Austin trip - the extended version

OK, time for the longer version of our trip to Austin. We left Thursday morning, and had good luck with both our flights - that is, they were both on time and we made it on to both of them. First time that has happened in quite a while. The most exciting thing that happened was the screaming lady. On the first flight, the pilot came on to give us a weather forecast and mentioned that it might be a bit bumpy, because it was cloudy and cloudy means turbulence. Apparently, someone (I later suspected the screamer) misunderstood this to mean it could be a bad flight, and he had to come back on and explain that he only meant it might be less than smooth, not that we were going to be tossed around like shake 'n bake. Well, this was a little unusual, but not really worth noting at first. But then, once the plane started to move and lift off, a woman up front started screaming: "Oh my god, I have to get off..." and so on. Her traveling companions seemed to be attempting to calm her, and the flight attendant was trying to be reassuring. The solution seemed to be to give her a Coke and a mini-bottle of vodka. I am not sure if it really helped, but at least the woman stopped screaming!

Thursday evening, before I left to visit my old tai chi class, we sat around watching TV, and because there wasn't anything else on, we started watching the evening news. Now, normally, I would never watch the local evening news - too little news, too many silly stories - but once it started, we were hooked. This was because on Wednesday night there was a storm the likes Austin hadn't seen in 15 years. There were high winds, trees knocked down all over downtown, torrential rain, and most exciting (for us anyway) hail the size of baseballs raining down. The news had pictures of car windows that had holes punched all the way through the safety glass, and a story about a family that had a bolt of lightening punch a huge hole in the roof of their house. Very exciting. Little did we know the impact the storm would have on our later activities. Friday morning, after we picked up Benjamin's dad, we headed off for breakfast, intending to go to a restaurant we both liked near campus. As we drove through the Hyde Park area of town, we noticed more and more evidence of Wednesday's storm - parts of trees on the ground, leaves all over the place, at least one set of stoplights out. When we reached the restaurant, it was closed due to storm-related electrical problems. Huh. So, we ended up at Kerby Lane instead, which was a good substitute. I had strawberry pancakes - yum.

The second storm-related alteration came right after breakfast. Since we had plenty of time to fill with Scott, Ben's dad, and we wanted to do something outside, we thought we would like to go for a hike on the Austin Greenbelt trail, a bit of the hill country in the middle of the city. So, we drove down to the trail head, only to find the gate to the parking lot locked, with a sign saying that the trail was closed. It seemed pretty strange to us, so we called the information number printed on the sign - closed at all entrances due to the storm. Huh. We took a walk on the Town Lake, I mean Lady Bird Lake, trail instead. Boy, we haven't even been gone a full year, and already there were 3 or 4 new sky scraper condo buildings.

The rest of Friday was taken up with friends and food - and a good Friday it was. Saturday morning Benjamin and I made a trip down to the Downtown Austin Farmer's Market, just for old times sake, since we couldn't really buy much food. A pity, because there was an awful lot of good looking produce there. I did buy a small bag of fresh peaches, which I am still eating, some granola, and a really nifty t-shirt. After that, it was back to the Drew and LuAnn's to get ready for the graduation ceremony, the supposed reason for the trip.

This was held in a gym at the RecSports center on campus, one of the places we used to play racquetball. The University Masters graduation was just ending when we arrived, so those of us there for the Doctoral graduation couldn't get into the gym - we had to mill around in the heat, waiting, for about 30 minutes. Then, in a marvelous display of bad planning, the Masters graduates and their audience came out of the doors and poured into the waiting crowd. As soon as the graduates were done coming out, the crowd surged forward trying to get in. Some sort of staff person tried to reassure the crowd that we could get in soon and then motioned towards the doors, or at least, I think that is what he was doing, because he was so far away, and didn't have a microphone so only the first row of people could hear him. In any event the crowd moved closer to the steps, and then stopped. More waiting, and then we were finally allowed in to the gym, to fight for the best seats. The ceremony itself was fairly standard - a speech by the Dean of Graduate Studies, a few awards, and then the awarding of the degrees. In the case of doctoral graduates, they get hooded. When their name was read out, the graduate would walk across the stage, hand their hood to an official, who would had it to a man or woman (depending on which department was being announced) standing on a box would take the hood and place it over the head of the graduate. The graduate was then turned to face the cameraman standing to one side of the stage. After the picture the graduate was quickly shuffled off the stage and the next graduate would proceed. And so on, for an hour. Who knew the University of Texas awarded 800 doctoral degrees a year!?

One last disappointment/change of plans for the trip was the discovery that the restaurant we wanted to go to on Saturday night for our celebration dinner had closed. There was another location, but it was farther away than we wanted to go, so we had to go elsewhere. Sigh - you go away for 10 months, and everything changes!

The final incident of the trip was all my fault. The rental car company had given us a large ring of keys, with three actual car keys and two of those electronic button keys that lock and unlock the doors. Now, this was a very large thing to carry around, and I don't think I was supposed to have all those keys anyway, so I decided to try to get some of the keys off. The problem was that the ring they were on was a solid cable sort of thing, not a normal key ring. I tried to unscrew the node that closed the ring, I tried to pull it apart...which broke it. Oops. Not a problem, I thought, I will just use the keys I need for now, and put them all back on the ring and tape it or something before we turn the car in. This worked fine for the driving around town part of that idea, but not so well for the putting them all back together and turning them in part. We had to leave really early - 4:30 AM - on Sunday. It was dark, and I was perhaps not as alert as I should have been. On the way out the door to the car, while carrying the various keys in my hand, I heard a clink and rustle - like that of a key falling out of my hand, hitting the sidewalk, and bouncing into the bushes. Big oops. We then spent the next 20 minutes on our hands and knees, with a borrowed flashlight, searching the very scratchy bushes for a dark key in the dark. Eventually, we had to give up and accept whatever consequences the rental car company imposes so that we could make it to the airport in time for our flight. Because it was so early in the morning, there wasn't an attendant at the booth, so we still don't know if there is any sort of penalty...Should have listened to my mother - when I was little she always told me not to take things apart until I got home - I should have just left well enough alone with the keys.

And that is our trip to Austin, apart from the fact that we both came down with some sort of cold. It was a good trip, and we were really happy to see so many of our friends, and sad to leave again. Also, a very, very big thanks from both of us to Drew and LuAnn for letting us use their house as our base.