We were both nervous but really had a good night performing.  Had some lifelong friends show up and had a fantastic evening the rest of the way. All I can remember at this point is telling Paula I hope you are not like me and can drive us to our hotel safely and she responded with she had been drinking water. YAY! for Paula.
Sunday morning seemed to come very quickly. I was trying to sleep and 5:30 and the looming long drive seemed to wake me up. So we woke up drove to Fredricksburg. We had breakfast in this great little diner but all I can remember from here is the waitress was very friendly until we said we wanted biscuits and gravy with no eggs. From there on it was like we had killed her dog and she had to be nice to us. Very Strange. But we are strange as the human race we are very, very strange. From Fredricksburg we drove to Van Horn where the only place to eat is KBOB'S, which is not a good place to go when traveling on a Sunday afternoon. Needless to say we took longer than expected on this stop. From Van Horn we drove into El Paso to deliver a painting to Paula's Mama Minerva and have a talk about the most recent election. After about an hour we decided we needed to head to Las Cruces unless we wanted to drive in the dark and we don't want to do that. So we drove to Paula's brothers house in Las Cruces and had a great evening catching up.

We woke up early Monday morning and were home at 11:30 in the morning. And that is how Sunlight did a trip to Austin in 5 days.    

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