The Road to Kerville PT 2: Something or Other About Austin, I Guess
The sunlight filtered through the breezy trees and finally reached my eyelids around, oh, I don't know, let's say 11 o'clock . I think I laid there for at least 10 minutes watching through the mesh ceiling of our tent to the canopy of leaves swishing, focusing my eyes straight to the blue, cloudless sky. At some point Goober leaned in the tent, smiled, and said, “Well good morning.” I rolled over groggily, and crawled outside to greet the world. In the daylight, and through finally well rested eyes, the wild , wonderful world of Jim O's self proclaimed “funky farmette” (in so many words, which is to say, not that many words) was finally in full view. (I've been working on my poetically charged prose. Any good?)
Goober had already been up for a while. She already had a cup of coffee she was working through over in the common area, and luckily the less than half, but still warm remnants were waiting for me. She had been talking with Jim O while I slept through the morning about the farm, about Kerville, about Austin, and about life in general. They were sharing a bunch of monosyllabic sentences that form the morning conversations you have with strangers over breakfast. As I lumbered up the woodchipped path, past the goats who were still stoically starring from behind their fence, the cat from the evening before mewed a hello as I passed him splayed out on a picnic table in the sun. He now had a partner in crime, who I suspect was watching me the night before, in the form of another scraggly wild cat who was equally as hospitable. I reached the common area, poured some coffee, and skipped right to discussing some chores with Jim O.
He gave me a tour of the land, while explaining the semi-devastation from the November flash flood they were still recovering from. Jim O had lost a truck to the suddenly rising waters, as it was moved from one side of his property to the other, where it now sat, sad and muddy. There was lumber that once had been somewhat organized into nice, neat piles, and was now resting or thrown amongst bushes, and dead stumps at the foot of a trail into the woods. A whole building, where Jim O would host his Wednesday evening pot-lucks, something of legend in the area if I'm to understand correctly, was whisked away and there was little to no way to tell it ever existed. They were still in the midst of catching up, cleaning up, and rearranging. Jim O gave me a list of things that needed doing, with the choice of picking and choosing what I wanted, at my leisure, and with barely an ounce of urgency he left me to choose, pointing to a weed-whacker as he moseyed back to whatever to do whatever.
So I spent the afternoon collecting the lumber, returning it to it's piles, cleaning up a couple industrial sized bags of aluminum cans that had spilled out onto the trails, and weed-whacking for an hour or so, some overgrown unnecessaries. Goober meanwhile toiled under the sun removing rocks and other refuse from a 40x40 ft plot of dirt that would one day become a garden.
Around 1 o'clock we had finished up, took showers in the outside makeshift stall (read: a plastic curtain, and a shower head) that due to the lack of electricity were ice cold, but after being brutally beaten by the Texas sun was really a welcome reprise. We made plans to head into Austin proper, and get a taste of the city. Jim O suggested that we visit “Barton Springs”, a jewel in the crown of Austin, Texas. Located in Ziker Park (which---of course it does---has a pretty impressive Disc Golf course if anyone is interested), Barton Springs is a collection of natural water springs fed from the Edwards Aquifer. One of the largest suppliers of drinking water to the Austin area, it is also a main destination in the warmer months (which I'm pretty sure they are all “warmer months”) for anyone looking to cool off. Apparently, it is also the only home to the aptly named “Barton Springs Salamander”, an endangered species that only exists in Barton Springs. We didn't get to see any.
Due to the increase of the local populous (the 2013 census shows Austin, and pretty much Texas in general, as the highest in population increases in the country, partially due to tech industries, bio-science industries, and in Austin's case specifically, an over marketed “cool” factor amongst “millenials” and increasingly desperate "Gen-Xers"), encroaching development, and of course the recent droughts not just plaguing, but devastating the warmer bits of our country, Barton Springs finds itself in numerous controversies and conversational efforts. Unfortunately when we arrived, we were met with a locked gate. A recent flooding meant the springs had to be drained and cleaned (due to pollutants and bacteria that may have overflowed and contaminated the springs from wherever else), so in short, they were closed.
After disappointingly being hit with this road-block, we decided to seek out lunch. Finding ourselves overwhelmed by the frequency and abundance of food-trucks and the seemingly impossible task of parking, (and the limited budget we're always glancing at) we decided to forgo the local cuisine for the time, and throw our hat in the great USA burger debate! So we pulled into a “Whataburger” to pop my cherry tomato, so to speak. (For all the hubaloo I hear from anyone who is anyone that has eaten at an “In & Out Burger”, I found “Whataburger” to be the better South/West burger joint. Seriously, they've got better decor, better burgers, better fries by a long shot, and maybe save for their lack of ketchup on the patties, the place I'll rave about when I wander back north. I know! I know what you're thinking, and are about to say, so I'll type it out for you and then strike you down with a well worded, and humorous rebuttal! “But Gog! You have to order an In & Out burger animal style! It's on their secret menu! They put cheese and extra spread, and even make the burger with mustard! That's the best part!”, to which I say humbug and phooey! I've had animal style before you troglodytes, only where I come from it's called a goddamn “Big Mac”, you weirdos. I'll have more on this later, somewhere around San Diego) Munching on our burgers and cruising the internet we were directed to an alternative called “Krause Springs”.
