Eeyore's Birthday!

We spent the night near Johnson City, TX.  Our plans to attend Eeyore's Birthday Party in Austin, TX routed us right past the Founders Festival in Dripping Springs, TX so we decided to stop there on the way.  There was a lot of BBQ going and we got some great swag including a key chain light, face wash, hand lotion, chip clip, cloth grocery bag, and Dove soap.

Next we stopped by Pease Park in Austin, TX to help celebrate Eeyore's Birthday.  The first celebration of Eeyore's Birthday was dreamt up by University of Texas English major Lloyd Birdwell Jr. and his fellow students.  Birdwell died in January 2013 at the age of 70. His obituary reads:

A student of English literature, Birdwell selected a theme based on A.A. Milne’s Eeyore character from Winnie-the-Pooh. The gloomy donkey was once especially saddened because he thought his friends had forgotten his birthday.

The first Eeyore’s Birthday Party featured colorful costumes, a trash can of lemonade, beer, honey sandwiches, and a live flower-draped donkey. Birdwell wore his magician’s cape and top hat and wielded his wand.

This is a copy (file photo) of an invitation to Eeyore's first birthday party.

The celebration, put on by the nonprofit Friends of the Forest foundation, donates the proceeds from the food and beverage sales at the festival to as many local Austin nonprofit organizations as possible each year.

George put on his special "I <3 Tokyo" shirt to blend in with the hipsters.  As we walked to the park he found a hippie necklace (see photo below) to match, so he was ensured to be cool enough to attend the festival.

One of the events is unicycle football, which we watched for a short time.

There was live music, food and drink for sale, and supposedly the world's largest drum circle continuously going. Festival goers were also dressed in all sorts of costumes and face paint. Eeyore's birthday is a huge, quintessentially-Austin event in the city, and lending to Austin's motto of "Keep Austin Weird."

Unfortunately, in our opinion, Austin no longer lives up to its reputation as one of the greatest cities in the US.  It's nice, yes, especially when compared with other TX cities, there are far worse.  However, as I've seen it described elsewhere, what used to be an affordable, small-town-feeling-city of 250,000 with a lovable, quirky feel has swelled to an expensive metropolis of nearly 2 million within the past 10 years.  Quaint homes in old tree-lined neighborhoods (nice, but not grand) have inflated to asking prices of $895k instead of the $150-$200k they used to be.  Luxury cars and boutique shops line the streets that used to be known for hippie tendencies.  Austin has simply become too rich, too corporate, too chic, too hipster, too popular-- too populated to maintain the quirky, slightly offbeat reputation we were expecting.  Austin, unfortunately in our opinion, has become cliche.