Because modern technology is awesome…for a price, I am writing this entry from 28,000 feet above Texas. I am en route from Dallas Ft. Worth to Portland, Oregon, the next stop on the trip. The flight from Austin to Dallas was a ridiculously short half hour and despite the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport being the size of a small city, all is well and I am enjoying the extra leg room of the exit row as I head from one end of the country to another. From one extreme climate to another (90s to 50s!)
Austin ended on an excellently Austin-y note. Last night I met up with J. She recommended we go to a wine bar. Now the words wine bar conjure up an image in my mind of a dark room, lit by candles on low set tables, maybe some soft furnishing with couples canoodling in corners and maybe a few stuffy wine patrons sitting at the bar discussing the pros and cons of a malbec with the overly knowledgeable bartenders. But this is Austin…So instead when she told me the name of the bar was called the Whip In, I recalled passing a rather tacky looking signed bar just a few doors down from my hotel along the huge interstate, I-35. Really? I said. And away we went.
Outside the sign said “Wine, Beer, Groceries” and that pretty much sums it up. Along one long wall stood a bar serving 60 beers on tap, God knows how many wines and vegetarian food. Most of the rest of the inside was a grocery store, selling bottles of what they sold by the glass behind the bar as well as your staple foods, some cereal, ice cream, gourmet spreads as well as your Reece’s peanut butter cups and Boars Head deli meat and cheese. And in the corner was an area of live music. I was hugely excited by the Whip In! Grocery store/bar!? We got our drinks and headed outside where there were communal picnic tables in an porch area with a bandstand with two bands playing over the course of the evening. A cool breeze blew threw, an utterly hip rockabilly band played Monster Mash and other kid songs for the little toddler who was running wild and I had the perfect send off from Austin.
Texas, I salute you!
Oregon, I await you!
