Dallas. Or, How to Be a Baller on a Budget.

Dallas (Wednesday)

In addition to graciously hosting us for two nights in Austin, Tara and John also gave us some sort-of-solicited feedback about our plan to spend Wednesday in Dallas.

John: “Dallas is a shit hole.”*

Us: “Are you sure? What about Deep Ellum? We heard that was a cool bar/nightlife district…”

John: “I mean, yeah, if you want to buy crack and bang a toothless stripper.”

Us: “What about museums or…”

John: “Shit hole.”

Us: “So… there’s nothing worthwhile to do or see in Dallas?”

John: “Nope.”

*Full disclosure: I’ve taken some creative liberties with our exact dialogue. The gist, however, remains the same.

So with no small amount of trepidation we set out Wednesday morning for the 7 hour drive to Shit Hole, TX. Allison wanted to meet an old friend for coffee, so I immediately started Yelp-ing nail salons. Let’s face it, mama needed a mani-pedi. Sidebar: Yelp has been our single greatest asset on this trip. I may even consider writing reviews of my own. You know, to pay it forward.

(Probably won’t do that.)

Yelp recommended La Nail Salon in downtown Dallas so, as the other ladies retired to a bookstore, I sat down in a massage chair and blissed out with the following:

1.    Unlimited wine. The owner was literally forcing glasses on me. Yeah, so it wasn’t good wine – I tasted notes of plastic bag – but free booze is free booze.

2.    Extended leg lovin’. My technician scoured me with a sugar scrub, slathered on a minty lotion, and wrapped my legs in hot towels (Yep, plural. None of that one-washcloth-to-cover-both-of-my-enormous-calves BS.) Then, she gave me a hot stone massage on my legs and feet.

3.    FREE paraffin hand wax. She just sprung it on me like it won’t nothin’.

4.    While my hands were wrapped in their baggies of hot wax, the technician came around behind me, lubed up her hands, and massaged my shoulders, neck, and scalp for ten (10) entire minutes.

5.    After my 1.5 hours of pampering were complete and I had a respectable mid-day buzz, she told me that my total would be… $36. I was flabbergasted. I would move to Dallas simply to get mani-pedis every other day from this Vietnamese angel.

After Allison and Stacey picked me up (and kicked themselves for missing out on the world’s best mani-pedi experience for under $50), we hopped on the M line, a free trolley that runs through downtown Dallas. In anticipation of our arrival to their fair city, it seems that Dallas officials found Billy Bob Thornton, convinced him to revive his character from Sling Blade, and taught him to drive a trolley. I restrained myself from asking our trolley driver to say, “I killed Doyle Hargraves with a lawn mower blade…” but I maintain to this day that he would’ve done a damn good impression. Or he would’ve had no idea what the hell I was talking about. One or the other.

Cruisin' on the M Line

Wheee!

Anyway, we cruised through the city center and listened to Billy Bob tell us about all the new construction and average rents for 1 bedroom condos. And then my diabetes kicked in – which, despite the best efforts of My Mother the Hypochondriac, is not a true diagnosis, but merely a last-ditch explanation for my frequent peeing, constant thirst and insatiable appetite – and we escaped the Sling Blade Express in search of dinner.

Cutesy fountain on our trek towards dinner.

Once again, Yelp didn’t disappoint: Si Tapas, a charming little Spanish tapas restaurant, represents the most delicious food I’ve ingested in months. We started off with a ginormous pitcher of sangria (if only all meals started that way…) and ordered a slew of life-changing small plates. The icing on the proverbial cake? All three of us were tipsy and stuffed-to-the-rafters full for $85. That, my friends, is a value and a half.

Fried okra with curry

I could eat those tomato-and-queso-de-Cabrales

bruscettas for the rest of my days.

Broiled asparagus and cracked-pepper tuna

At this point, we realized that we were homeless. During a rousing game of Words With Friends the previous day, I had seen an ad for an app called Hotel Tonight. As you might assume from the name, it offers super-value rates on hotel rooms booked for use tonight. If you ever succumb to the call of the open road, or find yourself a nomad for any other reason, I highly recommend it. We chose a Baymont Suites by DFW Airport for $45 a night.

