WICKED WEEKEND!

So this past weekend Madison and I plus two friends, Marni and Carla, went down to Austin to watch "Wicked"!  If you don't know what that is, it's a broadway musical based on the book "Wicked" which is about the wicked witch of the west from "The Wizard of Oz".  If you've read the book but haven't seen the musical....go see the musical!!!  You don't have to read the book to see the musical either.  In fact, I kinda like the musical adaptation a whole lot better than the book.  The story line of Glinda, the good witch, and Elphaba, the wicked witch of the west, becoming best friends is cool.  Anyway, I could go on and on but you'll just have to see it when it's playing in your city.  

We stayed in downtown Austin at the really cool hotel called The Driskell.  Some of you may have heard of it or seen it featured on The Travel Chanel as one of the top ten HAUNTED hotels in the nation.  It was built in 1886 and is reported to have at least three main ghosts still roaming the halls.  One is Driskell himself because he loved the place...it is said you can smell cigar smoke when he is present...I did by the way.  Another is a former Senator's daughter who fell chasing a ball and fell down the grand staircase.  They say you can hear a child's laughter and a bouncing ball.  And another is a bride who's fiance called the wedding off and took all his credit cards and spent a butt load of money.  They say she wanders the 4th floor, where she was staying at the time, but went missing, and she's holding shopping bags in her hands.  We stayed on the 5th floor. And the bathroom on the second floor is haunted too. We didn't go there.  Had I known that this hotel was haunted I would not have stayed there.  Carla found a great deal on the room for our weekend and we wanted to stay someplace nice and downtown.  Friday night, late, Marni and I went down to the bakery and we saw a lady dressed in old time clothes giving a tour.  I saw that and my stomache went queezy.  I told Marni that I thought the place was haunted and so I looked it up.  Sho' nuff...it was!!!!  I knew Madison would freak but I also thought she would at least want to know what we were whispering about.  So, I told her.  She told me to be quiet and don't say things like that.  Marni ended up saying something Saturday night and guess what?  Madison had super bad dreams and couldn't sleep all night long.  Sunday Mad looked it all up for herself.  We probably won't stay there again but that isn't the only haunted hotel in Austin.  There are several.  If you want to get freaked out..stay at the Driskell!

Our room was small but everything was super nice.  There were robes you could take home for a whopping $90.  The beds were comfy and there were lots of pillows and throws.  The only thing that didn't work was the dang remote!  Here is me, Marni, Carla and Madison.

Friday night we went to this place called the Oasis.  This place if huge!!!  I don't know how many levels of seating they had but there were a lot.  It's a place to go watch the sunset and eat some expensive food.  It was good though.  There was also a band playing that started off a little shaky but by the time we left they were sounding ok.  They were on a different level than we were so we didn't actually see them.  The owner, as told to us by our waiter, SteveO, wants the place more family friendly so the place closes at 10.  I'd go there again.  It was cool.

Around 30 miles south of Austin is a huge outlet mall.  We shopped ALL day!!  Madison is not the shopper and she usually bites someones (mind) head off at least an hour into shopping.  I still have my head!  She did really good!  I was a tiring day but it was still fun to go into all those shops.

Saturday night after shopping all day we went to a dueling piano bar.  There were two pianist playing at one time (playing the same song) and they sang too.  If you wanted them to play a song you'd write it down on a napkin with a little money and they'd play it if they knew it.  One time, someone wanted "Ice Ice Baby" and someone wanted "Margaritaville" so they had a bidding war where it took so much money to stop each song.  In the end "IIB" won.  That was a lot of fun.  This picture is in the hotel lobby...beautiful isn't it?