Austin, Texas - February 15th & 16th, 2006

Hailey Moberg's house, where we stayed for our post-conference days in Austin. Jill liked the back 'fence'.

Driving over the river on Congress Avenue, heading towards the State Capitol building.

Beautiful building in downtown Austin, with a great art-deco roof that Val Cormier called 'the giant nose-hair clippers'.

Threadgill's, where we had dinner on our last night in Austin. Jimmie Dale Gilmore's son was performing. I had chicken-fried steak. Yikes.

The legendary Broken Spoke Club.

Outside the Broken Spoke. Jill posing with our hostess with the mostess, Hailey Moberg.

Miss Hailey. Note the 'God Bless America' sign in the background.

Front door to 'The Spoke'.

Ohmygod! Bob Wills played here!

The archives room.

Driving home, we saw the only MacDonald's we saw the whole time we were there. Did we mention most of Austin is very anti-national-chains? Just one of the many things that makes it a very cool place to be.

A beautiful old hotel on 6th Street in downtown Austin.

Wild About Music, certainly one of the coolest music and movie collectables stores on the planet. Right across the street from the neat old hotel. Check out the guitar-shaped handbags!

Wild About Music - lunchboxes and guitar-shaped whatevers.

Wild About Music - hand-painted record clocks.

Wild About Music - toilet seats shaped like guitars and grand pianos.

Wild About Music - object d'arte.

Would that be cowboy hats? Probably.

A last shot of the Capitol Building, taken whilst driving down the street. Pretty good, although the 'Black History Month' banner was in the way.

Did I mention they have great signs in Austin?

Well, they do.

Our whole main impression of everything in Austin is that the great majority of the people seem to be yearning for a simpler times. They didn't like George Bush, and they didn't like the direction that he was taking the country. And they don't want tons of high-rises. And they don't want to be inundated with national chains. They want to keep it smaller. They want to keep it simpler. And they want to keep it WEIRD. That was the slogan we kept seeing everywhere.

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