Another successful day in the books (and it ain’t over yet!).

After breakfast we checked out Allen’s Boots. Every boot you could ever imagine. This is no understatement. I haven’t had time to run any stats, but I’m pretty sure there’s a pair for every resident of Austin in one room — row after row after wall. You won’t find it hard to believe that we were in there for a LONG time (Cheryl. Boots. Goodness). We left empty handed, however, only to venture on to bigger (that was hard) and better things.

Next stop was Leighelena, a shop with tons of incredible local jewelry. There was no way we were getting out of here empty handed…

Cheryl found an incredible cuff and a pair of earrings and a rockin’ necklace for me.

We hit up the rest of the strip (Feathers Boutique, Uncommon Goods, Bohemia, and the like) then ventured out to cruise around Zilker Park (regretful that our hiking shoes stayed home). Beautiful area — one that I’ll definitely plan to take advantage of when we come back (to live, according to Cheryl).

We ended up downtown next. 6th Avenue brought us some fun restaurants, the Driskill, and some very interesting people.

The Driskill was wildly gorgeous, but the cafe was nothing to write home about — subpar service and unimpressionable drinks. But truth be told, the glimpse and photo of the inside of the hotel was worth the $10 bar tab.

We wandered for a while, got some fun photos, then dropped into Truluck’s for happy hour. Great service, good prices, and pretty good food. I had the crab cake sliders and C got into some hot and crispy prawns. While we weren’t itching for seconds, we were quite content.

Last night I grabbed us tickets to Rocky Votolato at Stubbs. We figured it’d be efficient on our part to give Stubbs a go pre-show. It went something like this:

Find will-call window.

Girl behind window too engulfed in her game of sims to look up from the screen: “yeah?”

Me: “Hey is this were I pick up tickets for the indoor show?”

B-word: “No it’s over there” (half-hearted head thrust).

We go “over there”—no sign of a will-call window.

To pimpled redhead guarding restaurant door: “excuse me where do we grab will-call tickets for the indoor show?”

Carrot top: “over there I think” (points to will window housing homely sims player)

A now slightly irritated me: “she just sent us over here”

Ginger: “oh well ask in here.” By in here, he meant the hostess desk.

Enter I-need-to-eat-more-than-a-cracker-a-day hostess.

“hi can we pick up our will-call tickets to the indoor show tonight?”

Another B-word who also had trouble making eye contact: “what show? Will call?” (she is currently standing over a sign advertising the show and ticket prices…not to mention it’s posted on the door).

“the show…tonight. Can we pick up our tickets here? Or can you tell us where we might?”

Obviously overwhelmed and stumped blondie: “well I guess.”

Excuse me?! You guess?

“Nevermind, can we get a table?”

We were then seated, served by the most hasty and impersonal dude I’ve ever met, and thoroughly disappointed by the COLD bbq that we reluctantly choked down. Not a single luke warm thing on the plate. Our waiter clearly couldn’t be bothered by checking on us, so we bit our tongues, tipped a buck, and got the hell out of there.

I want to throw up and start over at the food truck on the corner.

Total. Bummer.

Rocky Votolato starts at 10:30 — here’s to hoping he can turn this night around!