The view from Week Two (Austin is exhaustin')

Important note to non-Facebookers: I actually am sharing lots of words and images from the trip, in this album of photos. You should look there if you really want to know what we've done and where we've gone.)

I suppose we are at the midway point of the Monthlong Road Trip, and I am back with more pitiful excuses for not posting here. In essence, the day-to-day logistics of the trip make it impossible to write much. Any time there is a spare moment or two, and access to an internet connection, I fall asleep. For the last day and a half and the next day and a half, that sleeping can happen here:



Yes. A hotel bed. Generic, plus, stable. Don't get me wrong: the bed in the Leprechaun is just dandy, but it's quite nice to wake up in the same city on a daily basis, which--aside from two blissful nights in Raleigh, NC--has not been the case.

And with that, I see my Blogger time is up. Off to Day Two of the ACL Festival, which in its own way is as much a smorgasbord as the entire trip: there is a lot of standing in line (equivalent to standing in traffic) in order to see about 15 to 30 minutes of a band before moving on to the next one.

As with the trip in general, this approach lends itself to surprises better than scheduled stops. Best surprise of Day One was a frenzied set by Qbeta, an Italian/Latin/ska band I had never heard of. (Go ahead, , download some of their stuff. I kinda doubt it holds up as well in recorded form, but who knows?)