Sunday morning was an even later, and an even rainier start than Saturday. We made a trek north to the Noble Sandwich Co. a famous restaurant in north Austin. I got the “Milk Biscuit”. Sounds way grosser than it is, it was just a biscuit and gravy, but it was a GREAT one! Hannah got the blueberry waffle and it was also great. We washed down the meal with some craft Maine Root soda and headed back to town.
The Austin IMAX theatre was showing the new Jungle Book film, so we thought it would be a good time to see it considering the rain. We got some tacos at Torchy’s pretty early. We drove around and saw the sights of the town, Town Lake (now Lady Bird Lake, even thought locals seem resistant to calling it that), the magnificent homes near Town Lake, and the not so magnificent, yet just as charming East Austin. We called it early, and went home and packed up.
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When my alarm went off Monday morning, and it signaled a few things.
- It was time to get ready for our next show.
- It was time to get ready to start driving again.
- It was time to leave Austin.
Poetry is my passion, so I was very excited to go to our show at UNT-Dallas. Jennifer at UNT-D was instrumental in putting our tour together, so we were very excited to see her.
We were NOT terribly excited to start driving long distances, or to leave Austin, but we had to march on. We swung into a famous Austin taco joint called Juan In A Million. We noticed a low amount of traffic for such a populous city. Juan In A Million is home to a food challenge that requires you to eat 8 Don Juan tacos. Hannah ate half of hers, and I ate 80% of mine. No way I could do 2, much less 8. As we were eating, we saw on the news why the traffic was so slim, Austin was starting to see some pretty severe flooding. Roads were closed, and schools and government offices were opening a few hours late. We took this as a sign to get out of Austin as fast as we could.
Austin will always hold a special place in my heart. It was the first town I flew to, it was my first taste of Texas, and it was the town I was in when I solidified my decision that I wanted to make poetry my full time job. I understand how a town stays weird, but I wonder how it gets that way in the first place.
Regardless, I was glad that spoken word poetry was able to get me back to a place I loved so dearly. Some day I hope to return to Austin. I hope to be in better physical shape next time, so I can eat even MORE of the food. Although there are plenty of jobs in Austin, it seemed very apparent on my trip here that people don’t move to Austin to work. They move to Austin to live. Every town should strive to have that kind of appeal.