Café Con Monica

Exploring Austin: Lonestar Roundup

We love Exploring Austin so I thought it would be great to share some of the fun things we have been doing since we moved down here! You can see more posts with things in Austin here.

Lonestar Round up is a giant outdoor car show with live music and tons of vintage and custom cars! People come from all over to showcase their cars and hang out with like minded people and listen to music.

AJS is a big fan of hot rods. He grew up with a step dad who, to this day, can always be found in the garage tinkering with old cars. He has a lot of fond childhood memories that include old cars and sitting in the garage handing his stepdad tools. He found this event while pursuing the interwebs for things to do on a Saturday in April and decided we needed to go.

Turns out we have different tastes in cars. He loves the Hot Rods and I am apparently partial to 1920s and 30s style coupes. Incase you don’t know what any of this means a Hot Rod is a typically a classic American car that has been altered for speed. Traditionally they stripped the cars and used random parts to patch them up with the engine being the focus. Some of the more expensive ones are really fixed up.

Meanwhile…I’m over there taking pictures of all the pretty pink and purple cars!

We had some drinks, looked at thousands of cars and listened to some great music. Overall a success!

Do you ever check out events your SO likes that are maybe not all that interested in?

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Book Review: Becoming

A book review of Becoming by Michelle Obama ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Why I chose this book

I’m a big fan of the Obamas, have been for a long time and I knew I had to read Becoming along with seeing Michelle Obama when she came to Austin. My friend and I got online an hour before the tickets went on sale to make sure that we were able to get tickets. I asked for the book for Christmas but I actually ended up getting gift cards for Barnes so I bought it for myself! I was very interested in getting an inside look into the lives of the Obamas.

What I liked

Everything. I fell in love with Barack all over again reading about how they met and became a family. I loved getting to know Michelle as her own person and what her background entailed. I learned so much I didn’t know about her family and her career before she became First Lady. I really loved the writing style and how well it was written. The pictures in the middle were a great touch, it was nice to see a couple of the things that were in the book in photos. I always wondered how Michelle handled all the negative things that were said about her and her family in the news. It was great to see how the family changed and the ways they stayed the same as the years passed and they became more and more prominent.

What I didn’t like

After that previous paragraph, you might say…what is there not to like? It wasn’t long enough. The book was plenty long don’t get me wrong but I really wish there had been more on their time in the White House and what is going on now. I like to think that another book will come and it will all be in there. What I really didn’t like was finishing the book and feeling so emotional. As soon as I finished and closed the book I started to cry. AJS was wondering what the heck was wrong with me and all I could say was “How did we go from this (pointing to the book) to what is going on in your country right now?”

Would I recommend it?

Absolutely. I don’t care what side of the political road you consider yourself on this book really helps you get to know the Obamas, in particular, Michelle and where she came from. It helps to understand what drove their interests and see how much they both really want to help people.

I had someone comment on my Instagram: “I won’t read the book since I don’t particularly like her but I’m glad you enjoyed it.” I think if you are similar to this person I would especially recommend it because you may be able to learn something beyond the awful things the media said about her and their family over the years!

Seeing Michelle Obama

First, I am so happy that we went. I can now say I have been in the same building/park as both the Obamas and I really hope it is not the last time. (I was at Grant Park the night of the Barack’s acceptance speech in 2008.) Rachel Ray was the moderator for the evening. I was pretty excited about this because I am a Rachel Ray fan. She opened up with some comments and let me just say she was so nervous! You could totally tell. The only thing that struck me was when she was talking about how much she loves Austin she said “Austin is a place without isms”. As a person who has lived here now for almost a year I would say that is 100% incorrect and plenty of people who went that night agree.

She discussed her childhood, answered questions from Rachel from the book. We didn’t really learn anything really new that wasn’t in the book. I loved her bits of humor scattered into the comments though. Like her quip about being a family in the White House for 8 years without even one scandal. Let that sink in ya’ll. 8 years and zero scandals. We got to understand her frame of mind at Trumps inauguration and how her and Barack are handling their lives after a Presidency. I loved that even with some quips there was zero negativity and she 100% lives to….

All that said I hope that I get to see her and Barack again at some other event in my lifetime and I look forward to reading more books written by and about the Obama family.

Have you read Becoming? Did the Becoming tour come to your city?

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Austin Adventures: Inner Space Caverns

Another goal for my blog was focusing on sharing things I was doing in/around my new city so today I am sharing one of our recent adventures.

It’s rare when AJS and I have the same weekday off so I always want to plan something when we do. I started looking up things we could do on a Monday with weather we thought might be just this side of too chilly to be outside a lot. (ended up being a gorgeous day though) and I found out that we lived only 20 minutes from some caverns! So we text our friend, made plans and headed out to check them out.

Inner Space Caverns

Located in Georgetown, TX (about 20 minutes north of Austin) these caverns are some of the best preserved in Texas. The caverns were discovered in 1963 when a drilling team for the Texas Highway Dept was drilling to see if the land was stable enough. After that some Splunkers went in and explored the caverns and eventually in 1966 it was opened to the public.

They offer a few different tours ranging from basic walking tour through well lit areas (Adventure Tour) to Wild Cave tours which are off the path and last 3-4 hours.

Unfortunately, in all my excitement I did not do any research so we didn’t know about the other tours until we arrived and ended up deciding that the basic Adventure tour was the best option for our plans for the day.

We got our tickets, chose a time and then joined a group of people waiting.

The our was led by an awesome guide named Sarah who was funny and knowledgable and shared plenty of cavern type puns throughout the tour. We learned some great facts and were surprised to find that parts of the cave were super warm! We had bundled up thinking it would be cold underground to find out it was a nice balmy 72° with 98% humidity down there.

We came to this great big formation that had water constantly running down it that we were told was 98% pure. I kind of wanted to just dunk my face in it.

After that we got to into a space that was really beautiful (pic below) and our guide asked us to cover all our devices so that she could turn out the lights. It was incredible to see the absolute absence of light. I kept expecting my eyes to adjust and eventually see but there was zero light, I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face.

After that we headed back the way we came resisting the urge to touch things no matter how much I wanted to.

We really enjoyed seeing these caverns and were so glad that I happen to find them on a whim. Our plan is to do one of the off the path tours really soon because we need a little more adventure in our lives!

Have you been to these caverns? Done something similar? I’d love to hear about it!

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