September 24-October 1: Houston, Galveston, Austin

So I finally ended up in houston and got down to business.  Picked up Drew at the airport, went to Ed and CB's house and hung out there for the weekend.  After that I met up with Vance (who lives 5 minutes from Ed) and crashed there for a few days.  

Why did I stay there a few days?  Because this is the view from his back porch:

vance's house on lake houston

The water is normally much higher but it's still pretty sweet.  Oh, and he has a pool table, shuffleboard, ps3, wii, xbox, and giant tv's in every room.  Not a bad place to crash for a bit.

One day I went down to Galveston.  Not much to say - it's a beach town and I live in San Diego, so nothing new to experience.  Oh!  I rode the ferry...there were pelicans.  I found a crappy bar called The Spot and had a shrimp po-boy and some beer. It was actually pretty good. And I bought vance a couple hermit crabs for being a good host. I'm sure he loves them.

this is what beer looks like in Galveston

Vance and I took off for Austin on Thursday and first went over to Lake Travis. The weather was crap as there was a storm rolling in so there was nobody out at the bars, but it's got to be a cool scene in the summer.  We just hit a couple places:  The Oasis and Carlos n' Charlies.  Both dead. But the views were cool.

sunset on lake travis

After that we headed back to 6th street to see what all the fuss was about.  We bar-hopped a bit and had a bartender tell us that there was a place that hands out free bacon on Thursdays.  We decided that as men, we could not pass this opportunity up.  The place is called Lavaca St. Bar, and they do indeed pass out free bacon on Thursdays.  I can't even begin to tell you how upset I am that it took me this long to find a magical place like this.  

that'll do, pig

After that, Vance roped me into helping him clean out his office at Lockheed (no more shuttle program) by promising beers.  I did get a beer out of it...and a NASA water bottle, and a small gym towel. Totally worth it.  The next day it was time to start the trek back, after having a pretty good pulled pork sando at the Tin Roof BBQ.