Finally Home

At various times during this trip, my feet hurt (from walking), my ears hurt (from blaring music), my back hurt (from the bed of concrete at the hotel). However, it was one of the best trips we've ever taken. The weather was summery and borderline humid. The people were equally warm and quite friendly everywhere we went. And a big shout-out to the employees of HEB grocery who babysat my wallet overnight without incident.

As Tex says, it's not a southern city at all, but a western city with a big heart that has cornered the market on individual stars.



Yeah, Austin is a liberal oasis in a traditionally conservative state, but it surprised me that the tour guide at the state capital made it a point to say that Lyndon Johnson is the ONLY truly Texan president. I found it telling that he went out of his way to note that neither of the Bush presidents were born in the state.

Here's just a few more favorite pictures before I move back to reality tomorrow:

A great picture of Donna:



The dancers at Chicken Shit Sunday were an interesting lot. But the guy facing to the right with the light on his face looked like the guy who played "My Favorite Martian" on TV.



And just because I like this one:



And this one, also at the Broken Spoke:



For some reason, the photos I took at the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue on Town Lake didn't survive (so far, at least), so here's one of Bob's:



And then we waved goodbye:



No doubt we'll be visiting again.

*I finally added all the images to the previous Texas posts below.