35.5 miles northwest of Austin, in Spicewood, Texas, what is also known as (aka aka) “hill country” (I'm pretty sure I heard it called that) is Krause Springs”, a paradise of a swimming hole. Unlike “Barton Springs”, Krause is a privately owned camping/swimming area marked as a historical place in the national registry. The property itself is home to 32 natural springs, a butterfly garden, and a campground. The main spring/swimming hole fed through a man made concrete pool and a collection of waterfalls, it isn't exactly large, but it is beautiful. Thankfully it was pretty empty, with maybe one or two groups of families cooling their jets in the water, floating along on inner tubes, and making my mouth water as they chugged a couple beers.
Goober and I set ourselves up on a rock in the sun like a couple of lazy lizards. Here is the place that I long to be. We spent the entire day on the shore, and wading in the wonderfully cold water. There was a rope swing on a rock ledge that I miserably failed at more than once. Every so often, a curious turtle that wouldn't leave us alone would peak his head out of the water, and inch forward on the sand before dashing away with a “Fuck that!” attitude. There was a pirate like cave amongst the water, hidden behind a waterfall. I was told that it was a christening of sorts for Krause by some guy floating in an inner tube. “You visit, you gotta swim in”. We cautiously floated in, and dared each other to touch the back wall. Once I worked up the courage, I was met with a snake and a spider who were in the midst of discussing how to properly form their metaphor. Time crawled by with its own peculiar, unmeasurable speed. Quick in some moments, slowly in others. There was no reason to do anything. There was nothing to rush to. All of everything really seemed relative.
After reluctantly leaving Krause we dipped our toes in the city of Austin.
In full disclosure, look. I've been trying to write this for a while now. I've actually jumped ahead and started writing other things that excite me. This whole writing a travel blog thing, well I've had my own reservations about it, and it's hard. Not hard, like recreating the experiences in words isn't that hard, to me, but in feeling kind of embarrassed, and silly, and definitely self indulgent. I mean how much can you genuinely gain from a couple of white kids on a cross country trip in 2014? Then you couple that with my personal fantasies of actually being a writer somehow and then looking at what I'm putting out there, which is always a terrible feeling for me, even if I think it's well written, I never think it's well written. Really all of that isn't really what I'm trying to get at. It's just padding in the bra.
You see I was set, or let's say “planning” on maybe laying my hat in the Austin area for a while, or rather we were, together. It's something we discussed. We even told people when we were leaving, “Yeah, we're moving to Austin” as sort of a placeholder of sorts or a levy against conversation. I didn't know much of the city save for the stuff about Bill Hicks, and SXSW, and the food trucks, and people telling me it's “cool”, which I've never been good at anyway, cool. Not to say I'm not good at being cool. I'm really not good just being around people who are genuinely cool. There is this whole weighted ugliness to cool now, and my knee-jerk is to be just callous and mean when it rears it's head, and not in a constructive way. Ugh. This is silly.
By the time we got to Austin, I don't know, Austin was over? Which is such a shitty thing to say. Before we went out that night Goober and I got into a bit of a row (and no I'm not English) and it wasn't anything substantial, especially for two people who had been stuck together, unending for 3 weeks already. It was just a stressed out, over blown misunderstanding. A little bit of steam from being a little bit overwhelmed. But that's neither here, nor there, nor over there, so stop looking for it.
We went out anyway. We had some chicken wings, I drank some beers. We watched some dueling pianos play and I requested Billy Joel's “You May Be Right”, which they did well, and I unapologetically (the jagged little red line is telling me that's not a word. Fuck that little red line. You know what I mean.) love, so save it for the jurors. I got to see a really cool Daniel Johnston mural, and I took a picture in front of it which got a bunch of “likes” online. Other than that, as far as Austin goes, I'm sorry. I got nothing. I don't think I got it, or it didn't fit me. Either way, I've been trying to force something narratively, and then I just wind up feeling numb and faker than usual.
Austin as a city was crowded, noisy, and too white for me. There was a guy carrying around a unicycle, in a bar, at 11 o'clock at night. Why? Did he ride it there? Was he going to ride it home? I mean drunk unicycling sounds pretty dangerous. There bar we were at was showing a really cool, really weird horror movie, and there was a bar attached to the bar, which was “Inception” level, alcoholic cool. The place had a bar crawl culture that didn't really appeal to me. Then again we didn't have much time. Where we were seemed really touristy, but it was such a small block. Oh! Goober also had to leave back to our campsite and get my wallet because it had my ID and we probably wouldn't have gotten into any bars without it. I don't know! I'm afraid I didn't really “form” an opinion on the place, or didn't groove with the groove. Sorry. I feel like I'm being defensive. I'll visit again. We were in a rush. Is that okay? "Keep Austin Weird"? I've been to weirder.
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