Driving up the frontage road to our hotel, we saw a welcoming lavender glow… and realized that our hotel was snuggled right next door to The Gentlemen’s Club. (When I went into the foyer to check in, I considered asking whether our $45 rate was indeed nightly, or just for the hour.) To our great surprise, the hotel was GORGEOUS: two plush queen beds, an enormous flat-screen TV, microwave and fridge… What else could a girl want? To celebrate our good luck, we decided to throw down in the room with an episode of Jersey Shore and a bottle of rum. ‘Cuz that’s how ballers do it. BOOSH!

By the Time You Read This, I May Have Moved to Austin.

Austin – Day Two (Tuesday)

At last! We arrived in Austin at around 11:30pm on Monday night and were welcomed by my friend Tracie’s sweet friends Tara and John. They took one look at our tear-stained cheeks and travel-rumpled clothes… and immediately offered us wine. Clearly, Tara and John are our kind of people.

In-the-process-of-being-converted garage =
power outlets on the ceiling.

We took over their in-the-process-of-being-converted garage and snuggled in for a brief 5 hours of sleep to prepare for….

TUESDAY!

At 5:30am, Stacey roused us from our slumbers and we trundled outside in the morning half-light to watch the sun rise. Mount Bonelle is the highest point in Austin. It can be summated by climbing 100 steps and, from its peak, offers a panoramic view of the city. Sounds good to me… But, “Mount”? That’ll do, Austin Tourism Bureau. If I can reach the summit in less than 5 minutes and/or without getting winded, that geological formation does not deserve the title of “Mount.”

Hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself. Back at John and Tara’s…

The night before, John informed us that Hill Bonelle was a mere 15 minutes away. Under this advisement, we left about 35 minutes before sunrise. Stacey Googled a Starbucks on the way-ish but, because Texan highways make zero sense, we got immediately lost. And stuck in more traffic. AND, after consulting GPS and Google Maps, we realized that John was on crack last night, because Hill Bonelle was 25 minutes away from their house.

Here is where the Law of Jinx comes into play. If we had said, “Oh we can make it!”… we definitely would not have made it. By keeping our expectations low and refusing to bow to the pressure of optimism, we ensured that we DID, in fact, make it up all 100 steps to the peak of Hill Bonelle before the sun rose. BAM! Suck it, Jinx!

The "hike" to "Mount" Bonelle

At the summit!

Good morning, Austin!

Gettin' sassy on the Mount

Brunch at Kerbey Lane Cafe

Freaking delicious. And yes, those are Lemon Poppyseed Pancakes.

Unfortunately, Jinx wasn’t done with our ragtag crew. Stacey discovered while at brunch that her credit card was missing again. (We now staple it to her ass every morning.) “Maybe it fell out of my clutch when we unpacked the car last night,” she mused. To keep her from freaking out, Allison and I eagerly agreed: “Of course! It’s probably lying in the driveway at Tara and John’s! Nothing to worry about! It’ll definitely be there!”

Jinx is a cruel mistress. The credit card was not there. By this time, however, Stacey was getting wise: “It must’ve been stolen,” she said. “I know it’s not in the house.” And where should we find it? Under her exploded suitcase, in the in-the-process-of-being-converted garage.

Crisis averted, we headed back to downtown Austin to explore Zilker Park and Town Lake by bicycle. I freaking love biking around (flat) places: there’s a built-in breeze, it feels vaguely athletic, and the scenery goes by quickly enough that I don’t lose interest. On this blisteringly hot day, we hit the road with chilled water bottles (which promptly became lukewarm) and a park map that we didn’t actually need, since Stacey has an internal GPS that never ceases to amaze me/make me look like a cross-eyed fool.

Let the Ninny BikeFest begin!

On the Lady Bird Lake trail

Zilker Park : Austin :: Central Park : NYC, except maybe awesomer. There’s a big stretch of trail next to the river designated as an off-leash zone. So, as we cycled by, dozens of dogs bounded around, jumped in the water, chased each other, and made me miss Rowdy and Bruiser like crazy.

