- Beaumont, TX. Appears to be an empty shell of a town with vacant downtown and standard/obligatory contrived waterfront entertainment district. It is also a vortex of vague and contradictory directions. We tried to find the location of the Spindletop but gave up after driving in circles for 20 minutes.

- Bee Cave, TX. The green sign at the city limit says "Population 656," but the next sign says "Now open! Hill Country Galleria, 1.3 million square feet of retail!" Build, baby, build! The developments have names like "The Homestead" and "The Preserve". Like Orange County CA and the creep of Los Angeles into the mountains, I find the suburban/exurban onslaught here psychologically taxing.

But the hilly limestone terrain, covered in juniper and scrub oak: <3 <3 <3 <3

- UT Austin. Reminds me so much of Berkeley. The dog particularly enjoyed running around on the campus and chasing the local squirrels.

- Salt Lick BBQ. Most carnivorous wedding I've ever attended, was held at the wedding pavilion at ~. Nice spot for the ceremony, by a creek under oak trees.

- Spider House. I have a weakness for anything with christmas lights and Spider House sets the perfect trap.

- Swimming Lessons for Dogs. Austin has a beautiful waterway through the middle of town, idyllic with kayakers and swimming holes. The whole place seems to be set upon a porous foundation which provides for the fourth most volumous cold spring in the state of texas, which now wells up into a giant public swimming pool. The overflow is a free-for-all of splashing around in the cold current, very popular now in the hot springtime. Kids, adults, and dogs, all frolicking in the water. Adding "swimming holes" to interests. Also, karst hydrology. <3 <3 <3

- LBJ presidential library & museum. He was born in a city named for his family. I knew about the unpopular war, but not that he won a term on his own merits, or that he started Medicare and so many other things. I was not at the museum long enough to take in its entirely, but I felt it covered more the events leading up to his presidency than the presidency itself. The parting words of the museum are LBJ's parting words to congress, judgmentally ambiguous: "I hope it may be said, 100 years from now, that we helped to make this country more just. That's what I hope. But I believe that at least it will be said that we tried."

US-90

Feb. 1st, 2008 02:17 pm
Marfa TX

West Texas looks exactly like you expect.
Passive solar wall at Whitehall Co-op, Austin, Texas
Passive solar wall at Whitehall Co-op, Austin, Texas

In Austin we stayed at one of the nicest co-ops I've ever visited, the Whitehall co-op right by the University of Texas campus. When we arrived in Austin we were at a bit of a loss as to where to stay—we'd sent out a few Couchsurfing feelers but none came through. We did our usual drill of driving into a residential neighborhood in search of an open wireless internet access point. Then we remembered, "Hey, aren't there a bunch of co-ops in Austin?" Sure enough. We looked up the co-ops on the internet, made one quick phone call, and were soon invited to stay. "Fellow co-opers are welcome any time."

Their house is a giant two-story old wooden house with seventeen bedrooms and a large rooftop terrace and a garden out front. We noticed one wall was built out of concrete interspersed with glass water cooler jugs filled with water—a passive solar thermal reservoir—and in one bathroom the sink empties into a bucket, a simple grey-water application; the bucket is used to flush the toilet, saving them some water, which is expensive out in the arid west. They had some of their official documents (such as their current balance sheet) posted on the wall near the kitchen and it looks like they really have their act together. Their house is probably the cleanest co-ops I've ever visited, too.

One of the co-opers gave Bree and me a list of places to check out. It seems (in agreement with popular wisdom) that Austin has a very good hipster vibe to it, with lots of ecclectic businesses serving the throngs of students. We found ourselves at Spider House, a sort of cafe tucked away in what otherwise might be a back alley, with a huge outdoor terrace, colorfully illuminated by christmas lights and a wide variety of lamps, and two guys singing and playing the lap slide guitar. It was midwinter and eleven at night, but the Texas desert provided a warm breeze, and the place provided a perfect atmosphere to take a few margaritas.

Austin: thumbs up.
* Highway rest stops feature free wireless internet

* Cheapest gas on the trip so far, seen outside of Houston: $1.99/gal

* Texas gas stations all seem to have a big cooler full of cheap domestic 40 oz beers on ice. You know, right across from the coffee machines. Apparently drinking and driving is encouraged in texas.

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