life's for livin, y'all.

We went to Texas for a day.
On September Sixth and to Fort Worth to be exact.

We planned this lil getaway one Tuesday night sittin' on our front porch just a few weeks ago. Cause a lot of sittin and a lot of dreamin' happens on our porch, and well, dreams come true on that front porch, they do.

We were contemplating Labor Day weekend plans and what to do. Collin had a Saturday rendezvous with the Crimson Tide in Atlanta and Taylor was flirting with the idea of driving to Rocky Top to support the Volunteers. Falon & I were up for something spontaneous. Something along the lines of "let's fly somewhere for a day." We do things like that.

We dream big but we make things happen. We had two laptops and a hearty supply of brewskies flowing, so ideas started rolling. Flying to a show, a Robert Earl Keen show. That was it, what we were gonna do.

We love Robert Earl Keen, we do. We've seen him in Nashville several times {and even at the Ryman}, but we've always heard and know in the deep depths of our hearts that you haven't really seen him 'til you see him in Texas.

We wished upon every yellow rose, bluebonnet and lone star that he'd have a show date this holiday weekend...and I'll be darned, it came in the form of the "The Red Dirt Round Up". A one day show at the Fort Worth Stockyards with a ton of our favorite Texas country acts: Charlie Robison, Randy Rogers, Lucero {our summer obsession}, Cross Canadian Ragweed, plus several more....and REK, himself.

Collin and Taylor immediately took interest and plans were underway:
*free round trip southwest flights....check.
*immediately purchase the $30 ticket to the all day festival....check.
*but we needed to add one little jewel to make it perfect:

...and Lindsay signed on without blinking an eye...check, check.

Collin's mama said, "that sounds exhausting, but so much fun."
Lindsay's mama said, "ya'll must be either completely crazy or drunk."
My mama said, "awesome! that sounds like something I'd do."

Of course we couldn't make this easy on us. We don't do things like that.
So four of us spent the weekend in Atlanta at the McMillan's condo and had an incredible time. We woke up early Sunday and drove to Birmingham {SW doesn't fly out of ATL} to catch the flight where we met Lindsay who drove down from Nashville that morning. We nearly missed our flight, but that was half the fun {in retrospect, I think}.

An hour later, we landed in Texas with nothing but a carry on bag, no expectations and a smile. We were greeted by one of Taylor's college friends who picked us up in a mini-van, bearing a guitar for Taylor to play on the way. Falon looked around and said, "this is perfect, it's just like home, 'cept now we're the moving front porch." Spot on! So we left our mark in Texas, of course.

We ate lunch at a greasy good joint called the White Elephant where we helped ourselves to cheeseburgers, onion rings, buckets o' beer and temporary Jack Daniel's tattoos. We got to the festival grounds, made our own dancing space and took it all in. Collin & Taylor got to meet the lead singer from Lucero, Ben Nichols. An awesome dude.

It was so damn hot I can't even talk about it, but boy that sunset was worth it...the sky really is bigger there. There was no red dirt, more like gray gravel, but my boots liked it anyhow.

I never imagined the style and type of people would be so different from we, southerners. But I could have stayed and people watched for days...although my eyebrows would be stuck in a curled puzzled position for life and my mouth horribly sore from being held wide open. Most everyone wore trendy, trashy cowboy boots and I didn't know they made denim shorts that short. Chunky neon necklaces and names like Twyla are all the rage and teased bangs rival the size of the lone star state itself. But they all love and adore their state.

{texas pride tattoo: pic 1 of 9}

We alternated stages and we alternated beer and water to keep up with the heat. We caught a few new acts that we really liked. And as the sun set during the Randy Roger's show, Taylor and I eased forward to score a second row spot for Robert Earl Keen show. We settled in, ate corn dogs and made friends with the folks around us.

Everything was right in the world. We sang really loud. Smiled really big. We wailed to our favorite songs and reached over to grab each others hand's when we just needed too. Life was good.

At one point, when Lindsay's dad was on the other end of her phone listening in, I could just "see" him grinning and I smiled thinking of having my mom in that situation SO MANY other times in my concert-going years.

Then I thought to myself: How grateful. How lucky, I am. To have friends that play along, friends that I love. And parents that grin right along, too. Parents that love us because we work hard and play hard, and appreciate us because we take spontaneous trips and truly live out our mantra: life's for livin, y'all.

Thanks Texas, it was fun.

Love,
the movin' front porch

{minus collin, you missed all the group photo ops? sorry babe.}