Austin Roadtrip

This weekend was much needed. It was one of those unplanned, very disorganized, highly spontaneous best weekend of your life kind of thing. Saturday morning, I embarked on the 2 hour drive to Austin, Texas at about 9AM, windows down and OneRepublic’s new CD “Waking Up” blaring through the speakers of my very un-reliable black xTerra that I love. My mom always jumps for joy-(sarcasm) when I take un-planned road trips, since it is always a gamble to whether or not my car is going to make it. I think this adds to the adventure, although I would hardly know what to do if my car broke down on the side of the road, which has happened before. I also had a Route 44 cherry-limeade from Sonic in hand, which upped the success chances of this trip by at least 10 times. There was not a cloud in the sky, it was 75 degrees and I just drove, by myself, screaming the newly memorized lyrics of “All the Right Moves”. I love driving by myself—(for 3 hours or less at a time, and only in good weather). It’s a time that I really treasure, and I get a lot accomplished emotionally. Anyways I really needed the get-away, and who better to do it with than two of my bests, Beef and Meg. Here is my weekend re-cap:

1. Got to Austin, ate lunch, & went to a house party to watch Dustin, Beef’s boyfriend, dominate at beer pong. And when I say dominate, I mean they made it to the second round and then lost. Apparently the swim team was throwing this party to benefit…I don’t know, themselves? It was a huge beer pong tournament where every team had a perverted team name. I stood at the bracket for close to 20 minutes just laughing at them. “Ginga ninjas” is my favorite blog appropriate team name. They were also cooking crawfish, but since I hate crawfish, that didn’t add anything to the party. We only stayed there for an hour or two.





2. Later that afternoon was the infamous “Lakeway Festival” which was hardly a festival. We were told it was going to be a lot like the Quadrangle Festival—outdoors with lots of activities to participate in. No. It was more of a Senior Citizen Sing-Along barbeque dinner/geriatric nursing home western party, fully equipped with a Texas History questionnaire. I knew one answer—the Texas tree which is the Pecan tree. I did not get a prize or even a piece of cake for knowing this, which I thought was unfair. Anyways there were 65+ year olds everywhere, dressed in their most impressive Texas pride outfits. We saw shiny belt buckles and cowboy hats that were bedazzled with rhinestones and feathers. And boy were they happy to see us. Dustin was in a contest of who could eat a 72oz steak which is disgustingly huge. He did not finish. No one did. I think its impossible, although the overweight cook said that it is not. Anyways we barely made it to the bathroom because we all almost peed in our pants from laughing. I may or may not have earned myself a six pack from this experience.





3. That night we went to eat and then out to 6th street because Meg had never been there. We met half of the soldiers from Fort Hood who then latched themselves to us like leeches for the remainder of the night. One particular dude named Joshua had a swell time pretending to be my boyfriend, and taught me some sort of sock hop on the dance floor. We found out later that he was actually quite the creep, and it’s a good thing we made a run for it, eventually losing him in the mass of drunken people trying to find cabs at 2:30AM. Meg's leech was a larger man in an arm brace. He had a sick nasty scar. And Beef was instead, trying to painstakingly explain her outfit all night, which in my opinion was something Tara Lipinksi could have worn in her ice skating debut at the 1998 Winter Olympics. She never succeeded in this venture.





4. Bright eyed and bushy tailed at 8:30AM the next day, I drug Beef and a cursing Megan out of their beds/air mattresses to prepare for the day’s float trip. I really wanted to be on the river during the good sun, which according to Google research is 10-2pm. We did not make it. Anyways we hopped into the freezing Comal River about noon, and floated until 4. This may or may not have been the best day of my life. An unfortunate battle with the tube chute cost Megan a pair of Nike Tempo shorts, and also provided her with a sore throat from swallowing an unbelievable amount of water after a fat hairy man convinced the two of us to brave the tube chute minus tubes. They call it a tube chute for a reason. Later in the day we almost died again, as we missed the turn off for a quiet and gentle float, and instead went face first off a waterfall. What really hacked me off though is that there were at least 15 people around us who failed to warn us of our looming death. I was further ticked when I was caught below the current and all I could hear was Megan screaming her lungs out for me to get her tube. Meg, I cant breathe, and I am brink drowning here, forget the tube and get me out of here. I love her.






5. After being drained from the sun, we got sandwiches and sat outside in the sunny park. The it was another two-hour drive back to College Station with the windows down. Only to get home around 7:30PM and essentially walk straight to my bed. Exhausted beyond reason I crashed on top of my covers with my swim suit and clothes still on to conclude a great weekend.

Back to school for 2 more weeks, then I am done forever. PRAISE THE LORD.