We left the South Padre Island house at 9 (check out was at 10). We ate breakfast at a greasy spoon called the Grapevine Cafe. G and D fought and played while the miles went by. Cindy drove until Austin.
At around 5 at sort of my insistence, we pulled off at 6th street. Cindy parallel parked the Element with the bike rack on back. Cindy, I and the girls started walking. We passed many cool restaurants and bars but Cindy just kept going. The restaurants/bars ran out but Cindy kept walking. G, D and I started whining but Cindy kept walking. OMG, our universal whining strategy failed! We changed tactics and asked her what she was looking for. Sighing, she said, “A kid friendly place.”
I pointed back to all the bars we had passed and said, “what about all those?”
She looked at me with the weirdest expression.
After several seconds of her looking at me and me not getting it, she announced to the girls that their father (that would be me) would be picking where we ate and she would not say one thing about it.
Suspecting that I was somehow standing in a hole that I had dug. I led everyone back down 6th street and skimmed the menu of the first place we came to for food that’s ok with D’s wheat allergies. It looked ok so in we went with my fingers crossed.
Boy, a lot of people drink on Austin’s 6th street at 5 in the afternoon.
Thinking quickly, I choose one of the high bar tables between the TV and the bar. I grabbed the seat facing the bar and set Cindy up to take the seat facing the TV. The bar tender delivered the menu saying that they had been voted the best fish-n-chips in Austin 3 years in a row. I told Cindy they must’ve forgotten to bring us the kids menu with the crayons — more strange staring from her.
It turned out they make a high-class grilled cheese sandwich (4 cheeses) on Texas Toast. G loves Texas Toast grilled cheese sandwiches. (She doesn’t get them very often because we love G and want her to eat well). D order chicken kabobs and Cindy and I ordered quesadillas.
I think I have figured out why they keep the music and noise at the bar so loud. It causes the people to lean in together and gives the group a feeling of privacy. We had a good talk and our waitress turned out to be from Princeton. She said that she normally takes the train from Dallas to Austin.
We order chocolate cake for G — it was really good. (I steal bites of their desserts to the betterment of my children’s nutrition). Ellie had a Guinness vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup — it was really good too. (No wonder they are so skinny and I am so, ah, comfortable plushy). Bestest Sealy called about G’s cake.
Cindy allowed that the corruption to our children by eating in a bar at 5 pm was probably correctable. We went back to the Element and headed towards Dallas.