Day 23: New Orleans, LA to Austin, TX

Outline: New Orleans, LA to Austin, TX

Today was primarily a very long driving day - nearly 550 miles. The weather forecast indicated intermittent thunderstorms along essentially the entire length of the drive, but I never heard a single thunderbolt, and for the most part, the weather was good. There was a burst of heavy rain outside Baton Rouge, and another one somewhere past Houston that slowed traffic down below 30mph, but otherwise, it was clear sailing. Since the car is getting such good mileage (over 300mi/tank), I was able to do the drive on a single fillup, in Beaumont, TX (conveniently, almost exactly halfway).

The first order of business in Austin after dropping stuff off at the hotel was dinner. Having tried the best of Memphis barbecue, I thought it only fair to let Texas compete (Texas: where the barbecue goes "moo", not "oink"). Stop 1 of the evening: Rudy's Country Store and Bar-B-Q. Order: 1/2 lb extra-moist beef brisket, 1/2 chicken, 1 small side of cole slaw, and 1 small side of cream corn; six slices of white bread came with the order:

Even dinner's bigger in Texas

The chicken wasn't quite as good as Tom's in Memphis, but it was still excellent - juicy and tasty. The only complaint was that the spices were mostly retained on the skin, rather than being present the whole way through. The brisket was phenomenal, though, especially when paired with Rudy's "BBQ Sause" [sic]. The cole slaw was pretty generic (reminded me of KFC, actually), but the cream corn was spectacular. Probably the best side dish I've had with barbecue. This place was totally worth it.

After dinner, I went to explore downtown to investigate Austin's fabled music scene. I didn't really know quite what to expect, and what I got was 6th Street, where almost every bar and club had a live band playing for the audience. To start things off I stepped into Emo's, a club which (the Internets tell me) normally skews towards alternative and punk. I think tonight was metal night, though, and no objections:

I got there too late for the first band of the night, but I stuck around for #2 and 3. I haven't the slightest idea what their names were, because the mix was definitely set to minimize vocals and turn the guitars up as loud as possible. Good stuff. The music was good, the music was loud, and the showmanship was solid too, with the latter drummer occasionally kicking a cymbal because he'd run out of hands, and the backup guitarist and bassist machinegunning their way through songs.

You'd think that by now I'd have learned not to go to a rock show without earplugs, but no. I ended up skipping the headliner band because my ears were in pain (despite the ersatz paper earplugs I fashioned from scraps in my wallet). On my way back to the car I stopped by another bar on 6th because of the great blues coming from out the door:

After soothing my ears with the blues for a half hour, I decided to call it a night.

Tomorrow: Austin, TX to Dallas, TX