Day 2.42: Austin, TX to Little Rock, AR

We got up and loaded the rest of our stuff, departing the hotel a little after 9:30am. Arielle finished the pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer for breakfast.

We had a more leisurely and stop-filled drive than usual. We were stopped in standstill traffic because of an accident ahead shortly into the drive, and decided to make our first stop after passing a Buc-ee’s on the side of the road. Arielle described this Texas phenomenon as a Wawa, Cost Plus, and souvenir shop all in one, and Abe adds that there is a deli counter with barbecue for purchase and so many nuts, trail mixes, and novelties. We ultimately bought just one postcard and left. We continued on until we stopped at a gas station that included a Texas Best Smokehouse in it. Abe decided to get some sliced brisket (which was quite tasty) with rosemary potatoes and green beans on the side. Arielle came in to wash her lettuce and make a turkey sandwich with the kosher meat she had brought from home and had kept cold in our fridge and then our cooler since. Hilariously, she decided not to eat it after getting a craving for In-n-Out, which we found about thirty miles later, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to get it for the rest of the trip. The best part, aside from Arielle’s delicious grilled cheese animal-style and fries, was that she went in to try to recycle the bottle of Minute Maid Lemonade that Abe had finished and they just told her to refill it with lemonade!

We drove through humorously-named places like Arkadelphia and Texarkana, which brought us back into the state of Arkansas. Though we had originally planned to go all the way to Memphis, we had decided earlier in the weekend to spend the night in Little Rock instead. Though construction delayed us considerably once we entered Arkansas, we didn’t get in too late, checking in to the Best Western Plus JFK Inn and Suites before 8pm.

There was a Tropical Smoothie Cafe essentially in the parking lot, so we walked there and Abe got a Chia Banana Boost, which featured roasted banana, chia seeds, almonds, whole grain oats, cinnamon, dates, and coconut. He replaced the choice of strawberries or peanut butter with more banana. It was delicious and quite reasonably-priced. We will be checking out this chain again!

Back in the room, Abe microwaved two bowls of Easy Mac that we had been carrying with us and Arielle ate the sandwich she had made for lunch while we relaxed and watched some TV.

Approximate number of miles covered: 520

Day 2.41: Austin, TX

We woke up to catch Abe’s thirty-fourth and last movie of the festival, this one held at a satellite venue, the AFS Cinema. We mostly enjoyed the bizarre Sister Aimee, and it was nice to go to a less crowded theater with plenty of parking.

We drove about ten minutes to Veracruz All Natural, which was recommended by our friend Naomi, to meet Jess, who Abe went to high school with and hadn’t seen in more than a decade. It was great to catch up! The food was also delicious – the tacos had great veggies and flavor, though they were hard to keep together.

Our next stop was at Coffee Bean, of course, the last time that Abe would have it on this trip. We drove to the very nearby LBJ Presidential Library, where we became annual members so that we could start visiting the libraries all around the country. We spent about two hours walking through the library and learning about what LBJ did while in office – this is an impressive place! We went back to the hotel and packed about half of our stuff into the car since it had been practically empty for the entire time we spent in Austin. We headed out to Hopdoddy, a famed burger place that was insanely crowded when we pulled up. We thought we were going to have to pay $15 for the first hour of parking but were relieved to learn that two hours at the garage behind the restaurant came free with validation. We did nearly get charged though since Abe wasn’t paying close attention to the clock, but we eventually got out just in the nick of time. Arielle got to pose with a very appealing poster before we met Jon, who Abe had seen a week earlier and knew Abe would comment about his recent haircut, and his friend Chris, who was very nice and asked some great insightful questions about what we did. The line moved more quickly than we expected, and it was completely worth the wait! Abe got a bison burger that hilariously came open-faced, and Arielle got the impossible burger with no onions and extra pickles. Chris was the only one who got a milkshake which he said was delicious. We also saw a waiter carrying a crazy number of dishes on his arm.

After a thoroughly satisfying meal, we walked across the street to another Amy’s location, where we both got the orange chocolate chip, which was better in sample than it was in execution. Arielle got 3 scoops in a tiny size and put it on a cone: orange chocolate chip, Mexican vanilla, and Oreo.

We drove back to hotel and finished packing everything, ready to depart the next morning for a new city for the first time in a while.

Approximate number of miles covered: 11

Day 2.32 to 2.40: Austin, TX (and Los Angeles, CA)

Because we weren’t actually traveling over this nine-day period, we’re condensing these days to just one post. Abe stayed in Austin for the whole time covering the SXSW film festival, while Arielle flew back to Los Angeles from Thursday through Tuesday to spend some time with family.

Arielle’s trip home included some business meetings, seeing some friends, and delicious kosher meat (which she had been sorely deprived of for most of the last month). She met Sabrina for brunch, spent Shabbat Live with Malahat and lunch with Craig, had dinner with her parents’ Saturday night crew, engineered a surprise rendezvous with Kevin, went to spin and her favorite restaurant, Big Fish, with Jessie and family, had dinner with Lisa, breakfast with Denise, and a lovely Shabbat dinner with her parents and sister Cindy. It was a whirlwind but it was exciting!

Abe, on the other hand, didn’t do much besides movies, though he did meet high school friend Jon for dinner at Terry Black’s Barbecue on Thursday night after taking Arielle to the airport in the morning and picking up his SXSW credentials and getting the Bluetooth looked at and tuned a bit, which made it moderately better. He joined Austin B-cycle, one of the many local bikeshares most similar to CitiBike in New York City, which he used to get between movies throughout the week. He got a weekly bus pass which was only $11.25, but realized that it was actually more expensive than the four or so trips he took in the morning would have been since he had to take an Uber home each night due to the bus stop being a fifteen-minute walk from the hotel that would have been very deserted. He saw thirty-four movies over the course of the festival – you can read all of his reviews here. Cool actors and directors pictured below are: Xander Berkeley (24 and The Walking Dead), Timothy Simons (Veep), Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice), Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron, Boyz II Men at their surprise concert following the screening of Long Shot, Jay Duplass (Transparent), Tom Cullen (Downton Abbey), Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black), Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick), and Jacob Tremblay (Room), plus a tasty breakfast burrito, tofu grain bowl, and flatbread.

Once Arielle returned to Austin, we did spend a bit of time together. Arielle came to three movies with Abe, and we went to Amy’s Ice Creams, which was quite delicious. Arielle was not impressed by the uncool jacket that Abe had gotten after seeing Long Shot, the hilarious new comedy starring Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen. Arielle did not have a blast trying to drive downtown on Wednesday, which took her an hour and thirty minutes to go what Waze had said would be only twenty minutes. The only positive was that parking was a mere $10 for the evening, and we got to explore some of the downtown food trucks and general SXSW scene. We both scored free bike helmets from Jump, which is Uber’s bikeshare program that we didn’t use. Arielle had some meetings with local synagogues and got some fresh and delicious kosher salami from the kosher supermarket counter to put on a sandwich. She also enjoyed exploring the city by foot.

On Friday, Abe actually ate a complete meal out during the day when we drove to Sway, just a short distance away from the Alamo Drafthouse theater on South Lamar Blvd. We had a delicious Thai meal of salt and pepper tofu, vegetable fried rice, and pad thai jay. Abe took the leftovers to have for dinner. Our friend Jacki joined us for Abe’s second movie of the day, which proved to be much more crowded than we would have expected for so late in the festival. Arielle had a great meeting with The Final Acts Project and came to pick Abe up from the movie theater after his final quadruple feature of the festival. We went to sleep before our last full day in Austin and first opportunity to really get to explore the city together.

Approximate number of miles covered: Too hard to keep track!