Life is a Highway

Miles: 1,140

Route: Alamogordo, NM - Dallas, TX - Eutaw, AL

The past two days have basically consisted of driving, sleeping and eating. We left White Sands early Thursday morning, made it to Dallas by evening, then woke up today and drove through Louisiana and Mississippi so we could attend the Alabama college football game tomorrow with our friends (and longtime Tide fans) Andrew and Meredith. Not a whole lot to report about our drive so I'll let a few pictures tell the story.

Somewhere along the way. Seemed appropriate!

We made it to a rooftop bar in downtown Dallas right before sunset. 

Not a bad way to spend a few hours in Dallas.

Dinner in Dallas. Putting Alex's gift certificate to use for an early birthday dinner!

First taste of Southern cookin' at Cotton in Monroe, LA. Not pictured: Pimento cheese and green tomato beignets.

Dinner in Meridian, MS at Weidmann's. Reunited with my college favorite: Abita purple haze. 

Tomorrow we get to sleep in a bit before heading to Tuscaloosa for game day. Roll Tide!

Austin City Limits

On Thursday morning we flew from Los Angeles to Austin for the annual Austin City Limits music festival. It would have been ideal if the timing worked out for us to make the drive there, but neither of us was too upset to leave the car behind for a long weekend after spending so much time in it over the last month!

Our hosts for the weekend, Matt and Jen, have lived in Austin for the last few years and went to ACL last October. They had such a good time, they (rightfully!) thought that a great wedding gift for us would be three-day passes.

It was an amazing - but exhausting - weekend filled with fantastic food, cold beer and (of course) great music. Though there were a ton of bands / artists there, the highlights for us included: Capital Cities, Sam Smith, Outkast, Trombone Shorty, Icona Pop, Broken Bells, Eminem and Calvin Harris. If you ever have the opportunity to make it down to Austin for ACL you should definitely do it - Austin is known as the best place to watch live music and, given our experience this past weekend, we certainly agree!

Welcome to ACL!

Big crowd for Sam Smith.

Waiting for Outkast to come on. Giant spotlights lit up the sky to mark the occasion.

It got pretty hot during the sunny afternoons at ACL...so Matt and I cooled off by the mist-spraying fans at least a few times per day.

Trombone Shorty - one of Sarah's favorites from NoLa!

Icona Pop.

Broken Bells - hadn't heard of these guys before this weekend, but they were great.

Calvin Harris was one of the two closing acts for the weekend. He put on a great show and played all his big hits...though we couldn't help feeling a little old in the crowd of teenagers and college students!

Our ACL crew. Thanks again Matt & Jen!!

All in all, a fantastic weekend! Sad that it's over but we all need a little rest at this point!

Tomorrow we'll fly back to LA to pick up the Avalon and continue our journey back east.