Another amazing couple of eventful weeks in Austin; we’re getting re-acclimated to city life and are enjoying all this amazing place has to offer…crazy we’re approaching the tail end of our stay here!

Knowing how quickly the end will creep up, we were resolved to hit up Franklin BBQ – supposedly THE best BBQ in the land, so no way we don’t check it out.  I’ll get back to this, but here’s a sneak peak to hold your interest.

So knowing this meat-fest was approaching, we decided it would be best to grab seafood the night before and ended up having an early anniversary dinner at Eddie V’s.  All I have to say is stack your doe and try this place out – incredible.

With full bellies and an appetite for more booze and music, we finally checked off hitting up the Elephant Room, a divey jazz bar that we’d heard good things about.

This place had a good vibe and as you can see from the picture below, we had fun.

Alright, back to Franklin BBQ.  So this place opens at 11 and usually runs out of food by about 2.  People know this and start waiting in line super early.

At first, we weren’t so into the idea of waking up and waiting hours just to grab some BBQ, but sound advice from our Austin hommie Bubble changed our mind.  He basically told us to bring lawn chairs and booze and treat it like a tailgate.  We’ve learned to trust Bubble’s advice and he wasn’t wrong.

We met some super cool people in line; it’s such a small world.  Met Jake, an MMA fighter, the owners of Green Aisle (an organic grocery shop in South Philly), Adam, Andrew and Charlotte and a nice guy from Colorado.  If you know anything about us, you know that we had a lot in common with all these great folks.

As the line started moving we were pumped and before we knew it (4 hours later) we were in.

Words can’t describe the aroma, but you can see the place has a dope vibe.

As we approached the counter, the meat tender (?) put out some brisket burnt tips to get us completely amped up about this experience.  We put in our order – one of everything please – and with the efficiency of a seasoned surgeon our boy served it up.

As our new Philly friends referred to it, the slaughter began – sorry, not sorry, vegan friends!

Isn’t it weird how you can feel amazing and terrible at the same time? As the meat sweats kicked in later on, we knew we needed some physical activity the following week.

Fortunately our resident Austin outdoors guide Wally took Amy on a bike ride (while I watched football) and showed her an awesome trail that we’d hit up in later in the week.

This trail is right by our house and basically disappears you from the city.  So beautiful.

Another fun development is that Jordan and Jeska posted up about an hour north of Austin.

Fast forward to the next weekend, Jordan bought us and Wally tickets to the UT v UNC basketball game.  On our way to meet up with the crew, Amy and I stopped for a pre-game meal at the Texas Chili Parlor – mmmm.

There was a picture of me post meal, but I couldn’t bear to put it up.  I looked how I felt – fat and sloppy.  Fortunately we had a 15 minute walk to the Frank Erwin Center.

The gametime atmosphere was festive and Texas fans came with unrealistic expectations of a win against a top tier basketball team.

Incredibly enough, those unrealistic expectations were realized and UT came out with an unbelievable buzzer-beater win.  We were all happy campers.

After the game we celebrated by introducing Jordan and Jeska  to Chi’Lantro – YUM!

Even Chica was pumped about the win.

To wrap up an awesome couple of weeks we headed up to the RV for a sunset ride on Jordan’s Porta-Bote.

This thing is literally a foldable boat and I’m convinced it breaks every law of physics in the universe by staying afloat.  I mean we literally just roll the thing into the water.

But viola, it does float and we had a beautiful evening in the CO RIver.