ROT Rally...and some other things...

This past weekend was the ROT (Republic of Texas) Rally. It's actually held at the Travis County Exposition Center. I don't even know where that is, so I went on-line and found out it cost $65 to get in. Well, that wasn't going to happen, so I just went downtown to see if there was any activity on 6th Street. Sixth Street is an area near the capital where there are a bunch of bars and restaurants and it is THE place to go in Austin. Congress Avenue is another hot spot where all the yuppies go.

I suppose there was probably a lot more activity at the Exposition Center, but I wasn't too impressed by what I saw downtown. It's supposed to be the biggest rally in Texas with a draw of about 50,000 participants. It's held from Thursday through Sunday, but I think most of the activity happens on Thursday and Friday because Saturday downtown wasn't nearly as crowded as I thought it would be.

When you've experienced the Sturgis Rally in South Dakota, every other rally pretty much pales in comparison. Sturgis is expecting about 700,000 people in August, so 50,000 doesn't seem like much to me. So they say everything is bigger in Texas, but that doesn't apply to their motorcycle rallies.

The thing about the Sturgis Rally is that it's held in a very small city in the Black Hills, so when a half a million people come there, it's a very big deal. Besides not charging any kind of entrance fees, one of the best things about it is that bikers are able to ride through the beautiful Black Hills as opposed to riding around in Austin where the traffic is horrendous even when there's NOT a rally going on. But I took some pictures anyway since I was there. This is the old part of downtown so the buildings are very historical and eclectic...with lots of tattoo parlors. People can get really crazy on 6th Street at night...you see all sorts of things. But it was pretty tame today, even with all the bikers.




That's the Coyote Ugly bar on the left...




Like the combination of old architecture against the new here...

I like all the details in this building.

I didn't see any unusual characters which made it kind of boring...especially for a rally...

And then there are the bikes. Again, I didn't see anything that really stuck out...




Dallas Cowboys bike...

This was a strange looking thing. I'm not a fan of crotch rockets.

I happened to be walking by this little scene so they posed for me. The sign on the creepy black guy says, "Keep Austin Weird." That's their slogan here and you see a lot of bumper stickers that say that. Pretty dress, huh?

So much for the ROT Rally. I'm sure I could have gotten some much better photos if I had spent the $65.

So, anyway, my motorcycle safety course is two weeks from this weekend, and I am really excited about that! Jared's taking it with me. The teacher came into my office last week and asked me whether I wanted to ride a motorcycle where I'd have to shift gears, or a scooter. Duh...silly question. I was reading the requirements for the course and one of them was that you had to have a pair of leather gloves. I don't have any leather gloves (because you don't need them in south Texas), so Paul sent me these. Yay! Thank you, Pablo!

He also sent me this vest thingy. Cute, huh??

On another note, I bought a jalapeno pepper plant about a month ago when I was getting all the flowers for my garden and I checked it the other day. Look at these bad boys!

Perfect! And these turned into...

Some homemade pico de gallo on top of a chicken breast. I use the frozen herb/garlic chicken breasts I found at Target one day...they are great! Lots of flavor.

And I thought the new bloom on my rose bush was worth a shot. I haven't even planted this thing yet...it's still in the bucket I bought it in. Maybe I'll get to that today.

That's it...the end.

Threadgill's...and Cabela's...

Now that my son, Jon, has a new vehicle (I'll post more on that some other time), I felt like a free woman this weekend. No car sharing, no picking him up or dropping him off...I didn't know what to do with myself. So I called my son, Jeff, in Austin and asked if he wanted to go to lunch. (He's a college student with no money...chances were slim that he'd turn me down for a free lunch.) He suggested Threadgill's because that's where his girlfriend works. I've posted a similar picture of this on my South Austin post, but here it is again.

I got there a few minutes before him, so I took some pictures. Interesting armadillo window treatment.

This is the artwork in the entryway. A different take on the "Hey Diddle Diddle" nursery rhyme...

Now I'm a die-hard art lover of all eras, but these two were VERY strange in my humble opinion.

Pictures like this one lined the walls around the entire restaurant. This one of Boz Scaggs was by our table. Love the shoes...do they say "70's" or what?

There is a lot of history with this restaurant...way back from 1933.

Here's the menu. I just couldn't decide between the chicken livers and the liver and onions. (I'm kidding.)

Lone Star draft beer is $1 all the time. You can't beat that with a stick...but then again, I've never had a Lone Star beer. You have to admit that the selection of side orders (vegetables) is extensive.

So here was lunch. I ordered the "world famous" chicken fried steak. I haven't had chicken fried steak in years so I was really expecting the best...especially since it was "world famous." Looks good...

...but, alas, was very bland. For all its history and "world famous" claim, it was very disappointing. The steak was kind of rubbery and hard to cut, the potatoes were so-so...as were the beans. Jeff had the ham and cheese sandwich which wasn't even worth a picture. (Besides that, he was so hungry he dove right in before I could get a shot.) Oh, well...it was worth it to get together and catch up.

So on the way back, I was glad I was in the southbound lane of I-35 because the northbound lane was much worse than it was when I came up. That's why I don't get up to Austin much...the traffic really sucks and I swear every time I come up I see an accident on the highway.

I decided to stop off at Wal-Mart on the way to pick up some necessities which happened to be right next door to...

Sidebar: The very first time I had been in a Cabela's was when they opened a new one in South Dakota when I was living there. It's in Mitchell, home of the Corn Palace (I got this photo off the web, by the way)...

If you ever get to Mitchell, South Dakota (which is totally not on the way to anywhere, so you'll probably never get there), the Corn Palace is definitely worth a stop. The sides of the building are completely done in corn cobs...and changed every year. Kind of amazing.

Anyway, it's been years since I've been in a Cabela's so I thought I'd stop in. Before I went inside, I got this picture. I love the colors of these Kayaks. I think I'd have to go with the pretty blue one...if I were into kayaking...which I'm not...but you never know...

Here's what you see when you walk in...

This guy reminded me of the ones you'd see climbing around Mt. Rushmore.

The "game" room.

And this mechanical guy was talking about something regarding camping or hunting...I wasn't really interested enough to hear what it was about. I thought it was very corny.

Lots of heads of just about every variety of horned aminal you can imagine...

Then there is the aquarium...

And on to the guns! Just about every make and model you can imagine. That little girl on the far left is looking at all the handguns in the display case. I wonder which one she's going to pick.

"Gun Library." Hmmm...is that an oxymoron if you ever saw one?

The whole Cabela's visit left me kind of depressed. The place was packed. You would never have known there is an economy problem going on. I'm not an anti-gun, anti-hunting kind of person, but between you, me and the fencepost, I think Cabela's is WAY overpriced and just a gimmick to get consumers to spend their money...which they were definitely doing today. After all, they have to get back the millions of dollars they've spent on building these ridiculous, incredibly materialistic stores. My dos centavos.

So, driving out of the parking lot, I saw this...

...but no one was around. I guess my "learn to ride" lesson will have to wait. Oh, well...