My driver was resolute, we would not take the 10. At least, we would not take the 10 until we reached El Paso. It's pretty unavoidable at that point. But, until El Paso, we would stay on small isolated roads where our view would be of mountains and grasslands, rather than the next car's bumper. So I plotted a course hugging the Mexico border.
Back in Texas, we finally saw the sun and were treated to blue skies. Up until this point, we had traveled under constant cloud cover. At the beginning, I loved the moody atmosphere set by the clouds. But, after enough shots were abandoned due to the lack of any color at all, I was ready for some brilliant blue to set off my shots.
It's another Saturday night, and I'm parked in a hotel. I'm actually sleeping in something other than my van. But it seems like others are sticking with their cars. Looking out on the hotel parking lot, there is quite the selection of boats parked behind pickup trucks. Quite a few people went fishing this weekend. What they are doing now, though, is watching their boats. While they clearly do have hotels rooms, several are sitting in and around their boats. Granted, this certainly isn't the nicest part of town. (We aren't willing to shell out the amount of money it would take to stay there.) Yet, it just seems pointless to rent a hotel room, cheap as it may be, only to spend the night watching your boat.
Some mistakes lack any humor. Like yesterday: a photographer walks into a restaurant and leaves their camera. See, not funny. Maybe if I had walked into a bar, there would be some value in being able to say "a photographer walks into a bar..." but there isn't even that.
Ours can be quite the tough lot in life. We get woken up by sex workers, compete with drug dealers for hotel rooms, and occasionally find ourselves at restaurants with rancid bacon.* But once and a while, it all pays off. Sometimes we find a culinary gem or a hidden oddity. In this case, we got an upgrade. To celebrate Valentines (on our own time) we reserved a room with a king bed at the Ocean Village Hotel, right on Surfside Beach, Texas. The morning we were to travel there, I got a phone call: "Unfortunately, the room [we] had reserved is under construction. Is it ok to climb stairs? Really? That's great! We'll put you in the Honeymoon suite."
If you are an aspiring initiate into the drug trade, boy-oh-boy, do we have the hotel for you!
Austin, Texas is a bi-polar blend of foodie fair and raucous partiers. For the foodie in search of new experiences, Austin offers up everything from clever food trucks to high-end artesian cocktails. The town is a delightful blend of high-rise prosperity and down-to-earth historic landmarks. There is an emporium of oddities, complete with a Fiji mermaid. There are light towers from the turn of the century. There is a magnificent parade of bats that emerges from a local bridge every evening. And monkeys in bars!
Feeling lonely? Looking for that special someone? Let us know, I think she mistook us for you.
We have come into Texas and are immediately bombarded with the same and constant refrain: "Don't Mess With Texas." It's on t-shirts, bumper stickers, roadsides signs, and even government vehicles. This brings out the armchair psychologist in me. How defensive is Texas that it has to tell everyone right away not to mess with it? Did its mom tell every teacher on the first day of school, "Dear Texas is a very delicate youth and takes things very personally. Please make sure that the other states don't mess with Texas."
When one talks about "found art," I always thought of it as an action by the artist, not the observer.