• Best Hotel: Decker Creek Bed and Breakfast and Biscuit
  Of all the hotels visited thus far, Eko could live in the Decker Creek B & B & B forever. Behind the beautiful cabin there are 50 acres of fenced-in property where Eko was free to run around. Dogs are even welcomed at breakfast and offered homemade treats!
• Best Park: Zilker Park
  This park offers the best of both worlds: a path where pet-owners can walk their dog on a leash and a wide open area for dogs to run free, which Eko loved. Feeling more adventurous? Jump into a rented kayak or canoe and enjoy the beauty of Austin from the water!
• Best Hike/Run: Turkey Creek
  This offers the best hiking scenery and is the only place Will and Eko have found on their trip that allows dogs to be off-leash on a trail. The two-and-a-half mile trail crisscrosses the creek, giving dogs the opportunity to splash around in the water.
• Best Pet Store: Lofty Dog
  This pet store really matches the atmosphere of the city – laid back and welcoming. Pets are allowed to roam free, which made it easier for Will to shop for treats while Eko was busy playing with the very attentive staff.
• Best Restaurant: South Austin Trailer Park and Eatery
  Many Austin restaurants are pet-friendly, so Will and Eko chose this spot (also known as Torchy’s Trailer Park) for its unusual setup and fun environment. There are picnic tables, televisions, ping pong tables and foosball tables – what’s not to love!

“Austin is a unique city with an active pet-friendly community who were eager to share their favorite spots with us,” said Kearney. Fellow animal lovers can get inspired to start their own journey by logging onto Petcentric.com or using the Petcentric Places mobile app to find pet-friendly places and information anytime, anywhere.

Nevertheless, I did find out about ultimate frisbee. Apparently, there are pick-up games at Zilker every Monday and Friday night, starting around 6pm. I obviously have never been, so I can’t vouch for it, but there you go if you feel like playing some Ultimate.

Also, fencing is another thing I know nothing about. Not just the sport of fencing, but the act of building a fence. Again nevertheless, I found out about that as well. My dad and I, aided at various times by friends, built a fence. And we have Home Depot to thank for that, with their 8-foot panels of French Gothic Spaced Pickets. All we had to do was set some posts in concrete and screw the fences on! (I’m being a little sarcastic, it’s harder than it sounds, but overall not too difficult in the scheme of things) But now everytime I look at my fence, I feel a little bit proud. My point is, in the theme of doing things you don’t normally do, maybe you can hit the Home Depot and build something yourself too!

8 am: Nike+ Human Race training run at Starbucks (24th & Guadalupe)

… run 3 or 5 miles, drink coffee, hydrate with lots of water

10 am: FREE Bikram Yoga at Barton Springs Pool, southside, off Robert E. Lee.

… bring a yoga mat and towel, be prepared to sweat your face off. Can’t wait to see Wayne of YogaGroove again! Jump in Barton Springs to cool off–maybe on the free side if you aren’t planning on lounging for awhile. [This happens every Saturday in August--awesome!]

11:30 am: Head to Zilker sand volleyball courts.

Because it’s Saturday morning and you play EVERY Saturday morning.

… early crowd starts to dissipate because it suddenly got hot, you get onto the court immediately, play ten games in a row because you keep winning, and your stomach is slowly eating itself because you forgot to schedule in a food break.

1:30 pm: P. Terry’s never tasted so good.

… Maybe you’ll have some Flip Happy crepes too. You’re so freakin’ hungry by now.

Of course, you could make a day of it and come play some sand volleyball before/during Los Lonely Boys, as the meetup group will be out there regular time, regular place.

Hear a Los Lonely Boys tune, perhaps one of their most famous, “Heaven” … fyi, Songza is a pretty sweet music player, no downloads, just streams music for ya. So simple.

Add in some sand volleyball, and I can’t imagine anything better. The normal Wednesday meetup group is still playing, only this time, we’ll be playing to the sweet sounds of Asleep at the Wheel! Asleep at the Wheel (with local celeb Ray Benson) is a little bit country, a little bit swing, and apparently a little bit Blues. If you’re planning to play volleyball, plan on arriving early to beat the crowds–parking is a bit of a bear. The loop is closed from about 4:00pm on, although you can still park under the Mopac bridge or in the lots across the street from the rock outcropping.

Blues on the Green runs every other Wednesday for the rest of the summer:

Tonight – Asleep at the Wheel

6/25 – Marcia Ball

7/9 – Los Lonely Boys (w/ Shawn Sahm & The Tex-Mex Experience)

7/23 – Carolyn Wonderland

8/6 – Sonny Landreth

8/20 – Doyle Bramhall & Gary Clark Jr.

Even if you’re not down for volleyball, bring a blanket and come check out Blues on the Green–it’s worth it!

I’m definitely a Zilker Park girl–you guys hear me talk about how much I love it all the time. But talking to Danny today, I was reminded of a few things: one, a bathroom that isn’t a port-o-potty would be nice; two, sometimes I get really hungry and having food nearby would be nice; three, sometimes I get really thirsty and having water (ahem, beer) nearby would be nice; and four, there’s no amount of ipod speaker system that can make up for an actual speaker system. So while listening to Danny touting the amenities of Aussie’s, I got a little bit jealous, maybe had a little Aussie’s-envy.

And he also said, “This is what some people elect to do, instead of getting cleaned up and going out to the club scene, they’d just as soon come down here and play volleyball until 2am.”

So true. And those are the kind of people I like to meet. I mean, I like to do both, but I’m just sayin’. Go check out Aussie’s, even if you don’t play volleyball. You can always learn.

You could also go to Doc’s for another week of SoCo Run Club!

We can’t talk live music without mentioning that it’s Willie Nelson‘s birthday. The old man is 75 and still wears wifebeaters. I’m not so fond, but so many Austinites are that in the interest of keeping readers informed, I had to mention it. But is he even playing anywhere? I can’t find the info, and I don’t like him enough to keep searching. Fill me in if you know!

So, there’s a friend of mine who started the meetup.com volleyball group (you can access it through atxvb.com too … he’s a web developer). Normally I would think he’s awesome for starting something like that, but I must admit that I’m a little snobby/territorial about playing volleyball at Zilker. See, I started going out there last year, and it’s where I met a bunch of the people I now consider my closest friends. And I didn’t use a meetup group! We just met! Naturally!

Which, of course, is some silly logic. I should be glad that other people are getting a shortcut to making friends, I should be proud of my friend for starting something that helps other people make friends, I make friends from the group, and so on. I just don’t want these people to think I made my friends off the internet … because I didn’t! But what’s so wrong with that? After all, aren’t I encouraging readers of my blog to participate in things I tell them to–through the internet–and therefore make friends ostensibly from the internet?

And the funny thing is, I like a lot of the people from the meetup group. And if I didn’t already go to Zilker, I would be THRILLED to find the meetup group, I would join, and I would start going to Zilker! It’s just that sense of wanting everyone to know that I was there first…

However, you should ignore my elitist, proprietary ramblings and come out to Zilker tonight to play some sand volleyball with some cool people. Myself excluded, as I have just demonstrated that I am not, in fact, cool.