SXSW

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I was ready for something completely different so I headed for Austin during the SXSW festival. At the same time my other longing was to bring my dog on a vacation trip instead of leaving him behind. I successfully accomplished both simultaneously and rate it as one of the best vacations ever. I live in Virginia so it's about 24 hours of driving in all. I think we saw about 50 or more Cracker Barrel restaurants on our route. It came in handy on the drive home. You can rent a book on tape and drop it off for a refund at another location. Sweet! The weather was terrific, the atmosphere of Austin was all and more than I imagined and the music was all over the place. We really only sampled a small taste of what was available that week. I have all the videos on my Youtube channel and they are marked SXSW in the title. One of our favorite surprises was the chance to see Roky Erickson of the 13th floor Elevators band from the sixties. (I appologize for the poor quality of the videos. I was short and could not see the screen on my camera.If I could do it over again it would be much better) Another treat was seeing Jessica Lea Mayfield at Waterloo Records. ( My exuse for her video is I had my dog on a leash while videoing and could not move up front and had to watch him because we were surrounded by people) I did not plan this trip in advance at all so we did not have wrist band or badge. There was still an excess of music that could be enjoyed without the official SXSW wristband/badge that we hardly knew we were missing out on anything. Here are some pictures of my week. I cant wait to go back again and again. Next time we will fly and get a wrist band for more access.