festivals – Peaceful Reader

Austin City Limits

Two weekends ago Groovy Girl and I enjoyed the music, food, and weather of Austin, TX. We had an amazing time together and are the perfect traveling companions. Japhy approached me last spring when the lineup was announced saying “wouldn’t this be fun!” And after looking into it more I took her up on the idea. We looked into tickets and found out you can split the payments up, we found a small Airbnb and the ball started to roll. A few weeks ago our wristbands arrived and it was a reality.

We did have some travel glitches but it all worked out in the end even waiting until Saturday morning to get our luggage. I highly recommend flying Delta out of Minneapolis.

We got in Friday afternoon after our initial delay and picked up our car via my Turo app directions. Have you tried this car borrowing system? I liked it for the most part. Once we had our 2022 Prius we headed for food and our AirBB before venturing off to Zilker Park. Our first restaurant choice was not our best pick but it had a patio and the food was edible. Our AirBB was as pictured, small but tidy and enough for what we needed.

Unfortunetly because our original flight was still in Minneapolis our luggage did not arrive with us so we had to journey to the festival with our travel clothes still on. Luckily we had on cool clothes because Austin weather was warm. A friend had pre-warned us that the walk would be long to get to the park and she was absolutely spot on. And then when we got inside the larger-than-life park there was a lot to traverse to get to different stages, food, etc. Our band line up was amazing:

Friday:

The Moss at 5:15 which was pretty amazing to get there after traveling, eating, and checking in

Maggie Rogers right after and she was amazing-she owned that stage!

The Lumineers-also amazing to hear in person and a great way to end our first night

At the end of our night we found a Target so we could get toothbrushes and other essentials for the night. We knew we would be able to pick up our luggage back at the airport in the morning. We found an amazing Korean food truck across the street and had a fried tofu dish for a late night dinner.

Saturday:

We stopped at a VeraCruz, a taco shop that was highly rated and thus very busy but we wanted to eat before entering the gates.

Mt. Joy-Lovely band that I’d never heard of but loved.

Tanya Tucker- to be honest we saw her so we would be in place for Noah Kahan (Japhy’s favorite) and we ended up loving her sass and style.

Noah Kahan-He was definetely a headliner for Japhy and as a treat Mumford and Sons came out and played a song with him.

And then we listened to a bit of the Foo Fighters from afar (the crowd was huge) and headed home.

Sunday:

We found an amazing brunch spot, Another Broken Egg, and had fun sitting at the bar with my now 21-year-old daughter! She had a spiked cold brew comb and I had a Breakfast Blueberry Margarita and then we ordered delicious breakfast items including Smoked Salmon Benedict, cinnamon roll french toast, and a half order of beignets!

Corook- We were at the park much earlier this day and headed across the dirt to hear her sing and commune with her audience, she was very entertaining, funny, and relatable.

Suki Waterhouse-Daisy Jones and the Six keyboardist-she has an amazing voice

Hozier – So fantastic! We saw him at Hinterland a few years ago as well.

We found a delicious ramen place for dinner that night after the show. We were pretty tired and happy to head home after warm, healing bowls of noodles.

Monday- We had a day of exploring vintage shops, boot stores, and boutiques and ended up at Meteor on Congress for an outstanding butternut squash pizza. And then we were off to return our Prius and start the journey home. It is an absolute wonder to have a daughter that makes such a great travel companion. I feel blessed to have that relationship. I’m still missing my mom, my chest still aches from surgery but there is so many happy memories I’ve made over the last year and ACL will be one that I treasure as we continue on through the years.

Gratitude

We are back from the crazy music festival. Almost all of the music was amazing. We took a lot of pictures with our Nikon (which of course are not uploaded yet) I created the above video from just the few pictures I had on my iPhone.

We had a great time with the friends we went with and we now have other friends who are interested. We met some cool people while there (Lindsey and Joel stood out as true kind folk) and we ate some interesting festival food. We had camping neighbors that were parents of the harmonica player for Horseshoes and Handgrenades. Another camping neighbor and I exchanged books; she gave me Wild by Cheryl Strayed and I gave her Left Neglected by Lisa Genova. I also ran into an old friend that I’ve not seen for like 20 years. Strange things happen when you listen to the music.

Camping was good. I do not have a sore back. Positive. It stormed pretty crazily Friday afternoon but we all survived. One car did get crushed by a tree though. Coming home we found a small bakery (donuts and great bread) and a cute diner in Wabash that fed us real meals on real plates with a real bathroom.

Getting back inside my lovely house I was happy to have indoor plumbing once again, a kitchen to cook in, and I bathed for the first time in four days! Yes, that felt great. Whispering Pines Campground DID have a shower house but it was ice cold water as two of my camping mates experienced. I opted to be happy with the dirty hippie brigade instead of cold water spraying over me. My hot bath last night brought joy and order back to my world. That and creating a feast for my two children who took care of each other while we were camping. As we sat and ate together, just the 3 of us, I felt so grateful for my children who I love to the moon and back. They, in return, were over the moon for the meal I made them.

Groovy Girl is on Pinterest and she’d asked me if over the summer we could make it a goal to make some of the meals on her “yum” board so I made one last night. Only 28 more “Yum” recipes to go!

From The Recipe Critic-Crispy Parmesan Chicken with lemon pasta. It says boldly on her page that this recipe takes only 30 minutes to prepare which must mean if you have all ingredients completely ready to go. It took me an hour to prepare which is no big deal especially because I made my own breadcrumbs. My kids laughed about that-but of course I could not use something so pre-packaged! They know me so well.

Favorite new music from Blue Ox:

The Wood Brothers
Sierra Hull
The Pistol Whippin’ Party Penguins
The Last Revel (we already loved this band)
Blitzen Trapper
Sam Bush
Railroad Earth
GinStrings – This group played right as the storm ended inside the merch lodge and it was beautiful.

It was also devastating to wake up on Sunday morning and hear about the tragedy in Orlando. I can only hope (and beg the people who govern us) to change our gun laws.

Blue Ox

Thinking back Blue Ox cues me to our time as a family visiting Paul Bunyon Park in Northern Minnesota. Gorgeous and fun. I do remember a childhood video ( I grew up with a photographer father) of me losing my pristine white sandal in the muddy Babe, the Blue Ox area. I cried.

That’s what the whole video is about, me sad about losing my shoe in the mud, knowing there might be hell to pay. There are also highlights of Babe and Paul speaking to us. Super cool technology for the day-the badass 70’s.

Fast forward in crazy time warp speed I’m now at the Blue Ox Music festival, camping, and listening to amazing bands. Leftover Salmon 💜, the Big Wu, the Last Revel, Sam Bush, Shovels and Rope, The Del McCoury Band, and Bela and the Flecktones. That’s just the bands that I personally recognize or have heard. Wow! F-(/)/&:& yes.

Dynamic music, beautiful WI scenery, great Bell’s beer. Come on over. Sit a spell- my husband and Paulie will be happy to play a bit with you.