So what the hell does this have to with traveling through Austin? Well as I finished with my last post, as I was dragging myself up to my hostel bed at 7 AM there were events conspiring that would set the tone for the next day, but for now let's skip ahead to
Later that afternoon . . .
Place Number 9: South Congress Street: Walking this funky street with boot shops, bars, coffee, shops, and famous graffiti is about as Austin as Austin gets.
Early in the afternoon Dave, Andrew and myself parked on South Congress and began urban exploring. It is easy, and absolutely advised as a tourist, to spend an entire afternoon walking South Congress. There are plenty of quaint and slightly odd shops to sample and a more than adequate amount of bars and restaurants to keep you fueled. Situated on the north western corner of the street is Jo's coffee. It sports arguably the most iconic bit of graffiti in Austin as seen below.
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| Either the most iconic piece of Austin graffiti or the second most iconic piece of Austin graffiti. The battle rages on between the "i love you" brigade and the weird frog "hi, how are you" regiment. Austin sure is weird man. Fun Fact: this is not the original graffiti. Jo's coffee was vandalized and subsequently painted over the original. Austin (hipsters) exploded, so they were forced to painstakingly recreate it. So, everyone who has had the picture taken with this Austin landmark since 2011 know that you are posing with forgery, ya god damn tourists. |
We grabbed a couple of coffees, the Aussies enlightened me on the weird Australian take on iced coffee (with milk and God knows what else), and we continued our jaunt down Congress. Due to the morning's incident I was still wearing the clothing from the night before, and I did not smell pleasant.
We happened into a coffee/eyewear/T-shirt/shoe/jewelry shop called TOMS. It looks like an old house smack in the middle of South Congress with a mini sign out front that proclaims (or perhaps more accurately whispers) 'TOMS'. The story is a perfect sell for Austin. It was started when a traveler in Argentina noticed that many children were shoeless. So he started this shop with the intent of shoeing the shoe-less South American children. As the store grew so did the story and the scope of the store, which you can read here: TOMS story. I immediately loved this place. So, I bought a shirt. It ended up being the most expensive T-Shirt I have ever bought, but it probably helped to clothe 10 children AND I now speak 2 words in French (Citoyen du Monde!). God dammit I'm cultured.
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| Welcome to TOMS: We're a whitewashed house with vaguely African prints hanging on the walls with metal chandeliers everywhere all culminating in putting shoes on Argentinian children . . . somehow. |
I stripped off my old smelly shirt and replaced it with my new classy, multi cultural, philanthropic T-shirt. I felt like a new, slightly less smelly, man.
Earlier, Lunch time . .
Although a new T-shirt can help a person feel a modicum cleaner, a great meal can cleanse the soul. One of my favorite soul cleansing stations:
Place Number 10: The Noble Sandwich Co: Great sandwiches that won't slow you down.
Earlier in the morning I had been singing the praises of this divine sandwich company, and now after a convoluted and very round about way we had made it to Noble. The absurdity of the morning had put me in a sour mood, but the sandwiches at Noble are more than a match for a poor demeanor. Noble's seared beef tongue sandwich is one of my all time favorites. I ordered it, I ate it, and I was back to my cheery self. It is the ultimate porcine energy supplement. The relish in the tongue sandwich is an indescribable taste experience. It's fresh, but it tastes pickled, it's spicy(?), and fresh. I think some of the words in the previous sentence are mutually exclusive . . . but Noble packs all these flavors into one "relish".
Insert your imagination here:
Noble Sandwiches are better than that
With our moods recovered and our stomachs comfortably filled we headed to South Congress to make a day of it.
Even Later that Afternoon . . .
The three of us had reached our South Congress limit. We had scoured the miles of boots at Allen's boots, checked out weird hand made knick knacks, and discovered that Andrew was oddly discerning about the size and feel of his T-shirts.
Shadowing the inaccurately named Colorado River is the Lady Bird Lake Trail. The trail handrails the chain of lakes known as the Colorado River and creates this awesome natural refuge in the middle of Austin. We decided to take a brief walk down to the trail to see what the outdoorsy folk of Austin were up to. Lo and behold the people of Austin were paddle boarding, as they do all day, every day. A few adventurous lasses were jumping off the 1st street bridge, and you guessed it, paddle boarding to the shore. They were quick to explain that they were unemployed. Dave pointed out that Austinites wear unemployment as a badge of honor, which is absolutely true. There is almost a sense of pity for people if they have to go to work during the day.
After some aimless wandering up and down the lake/river I began to direct our path towards:
Place Number 11: Threadgills: An Austin restaurant with mediocre food, great drink special and incredible gospel concerts, escpecially the Sunday gospel brunch
Enter the hero . . .
