Auspicious arrival in Austin, TX: head of celery on a sidewalk bench.
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Mellow Mushroom cafe mural. Sign for free church parking on Sundays. This is in the University District. Very cool, hip, unlike Seattle's scrappy, very uncool university district.
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"Til death do us part" is the text on the banner under the lovers. This was in the downtown, not far from Frank.
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COME AND TAKE IT. At Frank, Austin, TX. See text for Day 34: Unvisited Cities for the historical reference going on here. Short translation: Our hot dogs are delicious cannons of flavor. We are proud of them. We dare you to order one. Just try it. We are Texas. Come on! Take it!
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A live oak in the wild. Usually these beauties are in town squares or lining elegant entries to mansions. So it was good to see the old live oak in its natural state. Shown here near Brattle Creek in southwest Austin, along the trail to Sculpture Falls.
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Sculpture Falls. More swimming hole than falls, but totally peaceful and delicious cool green water. Arrived here on a tip from a waiter at Frank.
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The big dive. The place was so peaceful, as I say, that I almost felt wild and crazy diving in. That I might disturb the others there, snacking and talking. But diving is the best way to enter the water. Often running first, and then diving. Or as is the case here, climbing an old tree and then diving. I learned to dive watching some 8-year-olds one summer in Maine along the Saco River, just flinging themselves into the water. I was probably 22 at the time. I knew that was my thing too, and I took on the monk-like discipline at once, making my way, dive by dive.
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Coming into San Antonio, TX. Signland. Pavement ocean. Fourteen odd lanes counting frontage roads on each side of highway. This was the San Antonio feeling like another embodiment of Del Webb's development canker - anonymous repetitive house zones and the perky aemobas of international commercial chains known in development speak as "power centers" - this same cancer they've spread over Vegas and most of the southwest. But hey, why be cynical. These are our modes of consumption. Get a jeep, as in the foreground. Join up. It's a safari out there.
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San Antonio emerging as we come down San Pedro, closing in on Houston Street. Note the very cool owl. With just four lanes of traffic now, things getting more grounded again, more human.
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One of the stout bridges above the riverwalk as night falls. Stairs bring you down to a outdoor cafes and promenades on both sides of the river, which has been shaped into a canal with concrete banks. So San Antonio has two levels of outdoor public space. Street grade, and then river grade.
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Murky image of riverwalk.
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The Alamo at night.
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Here, one of the many prow-shaped buildings of San Antonio. This is just a two-story, but it's doing its job, anchoring the intersection.
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Morgan Hotel. Another prow building, anchoring Houston Street, one of the main downtown streets. Very fancy. Pretty sure its a knock-off of a Chicago Tribune building, possibly imploded, by McKim, Mead and White.
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One of the doors at Mission Concepcion, an eighteenth century church on southside of San Antonio. Pure, stout, intricate construction.
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Stairs at Mission Concepcion leading to friar's room.
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fragment, Mission Concepcion.
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Mission San Jose. Just a mile or so down the road.
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The road to Marfa, Texas. This is 90West, not to be confused with I-90. Leaving San Antonio, pointed due west, at the Mexican border. Earlier, the overcast skies gathered into clouds, made way for a brief afternoon with blue, and then more storm clouds moved in. This foto is minutes before our first southwest storm system dumped buckets of rain for about 20 minutes, then cleared again. Left everything fresh again, in the country side, and as we came into towns, dotted with shiny puddles.
did you photoshop that antique red beauty into the photo in San Antonio? am so loving following you guys. the writing is poetic - i am transported, xoxo, murm
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