Weekend re-cap: trying to keep it cool in crazy weather

As usual, I have scant decent photos to document the weekend...On Saturday we headed to Highlands bright and early to enjoy some downtime. {read: no mowing, just relaxing}  We stopped at a favorite Mexican restaurant for lunch, met my sister and her hubby at a winery, then enjoyed fondue at our firepit until bedtime.  It was lovely.

I have no pics of it.

On Sunday we headed down 290 to explore and stopped along the way at this place for burgers:

The burgers were huge and very good, but the service wasn't great - we were told we could have onion rings but "it may be a while before we can get them to you".  I get it that a fryer is down, but maybe just make the burgers closer to the time the onion rings are done?  Seems like that would have made sense...We ate up our burgers, took our onion rings to go, and headed out.

It felt like already 100 degrees out so we stopped at Hye Cider Co.  for a cold cider. (actually, as the guy explained to us, its actually "cizer", since its made with honey.  Well...OK.}

 It was like a junk gypsy hideaway complete with  a couple of old guys playing guitar.

There were chicken running around, a giant friendly (and very old) Lab ambling about, and picnic tables for us to enjoy our cider along with a game of cards.  The cider was cold and refreshing, but we decided we would rather seek out some A/C.  I mean shady oaks are great and all, but its full on summer in Central Texas!

 So we headed to Real Ale in Blanco, on the advice of my brother in law.  That beautiful sky belies the storms that were supposedly coming our way.

I really enjoyed the Skullberry {strawberry milkshake IPA}, and Hubby sampled a coffee porter and a Russian Imperial Stout.  So many beers to try, so little time...

 Their main taproom was full of happy people, a dog or two, and nice cold air!

 We will definitely come back here and see about a tasting in their distillery.  And we are really enjoying beer in this heat.  So much more refreshing than red wine!  I could have stayed here all day!

 And I found a place in Austin that sells the Skullberry in cans!  Yes!  So I will definitely check it out this week - the lady at the taps said it was a seasonal beer, so when its gone, its gone.  I'll just have to hide mine in the back of the fridge...

 We may have piddled around a little longer than we should have - multiple alerts on our phones and an ominous looking radar on several TV screens told us that we should head back home asap.  Severe thunderstorms rolled through the area and we carefully but quickly made our way towards North Austin.

We got home safely and the sky virtually opened above us the minute we pulled into the driveway - a little too close to all of the lightening and high winds for me!  Thankfully we did not lose power and within an hour or two of arriving home, it had settled down in our area, but other people lost trees and such.  Scary!  Crazy Texas weather - if you don't like it, just drink a cold one, wait a few minutes, and it will change!