Come Back To Texas

It's the name of a Bowling for Soup song.

I recognize that I have two half-way done posts from my last week in Tokyo. I will finish them at some point, when my life settles down a little bit. In the meantime, I have been visiting sights closer to home.

After spending almost a month away from home, what did I decide to do with my Labor Day weekend? I went to Austin again. Austin is slowly working its magic on me, it seems. In fact, the whole weekend was sort of an education on Texas, which I will explain as the post progresses.

Labor Day weekend coincided with the home openers of several college football teams, including the school I currently attend, Texas Tech, and my alma mater, BYU. However, the home opener I went to was the University of Texas, which I have never attended but somehow own two shirts from. Layne decided he wanted to go to the opening game in the newly-renovated Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium, when they would retire Vince Young's jersey, and he invited everyone he could find to come along. I apologize at this point to Ami, if you are reading this, knowing how you feel about UT. What can I say? I am a follower.

Eight of us left for Austin on Friday night. We stopped at Chuy's when we got there, close to midnight. This is one of the restaurants I ate at two years ago with the BYU MFT crew when we were in Austin for AAMFT. It's pretty good Tex-Mex food, and the decor is very Austin. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of it.

The next morning, we canoed around Town Lake, which is pretty much in the city limits of Austin. Much like the river trip, I was expecting to get wet, so I did not bring my camera.

Here's a shot of Amanda, Jenny Jo, and Melanie putting sunblock on each other before we got in the water.

We took to canoes and a kayak onto the lake. The highlight of the canoe trip was when we (Stephanie, Amanda, and I) decided to race Layne, Mike, and Melanie in their canoe. We were keeping pace with them pretty well until Layne reached over the side and splashed us. We were livid. Stephanie attempted to splash him back, and, in the process, shifted the weight of the canoe such that it flipped over. Luckily, there were no casualties. I had money in the pocket of my jacket that got wet, but that was about it. It was actually pretty funny.

After showering and changing at the hotel, we headed to the football game.

A word about football in Texas: It's a big deal. I mean, I grew up thinking football was a sport. Down here, it's pretty much a religion. And the mecca of Texas football is Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium, where the University of Texas Longhorns play. Over 98,000 disciples made a pilgrimage there that night.

I also understand a little more about Texas pride. I heard "Deep in the Heart of Texas" no less than four times during the game. The marching band unfurled the Texas state flag before the game. We were treated to a montage of photos on Texas state history. Even Layne thought it was excessive, and he thinks everything about the University of Texas is awesome.

And, admittedly, the football team was pretty awesome. They beat Florida Atlantic University (I had never heard of them either) 52-10. Here's a shot of Stephanie, Amanda, and me during the game, from our seats three rows from the top.

Just in case you're wondering, none of us went to UT.

Of course, the most fabulous part of the game was this:



In case you can't tell, that's Matthew McConaughey on the Jumbo-Tron, wearing a shirt, no less. Behind him is Camila Alves and their son, Levi. It was pretty hot and humid in Austin, so there was a part of me that was happy we were so far away from him. 'Cause he doesn't wear deodorant.

The game ended, and we made our second trip to Kerbey Lane Cafe. Kerbey Lane is a restaurant chain in Austin that has AMAZING blueberry pancakes. Plus, they're open around the clock, which is not something you can say about many restaurants. In Lubbock, only IHOP comes to mind.

On Sunday, we went to church, and had lunch at a restaurant called Hula Hut. The food was something like Mexican with infusions of Hawaiian (i.e. mangoes and pineapples).

After lunch, we decided to go to Enchanted Rock, which, as it turns out is about an hour from Austin. Having grown up in a valley, and having spent six years living along the Wasatch front, this big boulder was not as enchanting as I was hoping it would be:

It's about .6 miles from the base to the summit. It cost six bucks to enter. That's a dollar for every tenth of a mile. Unfortunately, after the arduous hike, we had to drive to Gruene (home of Texas' oldest dance hall) for a concert. Layne's y chromosomes kicked in, and he refused to ask for directions. We found it in time for the concert, but just barely. And by the time I got there, I had to go to the bathroom really badly.



Above is a shot of the bathroom stall in the Gruene Concert Hall. It refuses to rotate, so you'll have to flip your monitors to look at it. I include it because the door was two feet above the ground, and I was pretty self-conscious about what people could see.

The concert was Charlie Robison, who, according to Layne and Stephanie, is about as famous a regional artist as you can be without being nationally known.

From left to right: Amanda, Stephanie, Layne, and me in the Gruene Dance Hall.

We hit the Jack in the Box drive-thru, where we had some debate about whether or not you can consider a taco from Jack in the Box a real taco. This was also the historical site of the only full meal (a sourdough Jack) I consumed during the entire Austin experience. I was ridiculed a lot for that.

The next morning, we hit Kerbey Lane again for brunch before we headed back to Lubbock.

Below is a shot of Layne and I at Kerbey Lane. One of us had migas with rice and beans, and a short stack of strawberry pancakes. One of us had just a short stack of strawberry pancakes that went unfinished. Guess who.

If you look carefully, you can see them on my plate.

The epilogue to this trip is that I am now thinking about other cool things in Texas that I should see while I live here. I plan to do several more posts about things I see in Texas, and things I love about Texas.