Maria and muffins

The day started with a haircut, and what a haircut! Bernie has been thinking about shaving her head for some time and decided today was a good day to go for it. She asked Mar to do the honors. As clump after clump of hair came down the excitement grew and grew. Now Bernie has a new look, but don’t worry too much, it will grow back.

Then we headed out to run some errands. First the post office and then Home Depot, to get some wood for the new bed Bernie will build in Bella.

Then we went to the Apple Store at the mall to get a new power cord for Bernie’s laptop because hers isn’t working any more and sharing one is really inconvenient. It’s a good thing that last Christmas Bernie got a gift card from her brother for the Apple Store.

After we left the mall, we saw a bookstore called Half Price Books and decided to stop and go in. Mar lived in Dallas from 1984 to 1989 and she used to go to this same bookstore there all the time.

We were going to just have a look, just a quick look around. Well, they had bunches of book on clearance and we walked out with ten books! The good news is the books were only a dollar each. Now that’s a good deal.

We were hungry by then and went to get dinner at Maria’s Taco Xpress, a restaurant featured in Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. www.tacoxpress.com

This place is definitely not your regular taco joint. This place is full of: Maria. The owner’s image is everywhere, among all the pictures and paintings and found objects. Her image is plastered everywhere in one way or another, in a playful manner. This is one fun place. She is even on the roof, with outstretched arms, in bigger than life proportions.

During dinner we listened to the music of the Traveling Women’s Review. Eight musicians played here today as part of the South By Southwest events going on in Austin right now. The performers came from Norway, Sweden, Boston, Georgia, Wimberley, and south Austin. www.sxsw.com

We shared the Al Pastor dinner plate and it was absolutely delicious. It was only around $9 and it was more than enough for two people. We were stuffed.

But that didn’t stop us from going out front to the muffin bus in the parking lot to check out this uniquely wacky place. Lucky for us, they were open later than usual because of the South By Southwest event going on next door.

The muffin bus is an old trolley car converted into a muffin making machine. Their slogan is 'taste no evil' because they only use organic products. We tried the muffin top ice cream sandwich: two chocolate muffin tops with coffee ice cream in the middle and it was yummy. www.tastenoevilmuffins.com

Next we went to Walmart to get the groceries that Mar will need for her cooking marathons, to fill up our freezer again before we hit the road.

Finally we headed back to the house on the mountain that we’re house sitting this week. On the way there we saw a deer right in the middle of the road, it’s a good thing we were going slow on these curvy, hilly roads. When we got home, the dogs we are pet sitting were very, very, very happy to see us!