Empty Bowl

Today we attended the Empty Bowl Project at the Mexican American Cultural Center. Last year Summer had seen this charity project advertised on T.V. and expressed a great interest in participating.

We made a plan to attend last year. Unfortunately, the night before the event she came down with a stomach virus. She was very upset that I wouldn't just take her anyway. I had already had experiences of her vomiting in public places - even though she did seem like she felt much better the next morning, I was not about to chance another public display of kid puke.

So, this year when she saw it advertised again we made our second year plan to attend.

Luckily this year everyone woke up feeling healthy.

Although I never expected, I should have known that this would be a big event. Austin has the reputation of being one of the most generous and giving cities in the Nation....as you can tell by the panhandler and homeless population located here.

Parking was no easy task. I was a little worried we may have to park many blocks from the event. I don't mind walking at all, but we had all bypassed our morning breakfast so we would fully enjoy our soup bowl. Walking many blocks on an empty stomach did not sound like fun.

It's a good thing I drive a very small car. We managed to weasel into a spot very nearby the Center.



The line was HUGE. I was a little worried that we would be in that line for hours and die of starvation in the meantime. Here is only a portion of the line we were in...and we were at the end of it..



This guy was set up along the line. He made pottery look very easy...



As long as the line was it moved pretty quickly. We only stood in it about 30 minutes.

Once we got inside we got to pick our bowl. There were rows and rows of all sort of different bowls. I really get overwhelmed with large selections. This was not the place to be. There were sooooo many cool looking bowls. Summer ended up making my selections for me and I chose between the ones she selected.

Decisions, decisions....




The germiphobe in me worried about eating out of a bowl thousands of folks had been handling. I was glad to see there were bowl washing stations set up for you to have your bowl washed before you ate out of it.

We ate our soup out of our bowl outside in the bright warm sunshine against the Town Lake (Lady Bird Lake) Hike and Bike Trail.