Austin's return, Houston, TX and Baton Rouge, LA

Anna munching on a Beignet

I must apologize... I feel this blog has slipped into uninspired jankiness. This thing has degraded into a I went here then did this now over here blah, blah, blah. This is unacceptable to me for my audience and I will do what I can to right the ship. Please permit me to at least attempt a quasi-entertaining blog. I may fail but I am human...

I realized that I didn't end up reflecting on the portion of Walden I read while in Austin. I felt lazy and didn't edit my post to do that either and I suppose this exemplifies where I am in my effort. This has changed I promise you and now for the inner workings of the man we call, "douche" .. I mean "Alex" :)

Me and the Mississippi River

I didn't read Walden for awhile and I think it was because I hit a bit of a dry spot and wasn't eager to go back to the book. I pushed through and this is what I found. In this section of, "economy" he laid out his expenditures and his income during the first year he squatted on his land in rural New England. Not too exciting right? right. Well he did this to illustrate that you can live on very little money provided you sought to provide for yourself. He worked the soil around his property and was able to feed himself sans a few products he couldn't make himself. After a year he spent a bit more than what a typical man at that time made in 6 weeks. He then philosophized about a lifestyle that consisted of a man taking 6 weeks out of his life a year to work for another so that he may be completely unencumbered the rest of the year. Thoreau said the only truly free man is the day laborer. Quite a radical statement in my opinion. He says the day laborer does that which needs to be done for the day and once complete and all accounts settled he no longer needs to worry about the work or the industry or what have you. The owner must engross himself in the industry he chooses to try and make a living at and is subject to the boom times and famine of that industry. The owner takes on liability and must invest greatly solely in a single market that may have a great deal of volatility to it.

So what did this communicate to me? To me this spoke to simplicity. Outside of these readings I have found people bring up Thoreau and his writings and I understand that he was an advocate of minimalism and self sustainability. I understand that those many people we saw and met up in Humboldt county are seeking the things he advocated. I agree that we do need to strip our lives of the many distractions we unknowingly heap on ourselves. We need to re tune ourselves to what creates happiness and what can add to happiness but not create it. We need to redefine how we assess a, "Successful life." I must find how I want my life to be what I do daily or weekly that I find true value in and what I may strive for but not be so committed to that it can affect the joy in my life. I still have feelings of how to make at least XXXX amount of money a year and all the different things I want. I need to fight that and write down the things that have true value and the steps I will take to make sure those stay in important places in my life.

In Austin a Black Swan!! and some White ones!!!

The bedrock of the river and me

Now more of our tour:

As I said in my previous post Austin was too cool and we had to go back. This time around in Austin we didn't end up going downtown much but we did experience the wilderness around it. The park that we enjoyed when we first arrived, Zilker Park, really turns out to be a hot spot of activity in Austin. We went on a very long walk around the park and river there. It was great to get the exercise and feel the brisk air.  We then went to a part of the park that is much denser in foliage. We first had lunch then busted out the bikes to ride the trails. Well really quickly we realized that the trails were not conducive bike riding. I thought we could find a trail but Anna wasn't having it and we ended up parking the bikes and heading out on foot with me a little butt hurt from getting turned down on the bike ride. In retrospect,  walking was definitely the best choice though. The trails were somewhat maintained but there were difficult parts to it. The river was dried up and there were parts where you cross over the bedrock to get to the main trail on the other side. The walk was moderately difficult. We some some people bouldering and doing some rock climbing. All in all it was a good time and we felt like we worked off some of the food that we have been splurging on lately.

Our trail on our hike

A cold front moved in once again and really created a lame situation yet again. We found ourselves chilling in a Barnes and Nobles staying warm and doing not much. We heard reports of freezing rain in Houston which was our next stop :(. I spoke with my Uncle who lives in Houston and he gave us the latest on the conditions. At about 5:00pm we got a call from him that the conditions were good and we should have a go at making it there. I said alright and we were on our way. This drive ended up being very sketchy. It got dark somewhat quickly, which is something I don't want to drive in for the most part. The wind was pretty bad in some places and pushed Maander around quite a bit. Lastly, the road sometimes appeared to be wet and it was so cold outside I feared that ice may develop on the road. I just couldn't stop imagining getting hit by a strong wind right when we go over a bridge that has ice on it and that sends us into a spin or something. I just started praying that God would let us know if we needed to stop and abort the trip. We rolled into a town called Gidding about 60 miles into the trip and we decided that if we drive by a Walmart we would stop for the night. About a half mile down the road lo and behold a Walmart! God's way of saying chill for the rest of the night :)

The temp was supposed to get down to like 20 and with wind chill about 13 so we knew it would be a rough time. We busted out our sleeping bag that is rated to 20 degrees and we piled on the blankets as well. Turned out my biggest problem was sweating too much during the night :). I woke up in the middle of the night with my long john t-shirt soaked from my sweat and I had to peel it off. We slept in late and waited for the warmest part of the day to continue our travels to Houston.

