Before the Ball

Until recently, my friend and fellow blogger, Lauren Mauldin, lived in Austin, Texas. 

When I first agreed to judge at Shannon Southard's A Midwinter Night's Ball live show, I just assumed Lauren and I would spend a day together, playing with her horse and seeing the sights. It was a really good plan until Lauren (and her horse) moved to California.

photo by Lauren Mauldin

Fortunately, by the time that happened, Erin Corbett had also made plans to attend the show. Like me, she wanted to see more of Austin than the inside of a show hall, so we got together on Friday morning and headed downtown.

Upon the advice of friends, including Lauren, our destination was the South Congress area.

We walked up and down Congress Avenue...

and it was every bit as fun and quirky as I'd expected Austin to be.

We drank margaritas at Guero's Taco Bar...

photo by Erin Corbett

and mimosas at Perlas. 

Then we went shopping.

Erin bought a t-shirt... 

photo by Erin Corbett

and I bought some 1:9 scale rubber chickens.

Neither of us made a purchase at Allen's Boots, but this was definitely where'd I go if I needed cowboy boots. 

They had all the boots!

All. Of. Them.

I still don't know we resisted!

On our way out of town, we also made a quick stop at the Texas State Capitol. 

This wasn't the day I'd expected to have in Austin, but it was a wonderful day, nonetheless.

Thanks for exploring Austin with me, Erin. I'm so glad everything worked out the way it did!