In our efforts to streamline our lives and simplify our “stuff”, we’ve decided to rid ourselves of all excess. And so goes the storage unit and its contents. The problem, believe it or not, is not parting with the rotten refrigerator (why is it in the unit? Why?) or selling the Big Tooling Machine that Chris bought eleven years ago with Big Plans to Make Things. The problem is my books.

Ten boxes of books that he hauled to storage one Saturday morning. We had discussed selling the house, you see. A realtor came by and discussed things with us using words like ‘staging’ and ‘sellability’ and ‘clutter’. And like that, the books disappeared.

“It’s temporary, honey. When we move you can stack them all up again, just the way you want them.”

Long story short, we didn’t sell the house, and my books stayed put. Now they are coming home, and I am planning a welcome party for them by splurging on new shelves. For inspiration, I found some libraries online that piqued my interest. Like this:

 However, the loving engineer who is also my spouse fears it will look like this:

I can’t blame him. I’m not one known for organization (even if I DO know where every single book actually IS.)

I’ve found two great sites full of great photos of libraries: Bookshelf Porn and Pinterest, which is also full of other amazing stuff.

Wish me luck with my book explosion. I’m looking forward to having all my babies back home.

We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel at the Arboretum, just northwest of the city. It had two pools. An Atrium. Room Service. On arrival, we ate at Z’Tejas, which is frickin’ awesome, swam in the indoor pool until almost midnight, and crashed. Saturday was a full day, starting at the South Austin Trailer Park and Eatery, where we enjoyed Torchy’s breakfast tacos in a gravel parking lot in front of food trucks.  Beautiful.

Then to The Capitol:

At the Texas State Capitol. It's like we're the Von Trapp family, except only two little girls.

 Pey did, however, find a way to have fun.

I call this one War and Peace. Guess which one is which?

After the Capitol, we walked to Amy’s Ice Cream, which is somewhere everyone has to go in Austin, especially when it is 106 degrees. Along the way, Pey was quite taken by the grafitti. Some examples:

She is not making a political statement, just lovin' on Barack.

This next one is my favorite, for totally obvious reasons. I mean, grafitti is bad, but this is totally awesome. And hilarious. Just ask Pey.

If I ever change careers and become a graffiti artist, this is the kind of art I will produce. You gotta admit, it’s good stuff.

From there, we went to Barton Springs, which I highly recommend, yet failed to take a single photo. If you don’t know, it is a natural spring with year-round temps of 68 degree water, framed by a concrete edge, complete with stairs. And it’s totally awesome.

After a short trip back to the hotel for showers, (as Parker pointed out, we needed to wash away the healing waters of the spring with chlorinated and over sterilized tap water, synthetic soaps, etc… yup, that’s my girl…) we headed back downtown to 6th Street to soak up some local culture. “Culture” in Austin means street musicians, wandering yet intellectual homeless (they all seemed to sit quietly, reading weathered novels. It was quite refreshing), and tattoos. LOTS of tattoos. Pey, our little one who lives with a “Two-Tat Rule” and constantly changes out her temporaries, was a little overwhelmed by the proliferation of serious, real and forever tattoos. We ate a quick meal at Chupacabra, before the sun went down and things got crazy. Here’s me and Pey:

Gotta love Austin. And gotta love a little girl named Pey.

After that, we found a cool trailer park of nothin’ but dessert, and bought cupcakes from a cool dude in an airstream trailer while a hillbilly sang Blue Moon of Kentucky nearby. (I had the red velvet. Superb, and I tipped the guitarist. Gotta love me some Blue Moon.) Go to Hey, Cupcake! and see for yourself. Sorry, no photos. I was too busy stuffing my cupcake hole.

Then, there are the bats. Austin houses the largest urban bat population under the Congress Street Bridge. It’s ridiculous, and amazing, and another reason why everybody loves Austin.

Behind them? That's the bat bridge. Don't they look cute? (Poo and Parker. you can't see the bats yet)

It was a great little weekend. For forty-eight hours, I didn’t worry about work, or my novel, or the debt ceiling debate. I just enjoyed Austin. And I highly recommend it.

 

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2011/07/ann-patchetts-nashville-bookstore.html

And if you haven’t yet done so, RUN to your nearest bookstore and pick up her latest, STATE OF WONDER. It’s truly brilliant.

Alas, I’ve found out that tuition at my dear alma mater has increased exponentially since the late 1980′s. Couple that with out-of-state tuition and I think we are in trouble.

Suddenly I’ve become a huge fan of test-prep, PSAT scores, AP classes, and scholarships…. wherever they go, they’re gonna need ‘em.

Go Toppers!

4 am moon from the front of my house. Pulling out of Dodge!

Somewhere west of Texarkana.

Arkansas to Tennessee.

Nothing happened from Texas, through Arkansas, to Jackson, Tennessee. Then I stopped for lunch.

Made it to Bowling Green, Kentucky. Stopped for gas and to buy bourbon. (Gifts, people.) This is when the car’s air conditioning stopped working. 200 miles to go.

Air conditioning quit at mile 742. Two hundred miles to go.

 

The sky got pretty in Lexington. Horse farms. 75 degrees. Lightning bugs. Home. Need I say more?

 

Long Day.

Enjoy

Check them out here if you are ever on the road between Houston and Dallas. Thursday night is catfish, and Friday and Saturdays are steak. Worth the stop, I promise. Great people and great food

Leona General Store and Steakhouse

Last Saturday morning over coffee, my father-in-law spoke without looking up from the morning paper. “There’s a big orange penis painted on Chris’s truck window, just thought I’d tell ya.”

He and my mother-in-law had stayed with us the night before for the final night of their road trip. “A big orange penis?” I asked.

“Well, yeah. Might wanna check that out.”

I was already on my way. This is what I saw:

Yup. It's a big orange penis, all right.

So beware! The Big Orange Penis Gang is on the loose!