It all started with a stack of clues
And a "marked' car -
Mel and I met up in Austin to spend one amazing weekend celebrating her birthday. (And yes, it was in July, as the weather cools I am enjoying the memories of the ridiculous heat and humidity that weekend.)
Austin is a funky little town that strives to "Keep Weird".
It was also the filming location for the television series
Friday Night Lights.Our first stop, just across the street from the airport was the field used for the Panthers and Lions games. One side was painted blue for the Panthers and the other side was run down and painted red for the Panthers.
The Lions side still had the scoreboard at the far end of the field. We could walk right on the Lions field.
The sky in Texas was amazing - so big and blue with puffy white clouds, it looks great in all of the photos.
The Panther's side of the field was fenced off, but the field house was easy to see.The same building was also used for the Lion's locker room - one side was painted blue and the other side red.
After the rush of the field we had a "road block". The birthday girl had to have a drink at the local gentleman's club. This location was featured quite a bit in the FNL series.
Interesting note, they generally don't let unescorted women in to this club - apparently wives go in a make a scene looking for wayward husbands. Once we convinced them we were not there to make trouble we were allowed to have a drink at the bar.
We spent the afternoon enjoying downtown Austin, including watching the thousands of bats flying out for the night from under the Congress St. bridge.
We two stepped the night away at The Broken Spoke, a true honky tonk bar that has been on the scene in Austin for forty years.
The band was a blast and the beers were cold - a great way to spend the night.
Saturday we tracked down more of the locations used in the filming of FNL.
The Riggins' house (I was expecting a couch on the front porch).
The Taylor house.
And Matt's house - it was the easiest to recognize.
The Alamo Freeze, actually a
DQ.
And then we tracked down Buddy's Bar.
And Tim's property. It was on a road to no where but it was also really easy to recognize.
After all of that we needed a break and headed to the restaurant that was home to the very awkward dinner with Matt, Julie, Eric, and Tammy after Matt and Julie announced their engagement.
Lucky for us it was home to the "Best Queso in Texas". We were very excited for the queso until it arrived at the table and was little more than melted Velveeta with spicy tomatoes. The food was not our best meal in Austin but the service was good and the restaurant was very cute inside.
After our lunch break we drove up to Pflugerville, home of the real Panthers. The high school football field was amazing. The facilities were very modern and well maintained. I can only imagine how packed the stands must be during Friday night games.
We had a bonus sighting on the way out of
Pflugerville - this ice cream shop was used in the opening credit shots of
FNL. I wanted it to be open, some ice cream would have been delicious on that hot afternoon!
No time to worry about ice cream, we needed to get to our next "detour" - the roller derby! Roller derby is a big event in Austin. There were about 2,500 fans packed in to the arena, ready to cheer on their local ladies.
After roller derby we had our best meal in Austin - very creative sushi at
Uchi.
Sunday came way too quickly. We spent our last day in Austin shopping in the
SoCo area (south Congress St). Our first stop was Allen's Boots - it is
the place to buy boots in Austin. We both bought the cutest boots after trying on pair after pair. The staff was wonderful and very patient.
And we even got in another bonus FNL film location - Fran's was featured in season 1.
We wrapped up the day with a late lunch at Home Slice, the pizza was definitely on par with a good New York slice.
Our weekend went by way too fast and there is still a list of things I want to see and do in Austin. I can't wait to go back, but maybe not July for my next visit!
