Keep Austin Weird

Austin is proud of being weird. It’s a city full of artists with lots of students thrown into the mix.

Yesterday we finally made it to town. Our first stop was at Whole Foods. Yes, we know the joke: Whole Paycheck! Still it was fabulous. It is the hugest healthy food store we’ve ever been in. There is so much to eat and it all looks so good. We contemplated spending the next month of our trip in their parking lot.

Things got even better – there was an REI next door! That’s like a Mountain Equipment Coop for all you Canadians. I picked up a couple of nice things on sale.

Then we drove to the capitol building and walked all around. It’s on the top of a hill and you can see down a street called Congress Street.

Finally we drove to SoCo – South Congress – which is just across the river. We passed some more Airstream trailers selling cupcakes and BBQ and other foods. We stopped at Fran’s and ate burgers and then I browsed in some of the vintage shops. Vintage is huge in Austin. You could buy old family albums from people you don’t even know.

Eventually we came back to Whole Foods and ate again. We found a skating rink on the roof that was open so Morgane went skating. She loved it. It was real snow, not the plastic that she skated on in Savannah.

We meant to go listen to some of Austin’s great live music, but the place we went to wasn’t starting until later. We decided we were all too tired so we headed back.

This morning Ken and Susan treated us to a Tex-Mex breakfast with eggs and black beans on crunchy corn tortillas and tamales as well. It was excellent and a welcome change.

Ghis wanted to get the oil changed so he dropped Morgane, Adriene and I off at the Children’s Museum. It was busy, but we amused ourselves.

Before they went out tonight, Ken made queso which is a somewhat spicy cheese dip eaten with tortilla chips. Excellent. Another miracle Velveeta cheese recipe.

We are very happy here. Our only complaint is that we are all a bit under the weather. Tomorrow we are taking off – we’re not sure exactly where yet. We’re thinking of heading to Southern California to pass the coldest months and then coming back to New Mexico when it’s warmer.

We may go to a place called Marfa, Texas, which is eight hours from here. We could meet up there with another VW van family and apparently kids can come to bars in Texas so there will be lots of kids at the bar on New Year’s Eve (depending on the bar, I’m sure). We only hope we’ll feel well enough to stay up so late.