Look at the puppies playin' in the water :) 

Zilker Park is also home to Barton Springs, a section of the Colorado River that has been dammed off to provide a natural swimming hole for Austinites. In spite of the 15-year-old “lifeguard” on duty who demanded that we eat our apples before entering the pool area, Barton Springs was stellar. We lay on a grassy hillside, drank lukewarm Coke Zeros, and read magazines. After an hour or so, we ventured to the water’s edge and HOLY GOD it was frigid! We did swim to the other side and back (because Allison’s a masochist) and, once my extremities went numb, I decided that it really wasn’t that bad.

Barton Springs

Rockin' our Barton Springs admission hand stamps.

Fast-forward through a delicious bowl of guacamole and some miscellaneous other stops…

Pretties on the bridge, waitin' on those bats!

We rounded out our active day with a sunset bat-viewing at the Congress Street bridge. Apparently a herd of bats lives underneath the bridge and they fly out at the stroke of sunset to search for prey. Granted, Austin is nicknamed the Bat City… but I still didn’t anticipate seeing more than 10 or 20 bats. Nevertheless we arrived in the general vicinity of the bridge at 7:50pm for the 7:45pm sunset, parked illegally, and rushed across four lanes of rush-hour traffic to… wait awkwardly while those bats took their sweet ass time. At about 8:10pm, after we had tired of taking faux-candid photos and spying on fellow tourists, the squeaks and rustles from under the bridge began to intensify. All at once, a veritable flood of bats zoomed from beneath the bridge up to tree-level, and then zigzagged along the river into the distance. Very cool. But what really blew my mind was that the bats just kept on coming! (Nope, that’s not what she said.) We stood there and gawked for about 20 minutes, and they were still streaming out when we left. Dang Austin! You may tell some white lies regarding the mountainousness of your topography, but you’ve definitely earned the Bat City moniker. 

Look at them go!

Pardon Me While I Whine

New Orleans – Day Three/Austin – Day One (Monday)

Our plan for Monday morning was as follows:

8:00am. Wake up, shower, and check out of the hotel.

9:00am. Grab breakfast at the famed Old Coffee Pot.

10:00am. Leave for Austin, TX.

What really happened:

9:00am. Meredith and Stacey roll out of bed (Allison has already been up for over an hour. I don’t know why.)

10:00am. We cruise into the Old Coffee Pot. It’s barren, with heinous décor. Trusting that the line of eager patrons-to-be yesterday morning couldn’t be wrong, we sat and ordered. Actually, we sat, received glasses of water, and waited. For a Long Ass Time. Allison passed the time by spilling her full ice water all over Stacey’s (ridiculously expensive) camera. Only then did a server appear… to reprimand us for giving her additional work so early in the morning. We thought she was joking with us to build rapport. Later we would learn that this was not the case.

If you don’t know me well (or maybe even if you do), you might guess from the following statements that I’m a raging bitch. Let me take a moment to explain.

I’ve worked in food service for years. I’ve worked in dive bars and more upscale venues. I’ve served and bartended while I was hungover, nursing a cold, in the midst of a break-up, and with wine/ketchup/butternut squash soup splashed all over my front. I’ve been triple-sat, covered multiple sections because of under-staffing, and dealt with bullshit from the kitchen boys. But I have done my very best not to take these tragedies out on the customer. A polite, cheerful attitude is a server’s bread-and-butter. I don’t care if your cat just got eaten by an alligator, I expect good service. I’ve done it. It’s not that hard.

Back to my review of the Old Coffee Pot o’ Shit.

We waited nearly 20 minutes for our server to take our order, despite the fact that we were one of two tables in the entire restaurant… and there were three servers.

Receiving our food took forever, as did a coffee refill. (The waitress had the nerve to ask, “If I pour this, are you really gonna drink it? Or are you gonna waste it?”) When we finally finished eating our mediocre meals, we received the check and noticed that she had automatically added 18% gratuity, even though we didn’t split our check and we’re only a party of three. Busch league.

