My Weekend Trip
- September 21, 2004
- 3 comments
I arrived back home yesterday evening after a 6 1/2 hour drive from Austin. The drives to and from Austin were the only tedious parts of the whole trip.
We drove down to Austin via the more scenic eastern Texas route, through towns like Hearne, Palestine and Tyler. I enjoy this route more, even though it’s longer, because it’s not the same boring drive straight ahead for hours on end. There are more trees (and larger ones than the highway route), hills, rivers, lakes, etc. Plus it’s easier to see progress since there are only about 30 miles between towns at most.
Once we reached Hutto, we took Dessau road south instead of I-35. Hutto used to be a hole in the road, but now it’s got stores, car dealers and a gigantic high school. And lots and lots of traffic. As soon as we turned off onto Dessau, we hit traffic. Unfortunately, we reached the Austin area right near the beginning of Friday evening rush hour. My car is a standard, so after a while, my left leg started complaining big time. It took us almost an hour to go from Hutto to east Austin because of the traffic. That’s something I don’t miss at all.
I was originally planning on heading down to San Antonio that evening, but didn’t because of the traffic. Instead, I stayed with my aunt and uncle and met my cousin’s fiancé, Michael, for the first time.
The next morning I got up early (well, early for me anyway) at around 9 after a great night’s sleep. Ever since I got Tinker, my mini-Dachshund puppy, I haven’t been sleeping well. She always wakes me up a couple times in the night kicking me or making me too warm with her seemingly nuclear furnace body temperature. With no dogs in the same bed, I slept like a baby and felt great.
I left Austin and made good time to my friend’s house in San Antonio. I hadn’t seen Dave since he came up here last year. He and I have known each other since we were 12. He’s getting married in November, and I’m going to be in the wedding, so I needed to get fitted. The wedding looks like it’s going to be nice and casual (I hate tuxedos and suits with a passion). It will be in Austin, but they will live in San Antonio.
Anyway, we cruised around San Antonio blaring Kumbia Kings from his truck and having a good time. We ate lunch at a great Mexican restaurant called Chacho’s. Their food is excellent, and the price is amazingly cheap. I paid less than $2 for lunch and was full.
We browsed through San Antonio’s famous Mexican Mercado. I had been there once before when I was a little kid and everything had seemed so much bigger back then (a shocker, huh?). There were some very nice things there, but I amazed myself by not buying anything.
Dave introduced me to a drink called Michelada. It takes some getting used to, that’s for sure. Dave says they’ve changed his life! I admit I don’t like it too much, but it does leave a great aftertaste in your mouth.
That night we went bowling for a bit, then went back to his place and reminisced about the old times. He’s nervous about the marriage, but I know he’s doing a good thing. He and Andrea have been dating for 10 years now(!), and he has always gushed about her. I think they’re going to make a happy family.
Sunday morning, I packed everything up again and headed back to Austin. I took my cousin and cruised our old neighborhood. Things have changed sooo much since we left. I took a picture of our old house. The trees are tall enough now that you can’t see the roof anymore. They were planted when we had the house built almost 20 years ago. Whoever lives in the house now takes good care of it. They had planted some new trees and kept everything looking good.
As I mentioned before, Austin has changed a lot since I was last there in 2001. There’s a whole lot of construction all over the place. More than I remember it having before. I don’t know how it’s possible, but it seems like they managed to pack more apartments and stores in there. There’s a new tallest building now. Frost Bank built it, and it looks pretty cool. At night, the top is lit up in white.
Sunday evening, we drove over to visit with my cousin, Tim, and his family. He showed us the wonders of TiVo and some funny videos he and his boys had made. His boys are growing up. Timmy is almost as tall as his dad now and is driving! Brent is growing in leaps and bounds too. We had a good time even though we only had a couple hours to catch up. I always enjoy visiting Tim and Co.
Monday morning we headed to a couple stores like HEB’s Central Market. I miss stores like that. TONS of great food and products from all over the world. The beer aisle alone was enough to make me tear up. I ended up getting a six pack of an oatmeal stout from Colorado and some Dinkel-Acker Pils, which I used to drink when I was in Germany.
After that, it was a long, butt-numbing drive back to Arkansas. It was a short vacation, but I enjoyed it a lot. It made me realize how much I missed certain aspects of city life (namely lots of things to see and do and people to meet), but also reinforced my hatred of city traffic and congestion. If there was some way to combine the clear, quiet country nights and the benefits of the city, that would be my ideal living situation.
I have to head back down to Austin in November for Dave’s wedding, so I’ll get to explore Austin some more soon.
Les
Looks like you had a fun trip. The pics documenting your travels were nice too.
The last few times I was in Austin, I drove down streets I used to drive on every day years ago. Some things I remembered just like yesterday, and other things, I couldn’t recognize to save my life.
One thing stumps me though, about your story. I read it over a few times, and I must be missing something somewhere. In it, you keep referring to “we” on the trip to and from Austin. I figured out the “we” when you were with Dave, and with your cousin, but who is the “we” during to 6 1/2 hour journey each way?