WEEK 18 - NEW ORLEANS TO AUSTIN, TEXAS - friday 27, saturday 28 and sunday 29 august 2010

today we awoke early and hit the road at 7am, and headed to Austin, Texas! its a 9 hour drive, [1000km’s], so we stopped about three times during the trip for coffee and sandwiches. its rather scenic driving along highway 10, lots of flat land and trees.
we arrived at our hosts place in Austin, Dee and Menelaos, and were greeted with huge smiles and hugs :) they are such a neat lovely couple, and have these awesome cats. ill take photos for you and show you them.
we headed out into the evening and grabeed some chicken fried steak for dinner [its like kfc coating on a steak],

then headed to a cafe to watch an improv comedy show that Menelaos was doing the lighting from. there were two shows, one was a take off of the Golden Girls show, and the other was a morning news show. both were pretty funny, the guy behind us was laughing so hard!

after the show we grabbed a really nice coffee, then headed out to meet Dee and M’s friend at a trailer outdoor eatery place for her birthday. this chick and her partner live in a van, and its so cool! imagine that! never have to pay rent! we hung out under fairy lights and chatted at picnic tables, it was really cool. she had a pinyata to crack open, so she smashed the crap out of it, then shared the lollies with everyone yum!

later he headed to a bar, which would be best placed in WEST auckland, with hard rock music playing, and hung out there and chatted some more, met a nice guy who wants to move to nz, so gave him some websites to check out.

on saturday we headed to a yum cafe and had this HUGE breakfast, texas style eggs benedict [with chipotle sauce and chirizo], and giant pancakes with banana, pecans and chocolate chippies in buttermilk batter, yum!].

we then cruised down the streets walking through outdoor markets and admiring the shops, theres lots of botiquey places here.

it is so hot, i couldnt cope and we had to turn back, and took shelter at Joe’s cafe with a nice cold coke, and sat and chatted to delwyn on skype while joseph played on the laptop. silly i know to do that when you are supposed to be sightseeing, but its just too hot!
we all went home and had an afternoon nap, then headed out in the evening to a couchsurfing party. on the way we stopped for dinner at this really yum taco place, and got these huge tacos for dinner, soooo good! they have a neat outdoor seating area with fairy lights, i need to get me some outdoor fairy lights i think!

at the couchsurfing party, we met lots of nice people, and even met some people who had been to nz, [of course they loved the south island over the north, and none of them liked auckland! thats what happens when you go to the south island! lol]

its sunday today, and we headed out to look around austin and take some photos, i managed a few, then gave up because its soooo hot, so we hung out at Jo’s cafe and booked our accommodation for the next couple of weeks. we discovered there are hardly any hostels in the remote places we are heading to, so we have booked in to stay at the homedown hostel in durango, and for the rest, we are just going to sleep in the car at truckstops!
in the evening we popped home and packed our bags and took some photos of their awesome cats... [and Dinner the tree chicken]

then we headed to the bridge to watch the bats fly, theres heaps of them! unfortunately it was almost pitch black when they decided to fly, but i got some pics for you guys anyway!

we met a neat guy whilst looking at the bats, and ended up having dinner with him at a taco place, sooooo yum, the decor reminds me a little bit of burger fuel!