Newsletter
EN 2009Apr 11 Broken Spoke, Austin TX |
| Posted by Administrator (adminEPL) on 07 Jun 2009 at 15:53 |
We spend a day doing the famous San Antonio River Walk or Paseo Del Rio. This is the actual river San Antonio was build on and around. Currently on either side of the river is a walk way with lots of restaurants and shops. There is an open air theater and a little village called "La Villita". This is actually a small shopping center with lots of art work and gifts Texas Style. Right in the middle of the Rivercenter Mall is a lagoon where the tour boats can turn. In the evening we went to Austin to visit the Waterloo Squares. Caller was Brad Caldwell who put on an Elvis show. He did a great impersonation of Elvis Presley. Brad also is a very good caller and singer. All the young ladies went crazy when Brad "Elvis" Caldwell started to sing.(note: these ladies were young when Elvis was young, so . . .). A hoola hoop contest was held and won by 17 year old Chelsea (I think). Again, great food, great people. On Wednesday we went to Austin again. This time to meet an old friend of our old friend Jimmy Lawton. Herb Steiner (61) played in Jimmy's band some 30+ years ago and they have remained good friends ever since. Herb is a steel guitar player and currently in the band for singer Tony Harrison. We were very lucky to meet Herb at the world famous honky tonk "The Broken Spoke" in Austin TX. Did we have stories to tell. We had lunch together and we stayed around because Tony Harrison and band were to perform from 6 to 8pm. I was very honored when I was invited to play the harmonica with them in a couple of songs. "Miles & Miles of Texas" and "Route 66". I can now honestly say that I played at "The Broken Spoke"! From 8 to 9pm there were dance lessons in Texas two-step and Texas Waltz. This is what they do every Wednesday because from 9 to late everyone wants to dance to the band that would play in the dance hall. This time: Dale Watson. Dale put on a nice show with super country trucking songs. He is an excellent guitarist and he has a super band. We talked to Dale and learned that he is coming to The Netherlands for a number of shows. We'll sure as heck will go see him and hope that some of you will come with us and have a taste of Texas. Thursday was our last day in Texas to spend. We visited the Loui Toussoud Waxworks museum. It was interesting, but not worth the almost 20 bucks per person. For 2 bucks we went to see the model of the Alamo (straight across the Alamo) where Phil Collins (Yes, the singer) tells the story. In this building excavations we done and a fair number of artifacts from that period were found. Phil Collins himself has probably the largest collection of Alamo items. As a token of our appreciation, we took our hosts Jeanna and Nasser out for a diner at a Texas Roadhouse nearby. Nasser, thank you for setting up this tour for us. We sure did see a lot of the southern states, and met a lot of new friends This concludes our 2009 Square Dance Tour. What remains are our memories, pictures, and stories that we can tell. We will continue to send out newsletters on a irregular basis and hope that you will continue to read them. If not, you'll know what to do and we'll understand. We are planning on a tour in 2011, covering Colorado and maybe a few of the surrounding states. Our friend Mike in Denver already has made some phone calls, so that's underway. See y'all later! Erik & Martha, Amersfoort, The Netherlands
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