Tuesday, February 24 2009
Deep In the Heart of Texas
The stars at night, are big and bright,
deep in the heart of Texas,
The prairie sky is wide and high,
deep in the heart of Texas.
The sage in bloom is like perfume,
deep in the heart of Texas,
Reminds me of, the one I love,
deep in the heart of Texas.
I get to travel to a lot of places. Sometimes it's pretty ordinary--nothing wrong with making the trip to New Jersey, but once you've seen one mob hit, you've seen 'em all--but many places are special, and one of the coolest, most interesting and delightful places I've had the privilege of visiting is Austin, Texas. This Friday I'll be heading there for a retailer conference with my pals at LD Carlson and I'm stoked.
Before I visited Texas (my first time was two years ago) I had a typical outsider's view of it, poorly informed by cowboy movies, that man from Crawford, and the flattened perspective of distance. I thought that Texas was all like East Texas, border towns like Brownsville and gruff individualists who looked like Tommy Lee Jones. Imagine my surprise when I stepped off the airplane at Bergstrom airport.
Not the topless towers of Ilium, but pretty close
I've got friends in Austin. Adam, Julie-Beth, the Chesters, Jen lives pretty close by as well as Chris, Winemaker Magazine's editor, and they've consistently told me that Austin is different from the rest of Texas, less conservative and more open. Given my lack of previous experience with the state I was a little dubious, but when I first heard the city's motto, 'Help Keep Austin Weird', I knew I was in a place that would welcome a guy like me.
In addition to my civilian friends, I've got some great compatriots there. Forrest and the gang at Austin Homebrew have been pals for the last decade and I've recommended their shop to all of my friends in Texas and every single one of them has called me back to rave about getting the best service they've ever gotten from a retail experience. Keep making me look good, fellas!
Water 2 Wine is also headquarted in Austin. They're an urban winery and Wine On Premise shop with two locations in Austin, seven more in Texas and another in Colorado. John is a sharp guy, running a beautiful shop where you can make your own wine on-site, buy a bottle to take home, or just a glass to hang out and enjoy--it's like Disneyland for wine lovers!
Last time I was there I snagged some brilliant barbecue (Texas has barbecue? Who knew?) listened to some wonderful music (walk down any city street after midnight and you'll get a free concert, there's so much great live music) and stayed in one of the coolest and funkiest places I've ever laid my head, the Austin Motel. Funky barely covers the motel and the cool neighbourhood. I stopped in and tried on some boots at Allen's, and this time I might just pick up that cool Stetson I tried on--I wonder if they have a metric conversion for a US 10-gallon hat?
I'll worry about it when I get there. Start the barbecue and open me a Shiner, I'll water my cayuse and be along right smartly.
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