Red Fest 2014

What is Red Fest you might be asking yourself? Well only the greatest redneck festival in the world!!! (That I know of). Basically my fav little Texan Nicole aka Bus, texted me with 'Red Fest in May. Look it up and book your ticket here now!'. Country music, BBQ and excessive amounts of 'Murica pride??? Um yea soooo down! I packed my best USA gear and got my spray tanned butt on a plane.

Austin in 36 Hours

I love living in SF but so far the hands down winner for favorite city to visit is Austin- friends, food and music...what more could you ask for?!? I've done a pretty good job keeping track of all my trips to my favorite southern city here on this blog but this time was a little different- I was only in Austin for 36 hours so I had to make it count! I flew in to oversee a job for work so I had to spend time at the jobsite but luckily my friend's apartment was 5 minutes away so I got to spend lots of time with her. During my lunch break, I met my co-worker over at Z Tejas in the Austin Arboretum which was a super cool spot and AMAZING, TO DIE FOR cornbread...for serious.

Austin Vay-Cay 2012

Since my favorite Bus (aka Nicole) lives so far away in the wonderful city that is Austin, its become a tradition that I visit her every year for her birthday weekend. I've already covered the dancing and the eating (and yes I felt slightly nauseous when all that food was listed out one after the other) so heres the rest of the trip. We started off my first day shopping and eating along South Congress- I found some cool old political buttons in Uncommon Objects.Then of course we had to head into Allen's boots where I was tempted to buy the 'Murican themed red white and blue boots...unfortunately they were $700 and I stupidly put myself on a budget so I had to turn them down.

Eating my way through Austin

Last year I was all about taking pictures of the cows we saw in Austin but since they're not there anymore (boo), I decided to try and take pictures of everything I ate. I would like to say that these are just the highlights but in reality for the meals not included, I either: 1) quickly forgot this photo-taking goal when food was placed in front of me or 2) was so desperate to eat what was in front of me (hello strawberry cheesecake ice cream from Big Top) that the picture was blurry and unusable. Oh well, you get the idea.

Texas State Capital

Last stop on the Austin vay-cay was a trip to the state capital. Decided to stop by the governor's office and get some stuff done...no big deal just being super important.

TWO flags behind us- that means we're legit

Hanging out under the dome

Austin hearts America...

...and I heart Austin!! Its an awesome city and I can't wait to go back! Started off the long weekend by buying the best cowboy boots ever at Allen's Boots.

Ended up with the ones on the far right

If you're going to visit Austin, be prepared to eat as much as possible because the food is fantastic! Delicious tacos at Guero's, best burger of my life at HopDoddy's, amazing pulled pork sandwich at Jackalope, deep fried pickles with ranch AND a chicken, tomato, black bean and avocado pizza at Alamo Draft House (where we saw Drive- love Ryan Gosling but yikes that was an intense movie).

#7 Learn how to shoot a gun

I took a mini vacation to Austin this past weekend to visit my friend Nicole from Davis and her boyfriend Dan.  Not only did we have an awesome time doing all things Austin (and eating everything in sight...amaaazing food) but I also got to check off another thing on my list!! Dan's friend Kent let us stop by his place for some target practice...although since both Nicole and I had no clue what we were doing it was less target practice and more just trying to hit anything while not freaking out over how loud the guns were! Both Kent and Dan are cops so everything was nice and safe (in case peps were worrying).

Gearing up and getting ready at Kent's...thats just one of the guns and some of the ammo we took with us

First rule us novices learned- guns point out of the car while driving