ACL festival

Last weekend was a marathon event of attending all three days of the Austin City Limits Festival. It was touch and go sometimes, I have turned into a weather wimp living all these years in Seattle. Multiple days spent outside in mid-90 degree weather was straining the limits. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate and SPF50 nuclear blast worthy sunscreen. It was an amazing time, and if all the Austin natives hadn't been commenting the whole time how mild the weather was, I would buy my ticket for next year's event right now.

http://www.aclfestival.com/default.aspx

Here are the two items that ran my life for the 3 days, the bracelet to get in and the show schedule.


















This is a picture taken near the beginning of the day. The crowd is pretty thin when the festival first opens every day. Each day ran from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.























This is a picture showing how big the crowd was at the middle of the day. It grew even bigger later.


















The festival was at Zilker Park, which is a huge park in the city. There were large open areas, and a few really big trees. This tree was near a stage that was inside a big tent. The acts that played on this stage were some of my favorites, maybe because they were smaller acts and the crowds were smaller and you could get closer to the stage.























Here is a picture of Kurt and I at "base camp". We would get to the festival soon after it openned and set up camp chairs and blanket under the same tree everyday. Throughout the day, Kurt's friends would swing by and see if anyone was there.



















It was a great location, close to one of the large stages, near the beer tent, near a tent that was air conditioned with internet access and most importantly, it was in shade most of the day. Here is a view of the beer tent as seen from the camp chair. The bright blue parts at the bottom right of the photo are the music stage and the video screen that shows what is happening on the stage.























While in Austin, Kurt gave me the free, hour tour of the sites. This is a view looking out over one of the lakes (it looks like a river to me too). This viewpoint is definitely not on the official tours, the hike up is treacherous and once false move sends you into the river.



















Kurt lives on a lake. Except his boat ramp currently leads to a beach, not water. On the right hand side of the tree in this photo is his dock, somewhere off to the left of the photo is the water. It would be a bit of a hike to get to the water.























This is a view of Kurt's house, it has a very impressive deck. I think there were about 4 different levels, but I lost count.
























Also, while in Austin, I had dinner with another Carmel High School friend, Shari, and her family. They live in nearby Dripping Springs on a great ranch full of horses, ponies, cats, rabbits, skunks and deer. Basically every creature that walks on four legs eventually spends time at their home. Unfortunately, I was still dazed from my flight to Austin, and forgot to take any pictures.

It was a great vacation. I was able to spend time with friends, make new friends, see a great city and hear some great live music. It makes it hard to come back to Seattle and return to the working life.

(on a sidenote: currently in Seattle it is 56 degrees and scattered showers, a much more sane approach to a Fall day)