Over Memorial Day weekend Rickie and I traveled to Austin, TX to visit his brother Stephen. It was going to be a reunion of sorts as Rickie hadn’t seen his brother in about 5 years. The only thing I was nervous about going in was a fight between brothers that would turn the whole weekend awkward. Luckily, that didn’t occur and we had a wonderful time. It was nice not to have to plan anything on a vacation and just go with the flow. Rickie’s brother is really cool and I think he enjoyed our visit as much as we did. I think he definitely needed the distraction at the moment.
You know the saying that everything is bigger in Texas? Well, it must apply to gay bars as well. The two that we visited were crazy big. On Friday we attended a party at the Iron Bear bar which, as the name suggests, normally is a place where the bears hang out. On this night, however, there was a good mix of all types of people since there was a special event going on. The second bar we visited, on Saturday, was Rain. This was a pretty amazing bar as well. Maybe Phoenix just doesn’t know how to do gay bars? Or, maybe since they are new to me they just looked better? In comparison, our bars are ratty and could use some updating (except for maybe Bar1 and Amsterdam). Granted, I haven’t visited all the gay bars in Phoenix (maybe that should be a goal?) but so far, they are not as polished as the few in Austin were. Of course, I didn’t visit all the bars in Austin either and maybe we just got lucky with these two? I’m sure they have their fair share of tragic bars.
Anyway, we had an amazing vacation. We got super tan at the lake and on the river (yay for summer!). It was great to finally meet someone in Rickie’s family besides his parents considering he’s met everyone in mine! I can’t wait for our return visit!