Hilary and Theresa's Road to Nowhere: The Blue Oasis

There was nothing but country on the radio as we drove along Hwy 71 on the way to visit friends in Austin, Texas. That was fine with me because I was in the mood for singing along, and after once chorus, I knew every song by heart. After Lucille left “four hungry children and a crop in the field”, I was ready for lunch. Peter’s looked like a dive, but the line out the door was promising. Everything about this place screamed Texas. There were pictures of John Wayne and advertisements for bullets on the walls. The men wore hats that were so big they were in danger of toppling over. I understood why the ridiculously big trucks in the parking lot were necessary. Those hats would not have fit into ordinary sized trucks. The billboards told us “Everything’s Bigger in Texas” and that certainly seemed true with respect to hats and trucks in the Lone Star State.

So it was back to eating good barbecue and making fun of southern accents. I didn’t find the Texas drawls as charming as those in the Deep South. But the conversation at the picnic table next to us was pretty entertaining: “Well why did the som’o’ bitch have to go on and die right before Christmas?” asked one man of another. His companion didn’t know the answer to that one and just shook his big hatted head.

“Austin has a lot to offer” we were told by our friends, recent transplants from San Francisco who came to Austin for the warmer weather and affordable housing. They are still in awe of their backyard where their crazy dog (who they desperately but unsuccessfully tried to get us to adopt), and their adorable baby,“Mr. Handsome”, can run wild. They were also drawn to Austin’s progressive politics - “a blue oasis in the sea of red” - and welcoming attitudes towards all kinds of artists and counter-culture types. “Keep Austin Weird” started as a marketing slogan promoting local businesses, but it has become a way of life in Austin and there are festivals devoted to everything from the bats that live under the Congress Avenue Bridge (from April through October) to Eeyore’s Birthday Party. Oh, and they play something called chicken-shit bingo where you can bet on where the chickens, you know…

Colorful doesn’t begin to describe this city. We thought it was just decorated for Christmas, but our friends told us that Austin was “addicted to Christmas lights” and that it was lit up 365 days a year. The lights, along with libertarian property laws, made for some interesting front yards. On our block alone, the neighbor’s peacocks wandered through a museum of scary garden gnomes in front of one house and a life size beheaded bust of Santa Clause in front of another where desserts were sold out of the back door. Even Austin’s Capitol Building was colorful, standing 7 ft higher than the one in D.C. and constructed entirely of pink granite.

Our friends gravitated to Bouldin Creek, the up and coming South Austin neighborhood that an on-line survey told them would be a good fit for Californians who weren’t sure they were ready for Texas. It reminded me of the Mission, only cleaner and with more Christmas lights. Our hosts made sure that we saw the most important parts of Austin. Like Chuy’s, the bar where the Bush twins were arrested. And the Austin Hotel, with its famous phallic shaped sign. And Home Slice, where we saw hottie John Hawkes, from Deadwood fame, eating pizza. We were absolutely sure he was checking us out but were far to cool to go over and say hello. While being given the grand tour, we were filled in on all things Friday Night Lights, the hit television show filmed in Austin. We were told where Brad Leland, the Buddy Garrity character, had been sighted. And we all started calling Layla -“Lyla” - after the Minka Kelly character who left the show to become Derek Jeter’s girlfriend.

A fair amount of my time in Texas was devoted to trying to keep my husband from getting shot. I myself had paid attention to the “Don’t Mess With Texas” signs we’d been seeing since we crossed the border. But he insisted on working California into most of his conversations in a way that seemed to irritate the Texans. It turns out that telling Texans about the way things are done in California isn’t the best way to get air in the tires or hot water in the showers or faster service in a restaurant. I actually pretended I wasn’t with him during the gas station incident and nodded my head in agreement when the guy next to me said, “Well y’all ain’t in California now are yooo?”

We made the pilgrimage to Salt Lick for barbecue and it was so crowded that the sheriff was directing traffic into the parking lot with his flashlight. And we had great Mexican food at Maria’s and Habenero’s, where the waitresses said “gracias y’all”. But the real culinary phenom in Austin is the food truck park. Colorful trailers and trucks, selling everything from Korean hot-dogs to buttermilk pie, appear in carnival-like little clusters throughout the city. My favorite was a shiny airstream with a giant pink cupcake on top and a Livingston Taylor look-a-like playing guitar in front. Or maybe it was Livingston Taylor. Austin is the self-proclaimed “live music capital of the world”, and it is home to Austin City Limits, the South by Southwest festival, hundreds of live music venues and scores of musicians like Willie Nelson and Sean Colvin.

Austin must have collectively gasped in horror when they heard that Karl Rove was moving in. I became obsessed. What was he doing here? Why Austin? Where did he live? Well, there is more to Austin than arts and music. It is the capital of Texas and this means there is serious business and serious money in this town. Whole Foods was started here. So was Dell Computers. Austin is where George W. got his start. We drove through the wealthy neighborhoods of Tarrytown and Westlake Hills where there were massive estates behind lots of big gates and little moving cameras. We never saw Karl, but he may have seen us.

We tried to squeeze in a visit to the Broken Spoke for some two stepping and I even bought the boots for it at Cavenero's Boot City. But our timing was off and honky-tonking was relegated to the “things to do” list, right beneath the zydeco dancing that I never did in Louisiana. But my friend reminded me that my boots were made for more than just dancing. They were also made for walking. To the Subaru that is, where I hopped in and drove off into the sunset.