Circling the U.S. Chapter 72: Austin, Texas

Friday, February 7 - Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Rain and cold kept us in Austin longer than we'd planned but we didn't really mind. Rob's knee, diagnosed with serious arthritis a year ago, had begun bothering him while riding (throughout this year it has only been a problem while walking) so he was happy for a few extra days to rest and ice it. I used the time to work on this blog. We visited a couple music venues, did some sightseeing, and checked out the food scene.

The first thing we did upon our arrival in Austin proper on Friday morning was to seek out a bakery while we waited for a museum to open. 

Having done a solo bicycle trip back in my youth, I can appreciate the advantages of having a traveling companion, especially one as easy-going as Rob. When there are too many delicious-looking pastries to choose from, we order two and share.

After our bakery stop we visited the Elisabet Ney Museum, one of a number of Austin's small, free museums. Housed in Ney's former studio, the museum is dedicated to showcasing the life and work of Ney, a famous sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What especially interested me was an exhibit explaining the various steps in taking a sculpture from its initial creation from clay to its final granite form. I was also intrigued by a reading room at the top of the tower that she designed where her husband could do his writing. It had a secret door leading to the roof top.

Friday afternoon we explored the University of Texas campus. First we visited the Harry Ransom Center, a research center with archives from an extraordinary number of writers and artists. In addition to an exhibit on Gabriel Garcia Marquez (author of One Hundred Years of Solitude) we saw the earliest photograph known to survive today, made in 1827, and a Gutenberg Bible, one of only twenty copies in the world.

As we were leaving the Harry Ransom Center, a woman came up to us and said, "I have to ask, are you by any chance Alan and Lillian's friends?" As Rob likes to say, "It's a small world."  (I  often accuse him of using cliches.)

Our friend Lillian grew up in Texas. Margi, above with Rob, had been a friend of Lillian and her sisters since at least high school. Margi recently retired after a career of working at the Harry Ransom Center and had been doing some freelance work there when she saw us heading out to our bikes.

Lillian had contacted Margi about letting us stay with her. For a variety of reasons Margi couldn't host us, but as our stay in Austin stretched on, she arranged to meet us for lunch and invited a couple bicycling friends to join us. Then, in another example of "It's a small world," it turned out that Margi's friends' daughter-in-law had gotten her Ph.D. while working with a close graduate school friend of Rob's who is a professor of psychology at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Did you follow all that? Yes, it's a small world.

After our surprise rendezvous with Margi, we followed a map of the UT campus in search of outdoor sculptures. Most were disappointing, but not this one. If you look carefully, you will see it is made of metal canoes, titled "Monochrome for Austin."

We stayed in Austin six nights, four of them with Adam, a Warm Showers host who lives within walking distance of downtown in a residential neighborhood of modest houses. Adam works as a community organizer and public space activist for pedestrian and bike infrastructure projects. One of his projects, putting in a new two-way bike lane on an important thoroughfare had recently come to fruition. He had organized a "grand opening" ride to celebrate on Saturday morning, February 8. Adam worried about having enough turnout and getting good press coverage. We decided the least we could do in exchange for his generous hospitality was to join the ride and show our support. And besides, throughout our travels what interested us more than the tourist sites was learning about what mattered to locals and their bicycle culture. 

The youngest riders led the way.

That's Adam, happy with the turnout and ready to move onto his next project, trying to shut down parts or all of a central street in downtown Austin to car traffic, making it safe and fun for pedestrians.

The new bike lanes were not without detractors, even in the bicycling community. The problem comes when cars on the opposite side of the road go to make a left turn and don't see the cyclist riding in the same direction. Safest is to have a bike lane on both sides heading in the same direction as traffic but in this case, residents fought the project, so this was seen as a compromise. Nothing is 100% safe for bicyclists. Drivers need to understand that bicycles have a right to be on the roads and it's their job to watch out for them.

After the bike rally, Rob and I went to check out the public library. It was bustling with activity on this Saturday afternoon, with people enjoying the cafe and the outside rooftop garden.

We followed the bike path along the river for views of the city.

Looking back, I think we hit a bit of a low point during our time in Austin. Maybe it was the weather, maybe we were tired of being on the road, maybe we just needed to recharge. Sunday it rained; we hung out at Adam's and went for a walk. Monday it rained; we visited the capitol. Tuesday it rained; we hung out and found a coffee shop to do some work. Wednesday it didn't rain but it was cold and windy; we went to the Bullock History Museum and met Margi and her friends for lunch.

When we were in San Antonio we stayed with a young man who came to Texas to work with undocumented immigrants in detention. He was very well-read on Texas history and had given us a tutorial on how much of Texas' striving for independence from Mexico and then statehood was driven by the white American settlers' desire to own slaves. He said, "When you go to the Alamo you won't hear about any of that." And he was right. I began noticing how so much of the history was centered on the white settlers' experiences. 

At the state capitol we learned that Steven Austin came to Texas with 300 families. I asked, "Did they bring slaves along?" Yes, they did, but apparently the slaves didn't count as "families."

There are other sculptures scattered around the State Capitol honoring African American history and the Tejanos, early Mexican Spanish settlers. But this one is front and center, honoring those who died in the Civil War. Here's what it says:

"DIED for state rights guaranteed under the Constitution. The people of the South, animated by the spirit of 1776, to preserve their rights, withdrew from the federal compact in 1881. The North resorted to coercion. The South, against overwhelming numbers and resources, fought until exhaustion."

Evidently the Civil War had nothing to do with fighting for the right to own another human being.

After seeing so many historical sites that gave a white-centric view of Texas history, I was hesitant to spend money on the Bullock State History Museum. In the end I was pleasantly surprised with the breadth of the exhibits describing the contributions of all of Texas' early inhabitants, not just the white American settlers, but Mexicans and blacks as well. The museum is named for Bob Bullock, "the first elected official to adopt an equal opportunity program that ushered in an era of ethnic diversity, hiring and promoting record numbers of women and minorities."

Other highlights of our Austin visit were listening to jazz at the Elephant Room, a vegan dinner at Counter Culture, and lunch at Walton's Fancy & Staple. 

Given our low energy levels during our time in this vibrant city, we left many stones unturned, so we'll probably have to plan a return visit. 

We spent our last two nights in Austin with Brett and Nyssa and their two very energetic sons. 

We've stayed with many Warm Showers hosts who are older empty-nesters. (They have empty bedrooms that they are looking to put to a good use.) We always enjoyed the rare opportunity to stay with a young family and bring back memories of the joy we had playing with and reading to our own children.