But I digress. The point of this story is that the service took so long, including the return of our credit card after we paid the bill, that we actually forgot that we hadn’t received it back. So we left.

11:30am. After the mile-ish walk to our car, Stacey realized that:

1.    She left her pillow at the hotel. And,

2.    Her credit card wasn’t in her purse.

We quickly deduced that the missing card was still at the Old Coffee Pot, so we drove through the maze of one-way streets to retrieve it. Our plot was foiled, however, by a backhoe parked in the middle of a one-lane, one-way street. We were trapped for 25 minutes or more, while I assume the driver of said backhoe tipped back a couple brewskies to celebrate the noon hour.

12:30pm. Credit card in hand, we finally got on the road to Austin… only to sit in traffic for EVER. The journey should have taken 8 hours. With severe traffic on and off all day, it ended up taking 10 hours.

Cool bridge. And one of the few times we were
moving at more than 35 mph.

After my bitch-fest, y'all deserve some bloopers.
Here's me trying to climb onto the construction wall thingee.

Success!

Fun fact: at some point, Stacey felt led to check her credit card activity – and that slut bucket at Old Coffee Pot had run her card for exactly $20 more than our already-auto-gratted total! Ol’ girl is damn lucky that we were already in Texas by that time.

Recounting this day is making me cranky. Suffice to say, everything was pretty shitty.

Our first Texan sunset

Who Dat?!: Nola, Part Deux

After careful consideration, it seems I have left out some crucial details from our night of Nola debauchery. I apologize for the oversight. It will probably happen again.

I’ll pick up where we left off – which, if you recall, is drunk and wandering the French Quarter.

7. Who needs an upcoming Lenten season for Mardi Gras?! Apparently not our friends in Nola. As we trundled along in search of gay bars with less rigorous standards, we encountered a troupe of drunk men throwing beads from a balcony to passersby in the street. I believe my thought process was “Well, when in Rome…” (Or, more likely, “Ooh shiny!! I want!”) A millisecond of boobies was rewarded with showers of green, purple and gold plastic, which I happy gathered up and donned. My gaiety was shattered, however, by this asshole who started snatching some of my beads! Clearly an explanation of the Mardi-Gras-bead-winning order of events was warranted. And it went something like this: “HEY! Those are MY beads, you fuck!” I’m happy to report that I was victorious in that altercation. (Though victory was probably due more to the embarrassment I rained upon that pudgy, balding-at-35 thief than my eloquent argument.)

8. Another “when in Rome” opportunity occurred in the midst of the aforementioned rag-tag parade. While we gawked at fanny-packs and beer-can hair curlers, a pair of scruffy dudes approached us. No more than 15 seconds of small talk had passed before one of them produced a pipe and offered us a toke. Umm… Not only is that hella sketchy (and probably would have resulted in rape, which I had expressly promised Mimi that I would avoid) but I have no interest in exchanging even the most incidental molecules of saliva with wasted strangers. Eww. And we were in the middle of the street! I thought stoners were supposed to be super paranoid, not happily brandishing their pot and paraphernalia for all to see.

9. Once the adventuring spirit had worn off, we headed back to the hotel. Or, tried to head back to the hotel. Somehow, over the course of the evening, our hotel had completely disappeared. Literally. Stacey repeatedly tried to type “Old French Quarter Hotel” into her Maps app, only to be told that Google “cannot calculate directions to this location.” However, what Stacey read was, “Try again, bitch! Find your own way!” … Which began an anti-AT&T rampage that endured for nearly 30 minutes. “I have full bars! And 3G! I’m calling those assholes at AT&T, this is bullshit.” – brief pause to unsuccessfully find contact information on the AT&T website – “Those bastards!! They don’t even have a number!” (AT&T Customer Service Reps on duty at 3am on August 14 should thank their lucky stars that Stacey was too inebriated to navigate to the website’s “Contact Us” tab. There would have been a great many tears in Bangladesh if she’d actually gotten ahold of someone.)

I believe that rounds out Saturday night.

