A U S T I N

After the utter emotional, scholastic, and pedagogical pummeling we call "FINALS WEEK," I absented myself to Texas for a weekend of tacos, rivers, music, and other miscellany of adventure.  You know those weekends that are like secret getaways?  Where you fly out at sunrise and don't use your phone or check your email or grade a single paper for five days?  That's what this weekend was.  (Sigh.)  Such a good five days.

And of course it doesn't hurt matters that Austin's a pretty kickin' city.

WEEKEND FAVORITES:

1.  Trailer food:  Pitas, tacos, burgers, Thai, pies...as well as Gourdough's donuts (I think the name "Gourdough's" is what happens when you put 'gorge', 'gourmand', 'gordo', and 'doughboy' in a blender.)  My "Miss Shortcake" donut was more or less as big as my face, and had fresh strawberries and thick frosting that was velvety like powdered sugar...  And all this on picnic benches in warm Texas night air with twinkly lights?  Cannot imagine a better "Welcome to Austin, Eat your Heart Out" beginning.

2.  Speaking of eating, we had tacos every other meal.  Tacos are the one blessed thing I love more than my accordion, if you can fathom such a love existing.  The best ones were from a hole in the wall called Taco Mex.  No seriously, it's literally a hole in the wall: there's a 2'x2' window in the middle of a red wall and that's it.)

3.  The accordion fest (formally known as Squeezebox Mania), at a little Mexican restaurant.  If that's not dreamy enough, imagine finding stone steps behind the concert patio down to a creek below, and a swing, and a turtle in the water, and the light falling through the trees like lace and the breeze and the birdsongs...booyah perfect evening.

4.  Thrift Store Road (formally known as Congress).  Spent a good while whiling away the good afternoon in a store called "Uncommon Things" and I loved every second of it.

5.  An afternoon on the river-lake (that made me have all kinds of crazy ambitions like floating the Mississippi on a raft, Huck Finn style...)

6.  The huge tree with tired droopy limbs by the Capitol building

7.  San Antonio River Walk.  Take the remains of 'gorge', 'gourmand', 'gordo', and 'doughboy' out of the blender and now put in a Disneyland ride + midnight dinners at sidewalk cafes in Rome + Texas BBQ and you'll have the San Antonio River Walk.  Right through the city there's a narrow canal, and right on its banks are little restaurants and tables and musicians and romance.

8.  The three hour nap I took under some desks on U.T.'s campus...tired after finals week?  Yes I was.  And there couldn't have been a better way to cheer in summer than AustinAustinAustin.

(I do not have instagram (anybody wanna buy me an iPhone?), but Nate was nice enough to humor me all weekend and let me A) use his, and B) take pictures of everything without rolling his eyes one time.)