This post is bigger because it’s about Texas

(Albuquerque, NM)

Even though Texas clearly thinks it’s its own country, our time there involved a whole lot of love for America. In Houston we stopped in at Rice University, where another former roommate, Lauren, is currently doing her Teach for America training. We played volleyball in the rain – because it was STILL raining – with a bunch of her new TFA friends and tried to decipher their teacher-y jargon and inside jokes.

Over the fourth of July weekend, we couchsurfed in Austin, and our newest hostess introduced us to the joys of barhopping on 6th street. Two highlights of the night: 1, riding a mechanical bull at The Trophy Room. I nearly broke my neck but stayed on long enough to not be a total failure. 2, meeting up with my friend Meghan (from St. Louis), who showed us some of her favorite Austin spots and recapped with me a few tales of our high school friends.

Miraculously, the sun shone in the morning, and we got to see Austin by day. We toured the capitol building (which in my opinion reveres the Republic of Texas over the U.S. of A., naturally) and took a hike on Mount Bonnell, where we got a view of the city skyline at one end and the array of unbelievably large mansions lining the Colorado River at the other. We watched the mansion dwellers take their speedboats up the river like their own private highway and wondered if they were aware of us commoners looking down on them.

Austin is supposedly the nation’s capital of live music, but I was unimpressed. A visit to 6th street in the daylight revealed only three bars, out of far more, with live acts, and these were one-man shows. Nashville has Austin beat on that front as far I’m concerned, but maybe we just weren’t looking in the right places. We did, however, come across a fair number of dirty hippie/vagrant type characters hanging out on street corners, tons of bike riders, and a casual friendliness that fit the town’s reputation as I’d of it heard before. Things seemed a little run down in places, but comfortable.

Another great night on 6th street added a few bars – the Blind Pig and Maggie Mae’s – to our repertoire. Our hostess had suggested the Blind Pig specifically as a good place to meet genuine southern gentlemen, and her guidance once again yielded fabulous results (even though the gentlemen we found weren’t necessarily southern). Our Fourth of July began with a drive home at the break of dawn…

…BUT the real celebration was yet to come. After a few hours of sleep, Katie woke me up like my little sister on Christmas morning – she, dressed and ready to go, waiting as patiently as possible for me to accept the fact that I wasn’t allowed to stay in bed any longer. But it wasn’t Santa that brought the goodies on the Fourth of July. It was Willie Nelson.

Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July Picnic featured over 25 acts, tons of big names in country music that Katie lost sleep over but I had never heard of. Once we got there, though, I had a blast and enjoyed every artist, every song. Some favorites: David Allan Coe, Folk Uke, Del Castillo, Kris Kristofferson, and The Reflectacles. Possibly even more entertaining was the crowd. So much long hair, so many American flags, and Texas flags, and so many old hippies, young hippies, children, parents, grandparents, booze, weed, and Willie Nelson’s face plastered all over every T-shirt, baseball cap, and piece of jewelry around. I knew the guy was famous, but I had no idea it was to such godlike proportions – slightly creepy. The idol himself didn’t come on stage until after midnight, and I swear I thought the crowd was going to riot if he waited one more minute. Nevertheless, the music was wonderful all day – finally the full dose Austin’s reputation had promised.

Perhaps Texas-ed out, we left Austin for the long drive to New Mexico. Putting up with horrendous post-holiday traffic, we persevered through the rest of the state, passing scenic cattle ranches, an oddly high number of taxidermy shops, and a few “cowboy churches” – still not sure what that is. Spent the night in Wichita Falls, and finally made it out the next day and into the loving arms of my southwestern relatives. From there, a wonderful reunion began!...