Austin Visit

Last weekend I ventured down to Austin for the weekend...in part to attend at CE course in the town of Salado, TX (~45 min. north of Austin), and in part to catch up with an old friend of mine Nate from my undergrad days at Iowa.

On a side tangent...when Emily and I first moved down to Dallas, I had a big decision to make...whether or not to repair my air conditioner in my car (which had already been fixed a few years earlier and had once again failed), or to build character and tough out the heat, thus saving a few hundred dollars from being wasted on an 18 year old car. You have to realize that we only live ~7-10 minutes by car from work, so if ever we were just going to be driving around the metroplex, we always had Emily's AC equipped Corolla to get us around in cool comfort. So I made the decision to build character, save some money, and quickly realized that driving 7-10 min. in the heat really wasn't that bad.

Well, upon heading down to Austin late friday afternoon, it became apparent that there was a big difference between driving 7-10 min. to work, and driving ~3 hours in 98+ humid heat. Lets just say that on more than one occasion, I considered taking a nap on the side of I-35. The worst part of the whole drive was the fact that even if you bought cold water from a gas station, it was to body-temperature within 30 minutes...that's because Emily took our only mini-cooler with her when she drove back to Iowa City in her AC loaded Corolla (see how I coddle her). At any rate, I will definitely never drive my car that long again in that kind of heat...but on with the weekend.

I arrived at Austin in one sweaty piece, and caught up with my friend Nate (who was nice enough to put me up for the weekend) over some local Mexican cuisine. I had met Nate back in Quadrangle Dorm (probably now under water) my sophmore year. Nate was an English major, who after graduation headed back to his home of Charlottesville, VA to work for the National Security Agency. After having enough of that for 2 years, he decided to pursue his PhD in rhetoric, and found his way to Austin at the Univ. of Texas. We had lost touch after undergrad, and one day this past fall, while going through old college photos, came across his picture. I decided to look him up on the net and found him ironically listed on UT's website as a faculty member. Talk about a small world.

After my CE course finished mid-day saturday we hung out inside and watched Big Brown choke in the Belmont Stakes with some of his friends. After things started to cool off in the evening we headed for a drive around the Austin area, and checked out some great views of Lake Austin and saw the skyline at night while going for a walk along the Colorado River.

Sunday morning found me heading to the Texas State Capitol building. The building is quite beautiful, and enjoyed seeing the history of the building. There are many large frescos in the House and Senate chambers documenting the fall of the Alamo, and other battles with Mexico. And yes, there's even a photo of "Dubbya".

After that it was time to sweat in the car for 3 hours and head back to Dallas. Aside from the driving, it was a great weekend...but hey, how many people can say they survived a year in Texas without air-conditioning! (Note: click on the slideshow if you would like to look or download the photos individually)