Life without a lenscap

I awoke in Austin, fresh-eyed and all that stuff. Powered on the computer and got a note from my next hosts telling me I could come over whenever. So I did! I hopped in the car and pointed towards San Antonio. Can we talk about how wonderful it is to only have to drive an hour and a half? After many days of intense hourage, it was amazing. It also ended up being my first sunny day since Chicago, and for me, it was quite warm. [Matt and Alex feel differently]



Before I knew it, I had arrived at the door of my gracious hosts chibi_masshuu and darke. I was especially excited about this stop, as I've become very good friends with Matt [chibi_masshuu] over the past months, and we talk most days. He and Alex are both excellent people.

Anywhozle, so I blooped the doorbell, and then waited nervously on the porch, 'til the door opened. and it was all uphill from there [for me]. We sat in the living room for a bit and talked, and I had a grand old time. From there, Matt and I made our way out for a bit of adventuring. We began with lunch at a Mexican restaurant nearby, which was thoroughly delicious, and from there we worked our way towards the Alamo.



Oh, the Alamo. We've all heard stories about this fort, right? Well. I'm a bit of a geek, and so when asked what I wanted to do in San Antonio, I had obviously suggested seeing this. Wow. What a large error in judgement. Do you see this picture of the Alamo? Congratulations. I've just saved you 30 minutes of time in San Antonio. Regardless, we had a good time making fun of how ridiculous the Alamo was, and then we wandered over to the Riverwalk, which was very pretty, and littered with live cajun style jazz. We enjoyed a nice walk-a-bout and chit chatted before heading back towards the car. Matt is very camera-aware, so I didn't take too many photos. [I was trying to be subtle and shoot from the side.. as you can tell, he was very aware of the camera.]





Truth be told I didn't take many photos because I was just enjoying the company and the time, and I chose to focus on that. We hopped in the car and talked back and forth about this, that and the other. He showed me where he worked and we just kinda talked. It was nice.

Soon enough we arrived at the chibi/darke residence and settled into the couch to correct the fact that I had never seen Enchanted, even though I know Amy Adams. We had a grand time. Luckily Matt had already seen it so my talking about it throughout didn't [seem to] bother him. When the movie was finished we went out and got Thai. I had never had Thai food before [holy crap pad thai is awesome kids.] and it was a good chance to converse whilst enjoying new noms and crossing something off my 101. Also, I got to know Alex better, which was fun. We bonded over a similar liking of the musical the-ate-er among other things.

Home again afterwards to change into trunks and enjoy their heated pool. I hadn't been swimming since the summer, and it felt damn good to be in water again. Not to mention it led to relaxing and conversating. It was a nice nightcap to the day, and we all retired to bed shortly after.

Sleep was wonderful - their guest bed was superbly comfortable and it was nice to be in a real bed for the first time in several days.

And when I woke up, I learned that everything is bigger in Texas. For shiz. We went to a local breakfast joint called Lulu's which had chicken fried steak.

Ok.

so.

First of all, I had never heard of Chicken Fried Steak and zomg is it delicious.

Second of all. This is how big Matt's Chicken Fried Steak was. FOR REAL LIFE, PEOPLE.




Matt and Alex, both!


Alex had talked Matt into getting the super ginormous sized one to show off Texas' sized things. They shared it, so it all worked out fine fine. Hell, I couldn't finish mine and it was like a quarter the size. Did I mention they had cinnamon rolls at this place the size of my very literal torso. MY ACTUAL TORSO, PEOPLE.

I was sad when food was over, because it meant time was coming to a close. We made a few stops on the way home, and then procrastinated by watching various and sundry youtube clips on their TV for a bit. Sadly, eventually I had to get on the road [I had a 10 hour drive ahead of me] and I had to say goodbye and hit the road.

Not nearly enough time in San Antonio. The one downside of meeting people you're friends with from the interwebs in real life is when you leave you're like "damnitt. We would totally be awesome in life friends, and now I don't get to see them 'til god knows when." As a result I drove away with a bit of sadness, but also excitement as my next stop was one I was greatly looking forward to: N'awlins!

Matt's account of this adventure be here, y'all: click click

Holy crap dudes. I don't post for eons, and then you get this loquacious post. Almost done with wedding photos, and working through a backlog the size of georgia - all the while shooting 2 rolls of film a week!

Today I got up at an abhorrently early hour, and drove to Texas. Just short of a 12 hour drive. I managed to amuse myself pretty heavily with billboards, twitter and my camera. Let me tell you a little something about Missouri! There are about ninety billion billboards for Meramec Caverns. That is not even a horribly large exaggeration. In fact, I counted at some point, and within 1 minute, I went past 15. Also high on my enjoyment list was going past a billboard for the Precious Moments headquarters, that advertised it as the "Sistine Chapel of the U.S." If only I'd had time to stop and visit this no doubt miraculous and frightening gift to the American public. Not just that, but I passed the Vacuum Museum. And a sign that offered Bulls For Rent! [anyone want to go halfsies!?]

Oklahoma was not nearly as boring as I'd imagined. They have gas stations that have dinosaurs on them: Sinclair. And the speed limit is 75. It probably helps that I got terrifyingly lost for the first time. No maps and my gps was failing. So I drove amongst the corn fields as my gas approached empty 'til I somehow found a gas station and the highway. Terry helped pump the gas. The Texas Border Came! and with it a nice round of rain and cold - immediately shattering every image of Texas I had. This was saved by a billboard for sporting goods, gifts, and christian supplies. [Yes. Really.]

I landed at Jerry's! Some of you may remember him from his LJ days, when he ruled the interwebs as dinoadventures. We've been pretty well in touch the entire time, talking pretty much every day, and it was nice to meet up with him again. I no sooner touched base than we were OFF with a night of awesome planned.

First, we went to his rock gym! We both climb alot, so it just made sense to go together. These photos are by Jerry, and I haven't asked permission yet.




From there, he took me to a Texas Burger place, where I quickly learned what a horrible job we do making burgers in the north east. Holy Crap you guys. Hollly Crap. They are wide instead of thick, and they taste like awesome. Just kinda blew my head away.




Destroyed.

After this, we traveled our way to The Flying Saucer home of tons and tons of beer. Here, Jerry introduced me to all kind's of local beer I couldn't have tried in cambridge-land before we retired to his 'partment to sleep and prepare for the next morning!