On our last day in Austin, Roger and I headed to South Congress again for a late pancake breakfast at Magnolia Cafe. Cornmeal and pecan for me, chocolate chip for Roger. If you haven't picked up on it already, I was a big fan of the area.

Venturing down South Congress, we walked in and out of a bunch of cool shops, which was one of the highlights of my Texas trip. So many flamboyant, colorful buildings, so many pleasant people. I hadn't really anticipated purchasing anything, but on our walk to the car, I had four new items in my bag:

1. Silver barrette from an antique store

2. Gold peacock pendant necklace from another antique store (after that store, Roger was tired of antiquing)

3. A pouch of venison jerky

4. A pouch of beef teriyaki jerky (3 and 4 were purchased from the same local meat processing company - Hudson's sausage company. How could I not go in?)

So that's it. Jewelry and meat.

Speaking of meat! That Monday night was the night of the group Salt Lick trip! I had been looking forward to this dinner since I started talking to Roger about SXSW. Good ol' fashion Texas BBQ in the country, about a 50-minute drive from Austin. The above photo of Roger photographing a can of Lonestar with his recently purchased film camera (heyyyy Craigslist) at Salt Lick, I felt, was a much better way to end this story than by just showing a plate of meat, no matter how delicious.

Ice cream was the next stop, but I blew that photo op, so the photo part of the impromptu Texas adventure ends here.

Roger and I drove back to Dallas on Tuesday morning, having just enough time to catch Dan for dinner. We took the long, scenic route to nicely round up my first taste of Texas.

After some margaritas in Dallas, off to the airport and back to New York we went.

3.21.11