New Orleans – Day Two (Sunday)

Sunday morning found us mysteriously dehydrated and nauseous. After lounging around and feeling sorry for ourselves for an hour or so, we finally ventured out to The Old Coffee Pot for breakfast. This eatery had come highly recommended and – surprise! – had a line down the sidewalk for Sunday brunch. Um, eff that. So we walked down a few blocks and stopped at Devines Café. Little did we know the food-gasm that awaited us. Picture this: a perfectly fried egg and generous slab of fresh mozzarella, nestled between two thick slices of ciabatta, both of which have been lovingly brushed with melted butter and Panini-grilled. AND served with a side of prosciutto-wrapped cantaloupe. Life-changing.

After brunch, we window-shopped around the Quarter, took a swamp boat ride, held a baby gator named Elvis... You know, the ush. Unfortunately, after the awesomeness of Saturday, Sunday really couldn’t compare. I do want to give a shout-out to Cajun Pride swamp tours. If you're ever in LaPlace, LA, you should take a cruise with Captain Coyote. He's been bitten by a gator, so he's pretty legit.

Heyyy, Big Papa!

Baby Elvis. Don't squeeze his belly,
or he'll pee on you!

Post-tour @ Cajun Pride

I Lied...

After a rousing episode of Jersey Shore, I've decided to catch y'all up on Day 1 of New Orleans real quick.

New Orleans – Day One (Saturday)

The road to New Orleans was paved with boredom and frequent bathroom stops. I should mention at this juncture that I have the bladder of a pregnant possum, i.e., small. I pee every hour, on the hour. If forced to "hold it," I revert to age 4 and begin a "pee-pee dance". It's just like it sounds: a lot of bouncing and general whining. By the time we entered Louisiana, I had peed on the side of the highway of no less than 3 states. You're welcome, truckers. There's your show.

We began a fun tradition of photo-ops with every state’s Welcome sign. As well as a freebie bathroom break for me, this also provided an opportunity for us to stretch our legs and get some antsy energy out.

Awakening the insect hellions.

Speaking of ants. In Mississippi, we decided to mix up the standard “smile for the camera” routine and add some pizzazz to our pics. Allison suggested that we take a picture with all of us jumping in mid-air. Easier said than done, my friends. The ol’ time-delay function, which had allowed us to take full portraits of our whole crew, severely handicapped our jumping picture – to the tune of 6 to 8 unsuccessful shots of us in our landing stances, crouching less-than-gracefully on the shoulder of the interstate. Unbeknownst to us, a giant hill of biting ants has taken up residence directly under the Welcome to Mississippi sign. The little monsters rewarded us for our creative efforts with painful red bites all over our toes. I would like to point out that, though we all were bit, only Allison continued to bellyache about her ant bites well into the weekend. Big baby.

Get ready, New Orleans, the party has arrived!

Our first view of Nola was... Repulsive. Repugnant. A rat's nest of shit and misery. Why does anyone live there? Katrina or no, I have never seen such a filthy, poorly-designed area in my life. Highways twist around on top of each other with no regard for the rules of physics. Even the highly-anticipated Superdome stands forlornly in a parking lot of rubble underneath a graffitti'd overpass. I seriously could spit--or pee--on it from the interstate.

So it was with great surprise that we drove into the French Quarter and discovered... jubilant drunkards! Clad in red dresses, they weaved their inebriated asses on, off, and through the streets. We later learned that a charity Red Dress Run had occurred earlier that day, but the welcome was priceless. Nothing like a little cross-dressing to lift a girl's spirits. 

We checked into our room at the Historic French Quarter Inn and were floored. (Thank you, Mike Black, for treating us!) The hotel was built in the 1700s -- freaking gorgeous -- with a huge open-air courtyard in the center. Delicious. We set down our luggage and immediately began prettying up for a night on the town.

View from our room into the courtyard.

The view into our presh hotel room.

Lookin' good, girls!

And what a night it was.

