Last weekend I did something kind of crazy for a working mom my age, but it was fun and worth it. I took a roadtrip with my friends in the band, Forlorn Hope, to see them play a gig in Austin, TX. What’s so crazy about that? The show was on Sunday night and we all had to drive back the same night to get up and go to work the next morning.
In case you didn’t know, Austin is about 2.5 hours away from where I live. Mike stayed with the kids while I grabbed my camera and joined some of the wives in one vehicle while the guys piled into a truck hauling a trailer full of their gear. Because of the trailer the guys could only drive about 60 mph so our girls vehicle sailed past them and arrived in Austin much earlier. Some other friends of ours met us there later on too.
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| The drive to ATX was a scenic one. |
Riding with the girls was fun because we are all already in the same adoption focused life group and are good friends. I plugged in my iPod to share some good music and in between chatting we sang a few familiar worship songs together. We had dinner with my friend Trish’s awesome brother-in-law and the world’s smartest toddler who entertained the heck out of us.
The funniest part was when we arrived at the club and heard the opening “band”, a bunch of white high schoolers rapping about drugs and bitches while their mom, dad and little sister sat listening.
Finally the guys played their set while I took photos and video. The big difference between this and previous gigs was that the sound guy at the Red Eyed Fly was excellent and the mix was great. Not mindblowingly loud as it was at Fitzgeralds. Forlorn Hope has two percussionists, Mark and Richard, and they did a great drum “solo” that I caught on video here.
Afterwards we hopped across the street to the weirdest little pizza joint ever and had a few more laughs before piling in our vehicles around 11 to head back to Katy. If you’re ever in Austin, I do not recommend Hoboken Pie. Nope.
The drive back was incredibly tense because the thickest fog I’ve ever seen had settled over south east Texas. The ENTIRE trip home we had less than a quarter mile visibility and sometimes we had to slow to 20 mph because we couldn’t see anything at all. I’m very grateful to Mark Ferow for driving me home so safely.
We rolled in around 1:30 am, unloaded the instruments and I went home and crashed. Of course Alex woke me up at 6 am and I worked all day with Nathan home sick. Then I had my first day of “hill training” with my running group. Boy was I tired.
But it was totally fun and worth it and I’d do it again. In fact you can do it with me again on March 4th. 🙂
