An Epic Adventure

This has nothing to do with anything, but now that it caught your attention (because everyone loves Little Foot) then you may as well keep reading. :)

This week, I went on an epic adventure. Because sometimes, those are just necessary.

My original plan was to fill up my little white volvo Ishmael and drive the 200 or so miles to Austin without asking permission. I figured Tracy would be at work and I'd be safe and I'd drive back that night. She'd be at work all day anyway.

Well, what ended up happening was that my friend Moseley's brother Matt was planning a drive down to Waco to visit his apartment for law school and thought it'd be cool to hang out in Austin for the day as well. So at 8 that morning (with Tracy's knowledge) I got picked up by Matt and Moseley and we headed down the crazy Texas freeway!

Our Adventure to Austin, Day 1:

1. We stopped at Czech Stop, which is a totally famous gas station / bakery / awesome food place. Definite yum. I can never go without picking up a ginger molasses cookie. I mean, how awesome is a ginger molasses cookie to begin with?

2. When we arrived in beautiful and exciting Waco, (a university and maybe some churches around it, oh, and Dr. Pepper) we checked out Matt's soon to be apartment which was really cool and industrial. I said it was bigger than probably anything I'd ever live in once I move fully into NYC. It's true. Cue Moseley and Kate Instant Dance Party! *uns uns uns uns uns uns*

The woman showing us the apartment probably disliked me a whole bunch because I remarked at how unique it was that Baylor doesn't have ANY co ed housing. Me: "So there's no co-ed buildings at all? Floors?"
Woman: "No. Everything is strictly men or women and they aren't allowed in the other's."
Me: "Huh, you know, you only see that kind of thing here in the South. All my neighbors are dudes!" *big goofy smile*
Woman: *purses lips, ignores me, and walks off offendedly*

3. A couple more hours of passing cornfield after cornfield and we came to AUSTIN!! Now, Austin is one heck of a sweet little town. I call it the biggest small town ever. Austin is made up entirely of UT students and bums, and often people may fit into both those categories. Everything is clothes shops and coffee shops and more indie little coffee houses, and some ghetto places and more coffee places. Oh, and if you drive just a little more you're in the middle of the wilderness, which is really cool. Number 3 on my "list of stuff we did" was go to Cafe Medici right across from the UT campus. The coffee was really strong. I should have expected that.

4. I realize that my trip is so impromptu that I have not packed enough clothes for a 2 or 3 day trip. So we head right down the street (I believe it is Guadalupe St) to an Urban Outfitter, where I get a dress for like 90% off because the zipper is partially broken. Man, UO stuff is always so overpriced so this was almost getting it for something reasonable. Almost. Mostly I'm just desperate to get a new dress. It's cute though, so that's a plus. I almost feel like a bona fide Austin hipster.

5. I realize that I am a way different breed of person than the Austin hipster. I'm a New Yorker. Bitches. ;)

6. Matt is hungry even though Moseley and I filled up on cookies, so we head to Mellow Mushroom and get some pizzaaaaaaahhhh. Meantime we are trying to find Will so we can hang out with him, since he is the one I came to visit and all that. He finds himself caught up in a long job interview. Matt says he wants to go see a mountain he heard about.

7. Matt drives like a lunatic and we go to the top of this huge ass hill, park, and climb up a zillion steps (probably closer to 30) where there's this sweet lookout point
and if you turn to the left from this point you can see the Austin skyline! We had fun looking at all the millionaire's houses dotting the hill below. I can see why rich people would get a house down here. It'd be pretty fun; college town madness and serene wilderness right next door.

So we wait around for Will. He has what I like to call Time Management Disfunction Disorder (my mother has it too) in which you completely underestimate how long it will take you to do something. The three of us realize we're outside in Texas heat, about 120 degrees (and of course Moseley and I are both wearing skinny jeans, because, hey, we need to look like hipsters) so we get back in the car and Matt continues to scare us with his insane driving.

8. We FINALLY meet William at a cool half-outdoor cafe called Spider House. Spider House is amazing. I'd have ordered a beer, and I should have seeing as the guy most likely wouldn't have carded me, but I got cold tea instead. The four of us sit outside at this place, which is the beautiful lovechild of the Hip Pocket theater and the coolest coffee house you have ever been to. It's all wooden boards and hippie furniture that doesn't match cuz it's too cool to match, and all these cool young people are everywhere being cool, and it's just so Hip Pocket if it were a coffee house. That is what Spider House is. Spider House is freaking amazing. No one is cool enough for Spider House. But that's okay, because Spider House will welcome you anyway, and make you feel really cool. That's how cool it is.

