This past weekend we went to Austin for about 36 hours. We stayed with a friend and explored all over the place. We ate at a great restaurant on Friday, had some odd shaved ice, and saw thousands of bats fly out from under a bridge. Saturday Teresa had a conference to go to, so me and my friend Robie hung out with our dogs. We went to the dog park in the morning, the farmers market around noon, and swimming in the afternoon. Olive is still not a fan of swimming, but she will learn to love it. I think she may need a doggie PFD. I think that will help her feel more confident when in the water, or at least I hope so. Saturday evening we went to see the Master Pancake Theater. It’s a live Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was pretty darn funny. After that we walked around downtown just a little and bumped into the Pride Parade. So we watched that for a short while before getting too hot and realizing that we should drive home before it got too late. It was a jam packed 36 hours, but we had a great time. I like Austin, just not the heat.
Tag Archive: austin
Soooo…it’s been awhile, but we are still here and still rockin’ it Texas style. This past week was good–I still like working and am getting more and more excited about the students starting next Monday and having clients and things. I got my IRB form sent to Auburn, which means that soon (hopefully) I will be able to start collecting data, and that will be the beginning of the end of this pesky dissertation thing…
In funner news, Wylie and I had a wonderful weekend. We started out with a Pei Wei dinner and a trip to the movie theater to see District 9 on Friday. I will say this–there is some good social commentary there, but SHEESH was it violent. I think it took about an hour for Wylie to get the feeling back in his hand after it was over. It was pretty good, just be ready for the violence.
Saturday morning we hit the road to Austin for a more leisurely trip than our last one. We spent the afternoon kayaking and swimming in Barton Springs. I think I heard Wylie’s kayak do a little yelp of joy when it got in the water. It was really fun. There was a whole forest of underwater foliage under us the whole time, which was cool for wildlife viewing. Lots of turtles and fish. Then we had a kick-ass vegetarian meal at Mother’s Cafe & Garden. It was so delicious to eat hippie food. My taste buds did a little yelp of joy for organic carrot cake! We were tired and it was stormy, so we had a lazy evening of resting up after that. Sunday it was brunch and a trip to Costco to stock up on massive amounts of things before we headed back home.
Yesterday we relinquished the nest of pillows on the floor to a real couch–a very comfy real couch! So that was a happy moment…and continues to be happy as our old backs recover.
Other than that…nothing much is new here. We’ve been having all kinds of little thunder storms which make for good lightning shows. The college kids started moving in on Sunday, so that has been fun to watch–all the parents looking around and the kids all excited…Makes me excited for Monday!
So…it is obvious now that Wylie is a) more adept with technology and b) better at staying awake long enough to post things at night. We have definitely been on the go this past week–quite whirl-windy actually. It was harder than I thought it would be to roll out of Auburn–as some of the best people I know are there…but exciting to start this adventure and accompany Wylie on his furthest drive West…I ended up having to leave my couch in Auburn–which some of you know was one of the best (and ugliest) $30 couches in all the world, so it was a good thing that I had 2 days of driving to do some mourning.
The drive out here seemed long (partly, I’m sure, because both of us were running on less sleep and more adrenaline than usual) but with the help of walkie-talkies we made it! Bryan/College Station seems like it will be an interesting place to spend a year. We have already been having all kinds of explorations–grocery stores and Target and a few restaurants already. There seems to be an abundance of Taquiera-type Mexican places around, which is something I have been missing for the last 4 years, so hooray for that!
The trip to Austin was good too. I am pretty much thrilled to be so close and get to do some exploring there as well. The drive from here to there is mostly through farms and ranches. There were fields and fields of what appeared to be dead corn, and it looked kind of eerie…so if anyone can shed some light on what that is all about, please do!
Tomorrow Wylie will start working from home, so he got the office all set up for us today, and it is quite nice (see photo below)…although I will be sad to not have an exploring partner tomorrow afternoon…
Anyway…it’s old news now, but we made it! It doesn’t suck! Hooray!
So, today Teresa and I went to Austin. It turns out that it is only a 2 hour drive from Bryan, and very easy to get to. We know we will be going back quite a bit. We started off the day by meeting an old high-school friend of mine, Kristen Robitaille, who lives in Austin, for brunch at a great Mexican restaurant by the name of Curra’s. After that we were given a tour of downtown Austin that included the State Capitol, and the largest Whole Foods we had seen. After that Teresa and I drove to IKEA for some desk shopping. I start work on Monday and needed to set up a good work area. After a couple hours in the store we decided upon a desk and two desk chairs.
It was a great day, it was fantastic to see Kristen again, be introduced to Austin and some fantastic Mexican food, and know that I can set up the office tomorrow for work on Monday.