We ambled up to the bar and and took residence in three empty stools. There was only one other man at the bar. He was an old grizzled Man (with a capital M) sitting at the bar by himself. We happened to make it in for happy hour and the price of a beer was $1.08. Dave was quite impressed by the affordability of the adult beverages and he commented as such. The old man who was sitting next to me two stools down commented, eyes straight ahead.
"You won't find no better price in Austin."
The three of us would chat amongst ourselves and the old man would throw in his two cents every now and again, but he never looked at us, he always stared straight ahead. We got to know The Old Man (now a proper noun). He was a farmer, because, quoting The Old Man,
"It's all I know."
He and I talked about boots, both us having worn them for the majority of our adult lives. He told us long stories about how cheap jeans used to be, how he had an inside track on cheap boots, and how he would travel wherever he could find work.
The Old Man was a unique, old school, rough and tumble, hard son of a bitch, a type that I have never seen before or since. He spoke matter of factly about everything and had the most intense look that I have ever seen. When he said,
"I have an ID card now. Now if a cop asks me for it, I can show it to him and flip him the bird. Used to be I would just punch him in the face."
I believed him. He alluded to his time in prison, about all the dumb stuff he had done as a kid, and on further inspection I could tell he was liberally decorated in prison tattoos. He had a teardrop tattoo in the corner of his left eye. If movies have taught me anything, it's that a teardrop tattoo means you killed someone in prison. Do I know for sure if he ended a man in the joint. Nope, but I wouldn't bet against it.
I have never met a man like The Old Man before. He was clearly a hardworking, but oft in trouble American. He disliked the government, lived to work, and would stop off at a random bar on his way between jobs to talk to people. That was one of the oddest things to me about the entire situation. He was clearly there to talk to people, he engaged everyone who was around him. Sure, there were few topics that he talked about, but that was his purpose. He stopped off at a bar to get some person to person interaction.
As we sat and talked to The Old Man there was one prevalent thought running through my head. He was a Johnny Cash song come to life. He was a hard working American who had made mistakes but kept on moving forward. He served his time, walked out of Folsom, and picked up where he left off.
What happened that morning . . .
I woke up in my hostel bed to the sound of muffled scurrying. My other bunk mates were getting ready to start the day, and bless their hears they were trying to be quiet for me. I opened my eyes and groggily stumbled to the bathroom, to brush my teeth and splash cold water on my face to jolt awake. I returned from the bathroom to find Andrew and Dave already ready to get to the getting. I captivated them with tales of exquisite sandwiches and pickle type products from the Noble Sandwich Co. They were quite receptive when I suggest that we take the short drive up to Noble. We walked to my car which was conveniently parked in a parking lot behind the hostel.
Key word: was. Before us lay an empty lot. My car, my clothes, and every other goodie I had jam packed into cross continental love bug was gone. I stared in disbelief for a second, not exactly knowing what to do. Eventually one of us, let's say Dave, spotted a sign about the terms of parking and whom to call said the unfortunate circumstance should occur. As we were reading the sign, a parking enforcement . . . man (he did not look official to any degree) walked up to the lot. He asked us if were were looking for the black BMW. Why yes, yes we were. He informed us that had been towed earlier this morning. In fact, the first warning had been dropped at 7 AM. Injury to insult as they say. I still take issue to the usage of "warning" in this instance, because I wasn't warned of shit. More accurately put, a note was placed on the car.
The parking enforcement man, let's call him Bob, said the number on the sign was correct and to call for pickup. Thanks for nothing Bob. I punched in the number and spoke to a woman with a loose grasp on English. Quick interjection: I consider myself an exceedingly patient person, normally I am a paragon of cool. I can count on one hand the amount of times I have lost my cool. This particular morning I would not be able to retain my cool. I was not particularly nice to the lady whom I spoke with at the impound, but she was rude so nuts to her.
After an exhausting conversation I was able to decypher where the impound was located. Dave and Andrew were kind enough to tag along to the impound. A couple of proper quality chaps.
At the Impound . . .
The taxi dropped us out in front of what can only be described as the set of Mad Max. This impound was not legit, it looked like the junkyard in The Sandlot, but with more car husks, surrounded by a chain link fence with razor wire, and no James Earl Jones. I am entirely convinced that if I would've waited a couple more hours to pick up my car it would have been missing a few tires, the hood, and the stereo. I completed the transaction and a man whom was probably called Jethro pulled my car around.
It was no worse for the wear, except for a some white numbers marked along a window. We loaded up and sat staring at the prison door as it jerkily creaked open. We stared straight ahead, beyond the hellscape that we had found ourselves. As the the gate finally swayed and clacked to a halt we moved towards freedom. I hesitated, but only for a moment.
Before us was Austin. The path was clear.
