Since completing 7 weeks of dance instruction in the Texas Two Step, Roy and I along with another couple have been checking out the local music scene in hopes of polishing our new moves. I've got to tell you that I love this style of dance! A hint to anyone who takes lessons: Watch how firmly you hold your arm positions and forget about your feet! Also, sneakers aren't great for class, as the impeded spins can hurt the tendons in your spinning knee! I'm feeling mine!
Isn't this an interesting looking place? It used to be a lumber yard. The building on the right is a huge gift shop, and the building on the left side is a restaurant called the Silver K. It's located in Johnson City. It has live music every Thursday night and sometimes on Fridays, but no dancing. Several restaurants in the area offer live music, but only a couple offer dancing. We have found all the restaurants to have relaxed enough atmospheres to allow for people to skip dinner, have just a beverage, and enjoy the music. That's pretty cheap quality entertainment!
The Pecan Street Brewery is also located in Johnson City. It's primarily a burger, pizza, and beer place. They have live music Fridays and Saturdays. Dancing is available Saturday nights. I have found that many of the local restaurants and bars have websites listing the bands that will be present along with a sampling of the music. Around the corner from the brewery is a quaint bistro called Friendlys. Their music appears to be more upscale, and is provided Thursday through Sunday. There isn't a dance floor, but we're told that people dance wherever they find space. We need to check Friendly's out more. It's a different sort of place. Blanco offers music at the Redbud Cafe, and music and dancing at the Riverside Bar and Grill.
To get set-up for dancing, Roy and I went shopping for me some cowboy boots. Roy already has some from our Idaho days. Boots are serious business around here, and seem to cost $150 to well over $200! We aren't there yet! I got the idea to look for any type of shoe with a smooth sole. Well, it seems like shoes right down to the cheapest ones have an anti-slip strip across the ball of the foot! We decided to check out four local second hand shops for dancing boots. At the third shop we found these professional dancing shoes for $11.00. They are actually called Dance Mates! It's amazing how slippery feeling taps are! We figured we could remove the taps, and they'd make a nice pair of dress shoes for dancing. I'll hang on to the taps, though. Who knows, is there tap dancing, clogging, or a tap exercise class in my future? Maybe I'll just entertain myself tapping down the camper walkway!!!
Anyway at the fourth second hand shop, I discovered this pair of Justin boots for only $35.00! They need a little polishing, but overall are great. They are smooth soled, which I found all cowboy boots are not. They fit right in with some crazy vision I have of learning to really ride horses when we get further west, and we are set for practicing our boot scootin' boogie! I've decided we don't earn our cowboy - cowgirl hats until we can do the full Texas Two Step routine of shift across the front, shift across the back, dance side by side, spin in, and spin out!
I just threw this picture in for fun. I'm sure you've all seen the pretty patterned rubber rain boots for women. I got a kick out of these being cowgirl boot shaped! If we stay in Texas long enough, I may have to have a pair of these! :-)
