February... The Abridged Version... Part III

Ok, so this will be my last post for February, and it is jam-packed! About 7 weeks ago I surprised Dawson to with tickets to go see his favorite (at the moment) band - The Steve Miller Band. This guy has been around for FOOOORRRRREEEEVVVVVEEERRR... and everyone knows at least ONE of his songs.  Well, as the story goes, I knew Dawson would love to see SMB in person and I thought it would be an awesome birthday gift... but I encountered a problem. We live in Florida and the only place that SMB is currently touring is Texas. Yup, Texas... and actually, only three cities in Texas - Austin, Dallas, and Houston. So after some creative thinking and budgeting, I surprised Dawson with the tickets and we started planning his birthday weekend concert get-away in Houston! SMB was playing at the House of Blues on Friday, February 25th.

WHAT A TRIP!

Anyone who knows him, knows Dawson is a nervous flyer... and I'm usually pretty stressed out too. On Friday we left work late, got caught in traffic, had a super slow shuttle from the parking garage to the airport, and finally just made it in time to board our flight. As soon as we arrived in Houston we rented a car and headed to our hotel to drop off our stuff and spruce up a bit. The concert was set to start at 7:30pm so we headed out around 6:30 to find a looooooong line waiting outside the door of the HOB. We had general admission tickets so it was not looking good for us to have a good vantage point during the concert. As we were discussing how bad the line was, a HOB employee walked up to us and offered to let us "jump the line" for $10 each. Sounds too good to be true, right? It wasn't... this is an actual deal that the HOB offers to people when they are towards the end of the line. Dawson paid the $20 and we went from standing about 500 people back from the front of the line to about 15 people from the front. AMAZING... so this is when happy Dawson finally showed up...

Here he is showing off his "jump the line" handstamp, the tickets and the box office.

After standing in line for over an hour, they opened the doors and Dawson rushed in securing us front row spots only about three feet from the stage!

We were right in front of the drummer and about 20 feet away from where

Steve Miller's microphone was set up.

We had the bouncer take a picture of us -

 the drunk guy in the red shirt was pretty hilarious along with his wife who belted out just about every song that was played while shaking her head with the beat.

We waited for about another hour in our spots for the band to start. Apparently SMB is part of a "classic rock" ticket for one of the local radio stations. So, while waiting, we took some more pictures...



And then... finally... after waiting almost three hours of standing ...



STEVE MILLER!!!!

 

This is Sonny - SMB's blues singer... he sang a few songs from thier latest cd, Bingo!

He had some crazy dance moves!

Then afterwards, we went to this AMAZING mom and pop shop called The House of Pies... The food was amazing... I had huevos rancheros and Dawson had the Acapulco breakfast... picture some really yummy tacos with hot sauce and eggs on them in addition to all the normal yummy filling!



and the pies were even better!

The next day we visited The Menil Collection which was pretty cool. Then we headed to the Saint Arnold Brewery for a tour and tasting. This had to be my favorite part of the trip! It was $5 to get in and you got a sampling glass to keep, and 5 tokens for beers.



Here is Dawson with one of the sample beers.

Here I am complaining that there are never any photos of me while on vacation, since I tend to be the papparazzi...

 Here I am standing next to the control panel in the main brewing room... some jerk (not me) touched the screen right after we took this picture...

Dawson standing next to some of the storage kettles.

Here we are on the main floor of the brewery.

After the tour (and a few drinks) we headed back to the hotel and took a power nap then headed off to dinner at The Little Bitty Burger Barn (which will be on the food network later this month - on a special called "Meat and Potatoes") and had some delicious burger sliders. We then found a great little ice cream shop for some dessert and headed back to the hotel. Sunday morning came and we packed up and caught our flight home. We made some great memories and can't wait for our next get-away...

Puerto Rico? San Diego? Austin? Who knows...

- Edith