Keeping Austin Weird...

 After a delicious breakfast cooked for us by Bryan we headed to Austin for a day of fun and ROLLER DERBY.

We decided to go to the Alamo Drafthouse to do a very "Texas" thing and watch a movie and eat dinner at the same time.

We have a few places like this in WA but we hadn't been to one and we were excited to see what the buzz was about.

It was fun, minus the fact that once you get your food you're kind of in the dark on eating it. Bring lots of napkins!

 We waited in a very long line to see BRAVE which is Pixar's newest movie about a heroine, it was pretty awesome! 

I wanted to see it any ways, and though I would normally balk at going to see a movie in a town I've never seen before I was very excited to see it at such a unique venue.

 After the movie we walked the streets of Austin. 6th Street is the most infamous of the area which is full of bars and night clubs, and everyone says it really comes alive at night. We weren't there to see it, but It was fun to be down there and see it during the day too. It's a beautiful area. It was about 100 degree's out so we were drinking lots and LOTs of water, and trying to stay as cool as possible

 Once we were done walking around downtown, we haded over to the Palmer Center where we had tickets for that night's Texas Roller Derby bout. We ran into these guys on our way there, they were headed to the Keep Austin Weird Festival, and they were super funny.

 Okay, so let me geek out for just a minute on Roller Derby. Back in 2000 when modern roller derby was getting started there were a group of ladies ready and rarin' to get rollin' there was some disagreement over various things, and eventually the group split - TXRD and Texas Rollergirls. Texas Rollergirls went on to pioneer the flat track derby we all know and love now. TXRD kept going and eventually turned to banktrack. I got to see the Texas Rollergirls play Olympia last year, and this year... TXRD in AUSTIN!

 I was in love, and in awe, and totally excited!

 It was REALLY hard to get pictures in this venue - too fast + bad lighting = shitty photos. So this is what you get.

 TXRD still does a lot of what Flat track has left out in the evolution process. They have live bands and the Penalty wheel - which is when girls get penalty's they spin the wheel instead of spending time in the box. It makes for a LONG game, and though some of the antics are entertaining, overall it's kind of campy, I mean I came to watch roller derby, not a pillow fight with girls on skates (enough said). I think most people are pretty entertained by it, but in the strive for Roller Derby to become an actual sanctioned professional sport - this type of derby takes it about 10 steps backwards. That being said - it's an incredibly physical sport, more so than flat track lots of elbows thrown - and these girls ARE athletes, I respect what they do.

 Okay off my soap box... it was fun to watch any ways.

 These were the teams we watched - I cheered for the Holy Rollers because I love their Logo and ended up buying a tee shirt. The Hellcats won in the end, and they were definitely the better skating team that night.

 That's Bloody... her whole get up is 1ce a month... so yep that's fake blood on her tights. Pretty gross - that being said she's a hell of a skater.

 And one of my favorite names of the night - Soviet Crusha. There were a few other good ones like Ghettostar Blackita and Titts McGee, but that's about all I remember. I will have more pictures to post once I stop fighting with my Canon which broke in San Antonio (that's another story). I did get up from our seats and stand next to the track for the last quarter of the bout, it's pretty intense to watch girls get slammed into the rails. 

After the bout we went to Steak and Shake - Eric got a neon yellow shake (banana) and then he fell in love.

It was a great night in Austin. We drove back to Killeen that night to get some rest, and then the next day headed to Austin and San Antonio, but that's for the next post.