Austin trip

Update from this week's trek to check out Austin, Texas (where my new company is headquartered): There was a massive swirl of reddish brown clouds over the Dallas-Fort Worth airport today, where I was supposed to land around 1 pm and then transfer on to Austin. It looked like the sky had spent a summer at Silver Lake and picked up that fine volcanic dust all over. I was reading Kinky Friedman's " The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic: A "Walk" in Austin " which had me chuckling to myself. We circled DFW for about 1/2 hour but then my flight became just one of 400 that were canceled in and out of DFW today and we headed over to land in Houston.

It was muggy and hot, but the people were gracious and lovely. On the advice of the friendly locals, instead of sitting there for 6 hours waiting for a flight to DFW and then another flight to Austin, I grabbed my Hertz rental car at the Houston Airport (instead of Austin) and headed to Austin by car, which folks told me would be about a two and half hour drive. Houston has some seriously funky circle roads but I did find the highway heading west at long last.

The country-side looked a lot like California's central valley, although I saw more guns shops than I see at home and there was no friendly fringe of mountain range anywhere in the distance.


My favorite road sign was just a little green road sign with an arrow and the name of the town, to help one turn right to get to "Dime Box." As I got closer to Austin, I started getting some stellar radio stations. I loved KUT (University of Texas), which was playing some fantastic old rhythm and blues music. Made me feel like I was in a movie, driving the big open Texas road and having a blue-sy funky day. Sadly, I then got lost as I got into town and shot right out of Austin southwards toward San Antonio, but not before I got to see the lovely capital dome glowing in the night.

They have some very weird freeway methodology around here. You can exit the freeway but you can only then (seemingly) enter a side road going the same way as you were going on that freeway, so if you pass some place you want to visit, god help you. It made me nearly scream.

But I am finally here at the elegant La Quinta Mopac North, next to the glamorous IBM Building in the Austin neighborhood that most resembles Silicon Valley. I've ordered some BBQ ribs to be delivered to my room and that should help take the edge off the whole getting lost freak out. I had this image of Austin being much smaller and never imagined these crazy freeways going every which way. Hopefully I'll find some nice walkable spots tomorrow.

They just delivered my baby back ribs dinner from County Line and it's like HALF A PIG! Seriously, no one could eat eighteen ribs for dinner, could they??? Dear Lord, I might be in Tejas.

(20 minutes later)
By the way, I almost ate that whole half a pig. I can now understand how the feeding frenzy based on the massive deliciousness could just take one over.
If only I was here with a buddy, here's where I'd go tomorrow - Stubb's for their "Gospel Brunch!" I've never heard those two words go together but it's bee yoo tiful.