South by Southwest

SXSW has been going on the past few weeks and this past Saturday was the final day. Ben really wanted to go hear some music, so we ventured out Saturday afternoon.
There were free concerts at Auditorium Shores, which is just south of Town Lake. We knew parking was going to be an issue, so we prepared ourselves by saying, We are going to have to pay for parking and it will be a nightmare to find a spot.
We got off the freeway at about 15th street and Ben said, "Ok, the first spot I see, I'm taking." WHAT? Granted it was a madhouse, but you want to walk 15 blocks??? Hello - 15th street = UT, not downtown. Luckily, we didn't park at UT, we found a great parking garage downtown at 2nd and Brazos by Ben's work for only $7 and we were on our way. On a side note, I don't know how any businesses in Austin got anything done last week. Music was blaring from everywhere. There was even a stage in the parking lot next to Ben's office and he said there was always something going on there.
Anyhow, we got to the concert and heard some awesomely bad rap music, tried not to inhale any pot, got some free drink samples, and smelled the $6 BBQ sandwiches. We managed to hang out for 20 minutes or so before we realized it wasn't very fun. We also realized we loved each other and our normalcy very much (we're getting old). We decided we would have more fun at the park. So we walked across the street to the coolest park EVER.
Town Lake Park is just west of the Pamler Event Center and has a cute pond, lots of grass, and a fun place for kids to play in jets of water. There were tons of kids running around in their underoos soaking wet, even though the water was freezing. We took Lucas's cothes off so he could join in the fun, but he didn't really know what to think of huge jets of water shooting out the ground at him. He mostly enjoyed walking away from us and not looking back.
Seriously, this kid could care less if we are with him or not. He just started walking down the sidewalk, half naked with no shoes looking for a good time. Finally I caught up with him and convinced him to walk around the park in a big circle to where we would find Daddy.
Then he kept going up this big hill. At the top there were people flying kites and playing with their dogs. I think Ben had to go up three or four times after Lucas.
At one point Lucas spied a man and his dog headed for the pond and took off running faster than he's ever ran. We're lucky I got to him before he got to the pond.
We finally captured Lucas and decided to head back to the car and find someplace for dinner.
We decided on P.Terry's for hamburgers. We took them back to the park and Lucas ate in his stroller while Ben and I enjoyed the sunset from the park bench.
All in all it was a delightful afternoon. That night Lucas was exhausted and fell asleep in the car while I ran in the store (Ben was in the car too). We couldn't wake him up no matter what we did, but once we got home he went berserk. We managed to get a few hours of sleep anyways...
(sorry about the poor photo quality - I took it with my scratched up camera phone).