Me and Uncle Gary at the races

We rolled into Houston at about 3pm and went downtown before meeting up with my Uncle. We ate at this excellent Cuban/Mexican joint where Anna got some great tacos and I had an average torta. We walked the streets downtown and there just wasn't much going on. I guess the people were all working stiffs in their offices downtown. I called my Uncle after a bit and headed to his apartment. My uncle was kind enough to let Anna and I use his bed and his apartment was so small he went and spent the night at a friends house. We had free reign and we raided his cupboards for food and drink. We caught up on all the TV we missed on hulu and nbc.com. You know I gotsta have my Office and Parks and Rec, and Community :).

Some horses crossing the finish!!!
I didn't win this race :(

We went to this nice steakhouse with my Uncle that night and the next day after being lazy for most of it we went to the mall to see what people are like in Houston. Houston is nice and all, really big, but it just didn't charm to it. From my understanding Houston is big and there is a lot to do there but you have to know what you want to do and where. That makes it difficult for us. Well when we were chilling at my uncle's Anna spotted a thing for some horse racing that was going on and it had 50 cent beers and 1.50 wine! That's great lets go and my Uncle was excited to go as well. This was the first time I really spent time at a racetrack and it turned out good. It would make a great guys' night out or something. We saw the thoroughbreds race and I started to put money on them. My first race I chose a winner and ended up winning 10 bucks woohoo. Well I shoulda stopped there because that's as high as I got up. By the end of the night I was down 6 bucks but it was a good time. We had good food and some beautiful horses.



We left the next day and this would be the longest drive yet for Maander. About 280 miles to Baton Rouge. We want to get to Florida but we don't want to miss out on some of the great southern history and sites. For the most part Maander handled the trip like a champ. He has been doing this thing lately where he will like hiccup. As if the engine isn't getting a spark for just like a half second then spark up again as if nothing every happened. I suspect it to be either the distributor, points, spark plug wires, or coil. I have replacement parts for all of those except the coil so I am not too stressed provided we stay safe. Oh the joys of an old car :)

We got into LA and soon saw swamps
for the first time

Baton Rouge has been pretty cool. It is a big college town and everyone is very proud of LSU. You see purple and gold everywhere and it is like the town revolves around the college. We hung out at a coffeehouse by campus when we rolled in then stayed at a Walmart. It was a Saturday night and we parked somewhat towards the IHOP that was in the complex. This was a mistake because near 2 am everyone decided that's where they wanted to be so the parking lot got really loud and we had to get up and dressed and re park the bus away from all the people. We later found out that that spot wasn't very good because there have been shootings in the past there because of all the young people starting drama.

This looks like some propaganda pic
for the LSU mascot Mike.
Its not just an accident
cute ain't he :)

The bronze Mike
LSU is very proud of their mascot

We woke up on Sunday and had these things called Beignets. They are unique to Louisiana from my understanding and they are basically fried dough with powder sugar on them. Nom Nom Nom and I had a bunch of powdered sugar on my jacket. We went to University Baptist Church and got there early enough to go to the College group. I can't decide if I am the weird old dude that shows up to college group but I am just going to forget that and be around people I enjoy and seem to be a little more fun loving than those people that are sticks in the mud that are around my age. We met the people there and told them about our journeys. We heard their Bible Study and it turned out to be a book I have read a long time ago hehe. Before big church I chit-chatted with a guy named Tommy and he invited us to get some southern food afterwards at this place called Chimes. It was really good food. We had Boudin and Alligator, and Fried Catfish. It was great and we even got a tour of the LSU campus by Tommy, he used to be a student ambassador so he knew a ton about the college.

The original Capitol building

After the meal Anna and I went down to where the Govornor's mansion was and the State capitol. We got invited by Tommy to go to this worship service at this other church at 7 and in the meantime we looked at the great architecture in Baton Rouge. We are now getting to the parts of the US where it is really old. Some of the buildings have been around for almost 200 years and the styles of buildings are very unique and cool. The current Capitol is the tallest of all of the US's Capitols and was built in the 1930s. It really looked great and had an Empire State building feel to it. Not sure of the name of the style of building. We walked in but they closed at 4:30pm and it was 4:20. we saw the lobby and that was basically it then just chilled on the lawn for awhile and enjoyed the great weather we were having.

Current Capitol I like it a lot

We went to the worship service Tommy invited us to and he said it was cool if we spent the night at his apartment with his 3 other room mates. We were able to shower up and play on his Kinect. That was fun and we just talked to Tommy and just let him know about some of our journey's and some of the things we have realized on the trip. He is planning a trip around the world once he graduates so he talked about the fund raising he is doing for that and the details with that.

Looking down the steps into downtown Baton Rouge

It was great meeting Tommy and all the people at University Baptist and we felt very welcomed. I guess Mardi Gras is going to start on Saturday so we are thinking about just hanging out in Louisiana until then. If it is this close we have to right? Well we are in New Orleans now hanging in a Coffeehouse in the French Quarter. The cemeteries look crazy here because they don't bury people they just have mausoleums if that is the correct name for them. We haven't seen too much desolation or damage here yet. We parked Maander and a guy name Gabriel complimented us on the bus then we just started talking about the town. He gave us some suggestions on places to check out. I asked him if there were places we should avoid and he gave us a run down of the seedier areas so we will be sure to avoid those places.

Pray for us and we hope to continue to Florida and just keep this journey going. I am getting pretty homesick and I miss all you guys back in Sacramento. Maybe I will have a Skype night and see if anyone wants to talk over Skype

Peace