9. After this, we decide to go hang out at a lake. I think it's lake Austin (might have been lake Travis, although that one might be closer to Georgetown) so we drive there, the four of us, and climb down a bunch of jagged rocks and hang out there. The water level is low due to the drought. This makes the treasure hunting on the rocks much more interesting. We find capsized jet skis and petrified tree stumps.

10. The Moseleys depart and Will and I drive around while I remark on how cool Austin is. We head to Georgetown so I can stay with my grandparents. On the way we stop in the middle of a country road in nowheresville, get out and look at stars. We look at the stars for approximately 8 seconds, get bored, and continue the drive.

Then we start to pull into the giant undeveloped old people city of Sun City Georgetown and I see something in the road I think is a beagle.

THE DEER RESCUE STORY

I yell at Will "Stop the car. I think I just saw a beagle."
"Was it dead?"
"No, it was moving! It had big floppy ears and was kicking its legs! Except it was really skinny!"

He does a U and we come back to the animal. We stop. He gets out. It's a deer.

Yup. It's a deer. I'm gonna say it's a female because it wasn't breaking any tines. I named her Belle.
She was about this age, between fawn and yearling...
but obviously that isn't Belle. This probably isn't even a real deer, I just pulled it off google image. It just gives you an idea of how big she was. When we found Belle it was midnight, and she was lying on the side of the road with her tongue hanging out in shock, often going into flipping-out mode where she kicked all of her good legs while her front left leg hung limp, completely snapped and hanging on literally by skin.

The condensed version: I was really really upset. Will decided to help me because he knows I'd have probably never spoken to him again if he drove off. Nah, he wanted to help it too, even if he isn't as passionate about saving animals as I am. Another woman came who does this sort of thing all the time. She called all her friends at the local animal rescue places and none were open except for some random one in a town somewhat far away. My grandparents were already furious at me, first for being three hours late on account of helping Belle and secondly for helping a deer at all. My grandpa picked me up remarking how "there are too many damn deer around here. And they won't kill 'em either, they just ship 'em out to some ranch somewhere. It's dumb." I remarked that they were here before we were and that humans were overpopulated, not wildlife. He chose not to remark. He knows who I voted for.

So anyway, the woman helps us figure out a way to get Belle to the back of Will's car (she's equipped with towels and a burlap sack to lay her on; she'd have taken her but she already had two rescue dogs in her car. This part is really tricky because her legs are super powerful and her hooves are damn sharp, so we have to work together; Will takes the back legs and the woman and I take the front and torso. I scramble to give Will directions to the emergency vet place and he leaves. Cue twenty thousand worried twitter updates about Will and Belle because Will doesn't have a phone (real smart) and I want Belle to be okay.

Next morning: Will calls around five or six. He couldn't find the emergency vet nearby so he took her to the Austin wildlife rescue near his house. But they took her. And Will didn't die. And hopefully Belle didn't either. This all happened on Monday.

Then today, a couple of hours ago, Will said he went back to visit her and to donate money to the shelter. They said they take all their deer to a wildlife sanctuary in the country. I hope that doesn't translate to that "we took Sparky to a farm," parents say when Sparky had an old dog heart attack, and they are legitimately helping Belle recover. She didn't have any head injury, it was really just her leg. My dream would be that they would put a cute little deer cast on her leg and Will would have a cute little pet for his backyard until she got big and then she'd go to a lovely farm with a family who would feed her carrots and-- and anyway that was Austin.

The next day (Tuesday)

was spent at Petsmart getting Will a fish, a blue betta named Jerry. We drove around being bums and drinking coffee at various places. Later we ate ramen with his bum housemates and watched South Park: Imaginationland.

The next morning I went to the train station and took a lovely train ride. Train rides are so romantic and literary. I read books and listened to music while we whizzed through miles of endless fields of corn and cotton and sunflowers.
Out the window of the train. It was really cool. It was cool enough that I could ignore the woman one row over talking the ENTIRE FOUR HOUR RIDE, using terms such as "kinfolk" and excitedly calling me a "yank!!!" when she asked where I was from.

And that was Austin. Pretty much.

*RIGHT NOW*

I am sitting here with a laptop watching Flight of the Conchords. I got my wisdom teeth out yesterday. I look like the lovechild of John McCain, Nixon, a retarded fat bulldog and a chipmunk on steroids. I have been eating soup and hummus and ice cream, which is great. Apparently I sang during the entire surgery, and I dreamt I was at a Mt. Righteous concert whilst leaping over ancient Aztec structures with Will's fish Jerry who had incidentally turned into a monkey.
But if you follow me on twitter or facebook you've already heard all of this incessantly. I'm just so bored being bedridden and all that I seem to repeat my stories. Sorry.

Also, I took a whole six minutes to write this so if I don't get some communtz mah feelerz will be hurted.