I've been jumping around time-wise, so let's get back to post-Iceland. Immediately post-Iceland.

I had been debating on taking a trip down to Austin for SXSW for a few weeks, but decided that Iceland would be enough... that is until I saw that yet another one of my photographer friends was making a last-minute trip down to Austin. As it turned out, he was going to fly into Dallas on Thursday, rent a car and drive to Austin. I was still in Iceland, but it sounded like a fun time to me to try and coordinate. Flights were $220 from NY to Dallas, so I thought that it would be a definite go.

That is until I looked the next day and airfare had jumped up to $500. That was a definite no-go. Just in case, I started planning with him and with my other photog/musician friends who were already down there and shooting/playing. So when I came home from Iceland Thursday morning, I checked in with my Getty editors and I looked at airfare again to see if I could get a flight out that night or on Friday. Sadly, it was already too late for Thursday, but Friday? Friday had jumped back to $220 and shooting for Getty was a go! Done. Bought Thursday after noon, leave Friday night.

Now, the problem was that Casey had already flown to Dallas and rented the car on Thursday. So... Greyhound from Dallas to Austin on Saturday morning it was! 3.5 hours? What could happen?

Another problem? My flight would get in at 11:30 p.m. Friday night and not only was the Dallas Greyhound station in a sketchy place, but the shuttle didn't run from the airport to the station that late.

So, my good friend and super photog, Roger Kisby, asked one of his best friends, Dan Fields, if there was anything he could do. Dan, being the nicest/sweetest person on Earth, offered to both pick my last-minute butt up from the airport, allow me to crash for the night and take me to the bus station in the morning.

When Dan and I arrived at his house, I met his beautiful wife, Amy. Spending the rest of the night on their porch, we all got to know each other over a bottle of wine and the cool Texas air (and sweet and spicy pickles!!!). I had known then, that no matter what happened later in the trip, that I had made the right decision to come down to Texas.

Fast forward to the a.m. - we missed the original bus I was supposed to take into Austin, but who cares? Neither one of us had had breakfast and breakfast was completely in order. Time for adventure! Dan took me to a great little place called the Market Diner, where ordering the banana bread french toast was a must for me (above). Banana bread french toast!?! Who thought of doing that? Deeeelicious.

Longer story shorter... my next dirty Greyhound ended up being two-hours late. Yes, I missed at least three SXSW shows I was supposed to shoot early Saturday afternoon, but I made some eclectic new friends waiting in the Greyhound line, which I will not go into detail about at this time. I didn't end up getting into Austin until 3:00ish, but at this point, all of this was just getting silly.

Including the fact that Roger had to get to his next shoot and couldn't pick me up from Austin's Greyhound station. So... enter the second of Roger's incredible friends, Mr. Greg Browning. Greg picked me up and the rest is history! Or rather more to follow with the next few entries!

Photo: The wonderful Dan Fields and banana bread french toast breakfast at the Market Diner in Dallas, TX.