Trip to Austin

This past weekend we went to the far off land of Texas in the republic of Austin, to visit Uncle Ameet, my best friend since we were both little kids in North Dakota.  We haven't seen him for a long time (the last visit was back in January of 2011), but as usual we quickly were back on the same page.  He had moved here from Chicago about a year ago, but we had not yet visited him.  So for our first visit to Austin we had a local to show us the sights.

We had a really nice visit.  Highlights of the weekend included seeing the bats fly out from under the Congress Avenue bridge to invade the city, lots of delicious BBQ, hiking trips, sightseeing, and lots of quality time (as traveling with toddlers entails you often just need to hang out and play instead of trying to do too much).  Connor was a champ traveling and really enjoyed visiting Uncle Ameet at his gorgeous downtown apartment.  He was probably most excited about the fact that Ameet parked his car in a parking garage and that you had to take an elevator to get to the apartment.  Funny what tickles the little guys fancy.

Additionally, on Sunday night Ameet and I got to go out on the town while Ali stayed home with Connor.  I have a good friend from here in ABQ who has been in Austin for the past few months working on the new Terrence Malick movie.  He kindly invited us to the cast wrap party held at some cool club with an open bar and free food.  There was talk of potential movie stars showing up (Ryan Gosling or Michael Fassbender) but they did not show.  I got to stand very close to Terrence though, which was probably as close to the Hollywood magic machine that I will ever get.  It was nice to be able to hang out with Ameet and just talk, and it was great to see David again as he has been away from home for most of the last year.

Waiting for the bats to depart.

Apocalyptic looking isn't it?