The French Quarter was crowded with people: from the aforementioned Red Dress Run, as well as artsy-fartsies celebrating Dirty Linen Night (New Orleans’ equivalent of First Friday in Raleigh, a night of art and alcohol). We giddily roamed the streets, Abita beers in hand. Sidebar: the single most awesome thing about Nola is the general encouragement of boozin’ on the go. In Austin, we would also learn that Louisiana supports open containers for car passengers as well. But at that point, it was too little, too late. The moral of that story: do your research.

Gettin' artsy. This is the culture we experienced before the, ahem,  culture.

As we wandered and/or weaved along, we encountered:

1. Gina the Fortune Teller. I will bear a set of fraternal twins. Also, I should beware a man with salt-and-pepper hair in November of this year.

"I see that you have a long life ahead of you." "I hope so, bitch, I'm only 25!"

2. The most skeezy strip bar in all of the South. You may think you know sleeze. I am here to tell you that no, you do not. We (well, let’s be honest, this was all my idea) were lured by a hand-lettered sign reading “TITS AND WISKEY” – yes, whiskey was adorably misspelled – and no cover charge. If an establishment is brazen enough to advertise their services in this manner, I feel that it deserves my dolla dolla bills y’all.

Yep. We actually walked in here. And walked out with zero STDs. Win.

Upon entrance to this brothel, I mean strip bar, we sat our pretty little selves down in the front row and watched a procession of awkward, pot-bellied ladies dry-hump the stage. And then, a woman whom I can only describe as the stereotypical brothel madame approached us and forced my head into her cleavage. Yes. That happened. My face was raped. It was a non-consensual motorboat. Fortunately for her, I was 5’s of beers down and just laughed. But really! Women should be more careful where they smoosh their titties.

While Stacey sneakily took photos of these shenanigans on her phone, and Allison tried to melt into the floor, I struck up a rousing conversation with another stripper, Tina. We chit-chatted about babies and how hard it is to make a living for a few minutes, until I finished my beer and we headed out. Sweet thing, I hope she makes it through nursing school…

3. Once we extricated ourselves from the love den, we found ourselves in the middle of a parade down Royal Street. People played all manner of instruments (including a tie constructed with washboard metal) and frolicked in whatever fashions they found in the Laundromat lost-and-found: one man sported jorts as well as a womens nightgown, while another wore a red silk dressing gown and a black beret. We danced. It was amazing.

Please note the outfits.

4. We found a fancy lingerie store (aptly named “Oh!”) and, as I rifled through their sale racks, we found an enormous display of old-school ladies’ hats. It’s simple math. Drunk girls + fancy hats = FASHION SHOW!! Stacey found an equestrian hat and insisted it was somehow Irish: “Top o’ the mornin’!” Like I said. Drunk. On an unrelated note, we had taken a mere 10 self-portraits before we were kindly asked to make our purchases and GTFO. Bastards. I got some super cute panties though, cha-ching!

Beautiful! Work it!

5. Gay bars. Our main purpose in out-on-the-town-ing was to sample some of the legen…. wait for it…. dary gay bars in Nola. Through some act of God, we actually found The Corner Pocket and sashayed in the doorway like we owned the place. … Only to be prompted shooed out for “lack of penis”. Stacey even tried to tell the bouncer that I was a lesbian (thanks, Stace), but to no avail. No penis, no party.

Subsequent gay bars were equally discriminating. Not that I blame them. To be honest, the LGBTQ community deals with enough shit on a daily basis. If they want an LGBTQ-only bar, let them have it! Rock on.

6. Banned from the cool bars, we had to settle for clubs that accepted straighties. Moments after we found a hetero-bar, a tiny leprechaun of a Guido came up to dance. And by “dance”, I mean “assaulted us with his pint-sized peenie and tried to pass it off as the bump-and-grind.” In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t told him to eff off so quickly. Stacey’s been itching to mace somebody and, after he humped my calf for an entire Chris Brown song, I think homeboy was asking for it.

Events transpiring after about 2am are hazy, so I won’t bother lying to you. If you’re curious, I’m sure Stacey drunk-tweeted additional details.

Don’t worry, Dad. We all ended up safe in our beds with our purses, phones, and no boys. No harm, no foul.