Death by Food Truck: Adventures in Austin

After some flight delay drama, Steve and I arrived in Austin, Texas near midnight last Friday. As we stepped out of the terminal into the absurdly hot and sticky night, our friend Jack was there to meet us and whisk us back to his blissfully air-conditioned house.

Like me and Steve, Jack did his undergrad at UC Santa Cruz. However, we didn't meet him on campus. Steve met him when the two young men worked at Circuit City together. We spent a lot of time with Jack in those days, watching movies and irreverent comedy, hanging out and chatting. We continued the tradition when Jack moved away, traveling to visit him as graduate school took him first to Corvallis, Oregon and then Tempe, Arizona. Now that Jack is living and doing research in Austin, Texas, Steve and I hopped on a plane to get our fix.

Among our activities, though melting a bit in the heat and humidity, we had a great time at a local BYOB (welcome to Texas!) mini-golf course. 

Selfie with, as the golfers ahead of us put it, "creepy Tinkerbell":

(If I'd known I was going to squint so much, I probably would have just left my sunglasses on.)

Steve and Jack with the pretty princess butterfly castle (Jack with backpack full of beer): 

 Me and Jack with T-Rexas:

Steve and me with the armadillo tower of power: 

That evening, we went out to the Congress Avenue bridge. This attraction is so well known, Steve and I purchased a magnet commemorating it from the Austin airport on our way out of town. People (like us) gather on the bridge at dusk to watch an unreal number of bats stream out from their daytime sleeping quarters under the bridge and off into the night to hunt insects.

Pictures of this event don't look like much due to the low light, so here's one of me looking excited and Jack looking pensive ahead of the bat explosion:

After the bat swarm (which was AWESOME), we all headed over to one of the Alamo Drafthouse movie theater locations to watch a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was not only a screening though, it was a Master Pancake show. Master Pancake is basically a live Mystery Science Theater 3000, where comedians make jokes about the movie throughout. It was incredibly funny.

We enjoyed the Alamo Drafthouse so much, we went out the following day to another location to watch the newest Mission Impossible flick. These theaters serve food and drinks to you at your seat, enforce a strict no talking and no phones (including texting) policy, and have a generally awesome ambiance. Mission Impossible always delivers thoroughly enjoyable action, so a good time was had by all.

To round out the movies for the weekend, we watched the most recent Mad Max film at Jack's house. It was... insane. And that's about all I have to say about that one.

I'd seen Austin referred to as the "land of food trucks" and seen many jokes about the phenomenon. From what I could see, the title is very much earned. I suspect there is a food truck in Austin for every conceivable edible and potable. In addition to the burgers and such that one would expect, we saw a trailer devoted to ravioli, had brunch at one that served breakfast tacos, and saw one specializing in tea.

Obligatory Austin BBQ was on the menu one afternoon. We waited in a lengthy queue, and were rewarded with meaty goodness.

Jack is stunned and horrified at my wanton destruction and double-fisting of ribs and brisket:

Probably the most unhealthy things the three of us have ever eaten were obtained from this Airstream trailer named Gourdough's Big Fat Donuts (truth in advertising if there ever has been):

Mine weren't too ridiculous, doughnut holes filled with blueberry jam and swimming in yet more blueberry sauce:

Jack's was a bit worse, coated in frosting and peaches. Steve's was an improbable quantity of bacon stacked precariously on a maple glazed doughnut.

Though buried as they were under the absurd toppings, the quality of the underlying doughnuts was outstanding. The combinations we tried were all delicious, though I think Steve's was my favorite.

Unholy bacon maple doughnut... yum...

I behaved myself and only stole two small bites.

With the rest of our time there, we did some shopping, had some delicious tacos at Austin's locally-famous Torchy's, enjoyed whisky and pecan gelato, and watched at least half a dozen episodes of The Soup (a show we used to often watch with Jack a decade ago when we all still lived in the same city).

It was a fantastic trip. Great location and even better company. Hopefully we'll find our way back soon.