I am in Austin this week on a work related trip. A work related trip means a budget trip. There is not a lot of money budgeted for entertainment. For low budget entertainment I like to get out and about, relaxing in my walking shoes.
For me being out of town without a lot of cash is easy. I like to walk. If given the choice when out of town if something is in walking distance I walk there instead of drive.
Walking gets me out of my hotel room for a longer period than driving somewhere close will. A few minute drive can become a thirty minute walk. Two thirty minute walks to and from where I am going to have my dinner means an hour or more of my evening is taken up in an enjoyable way.
What is a walk like in a strange place? I have taken more than a few, so I will share a few stories. Walking in some places was not the best decision I could have made. Walking in other places has been a unique experience. Generally an hours walk around the area I am staying is fun and relaxing.
 I once wandered lost in the streets of an American ghetto. I was followed for about twenty-five minutes by three young men, who could not quite bring themselves to bother me, but followed me in case they had the opportunity. I was lost and it was not fun. In Israel I walked as a tourist in places where no tourist should have been walking. People were being kidnapped, and buses were blowing up. Most people with me thought it was too risky to be out and about and they stayed in their rooms, very bored. In one small town where I stopped for a night, I watched porch lights come onm heralding the direction of my walk. Porch lights lit my way for almost a mile before I returned to where I started. I was impressed with the speed of the telephone and the power of a stranger in a strange town.
Some trips like this one to Austin are very good. Today I went on an hour stroll along the infamous Austin river walk near the South Congress Bridge. I watched people jog and walk by. People cruising along on bicycles from one place to another. People walking in groups, and people walking with their dogs.
I had a interesting chat with a homeless man who had the motor portion of a ceiling fan. He was trying to turn it into a generator for his personal use. While he tinkered with the motor pondering possibilities, he shared some of his life with me. I never would have had that chat from my car or room.
I walked my way back to the South Congress Bridge, and asked around for a salad bar within walking distance. There happened to be a salad bar of sorts about eight blocks up the street. I walked hearing bits of conversations in dialects I never heard before. Possible they are tourists like myself, or perhaps business people working hard on closing the deal.
During my walk back, homeless people were staking out their sleeping quarters for the evening. The incongruity of skyscrapers worth untold millions with homeless men and perhaps women sleeping in their daytime shadow was a study of contrasts.
I arrived back on the South Congress Bridge in time to observe the nightly flight of approximately 750,000 bats starting their nightly feed. While waiting for the flight, I chatted with people standing next to me about traveling, they gave me their impressions of their Jerusalem visits. What a small world, a stranger on a bridge having been to Jerusalem too.
Over all, getting out walking, listening, and talking to complete strangers is a thrifty and enjoyable way to pass part of an evening. Walking in some neighborhoods is indeed risk taking at its best. For most walks however, being out and about on foot is enjoyable, and a stress reliever. Use common sense, leave your valuables and extra money in your room, and get out and see what the locals take for granted.
If you are fortunate, you will get the kind of comment I did last night when I wandered too far from the beaten path. A car slowed, a window came down, and a womans voice said, “You lost”, and she laughed. I turned back the way I came knowing the next vehicle to stop may not be so friendly. If you are not that lucky, you may get a little nervous. Use your head and don’t stray any farther away than you have already. Head back to where you started and walk in a different direction.
It is relaxing to finally be in Minnesota after travelling for the third day. Day two and day three are blended together, as there was not much difference between them. The meals were good, and the hotels were very cheap because they were not boxes with chain names attached to them. We Americans are so conditioned to use a chain anything, I wonder how independents manage to make a living running their own busines. At least any business that applies itself to the tourist trade must have a difficult time competing.
I did not see a lot of flooding, but I did see a lot of wet fields that won’t be planted for the summer season, or at least planted with a normal cash crop. Coming from a city it is always refreshing to see so much farm land and so few homes. It makes me wonder how our government can function with so many different interests in our country. There are the farmers, fisherman, lumberman, miners, on and on and on. I think that is why so much pork ends up in otherwise good bills. The pork is added to get the votes so the bill can pass. The pork project is probably something some Senator or Representative needs to keep his area back home in jobs.
Lake Superior is HUGE! It always surprises just how big the Duluth and Superior harbor is. The harbor as big as it is is dwarfed by Lake Superior. We drove along the Skyline parkway in Duluth to Enger Tower. Years ago when I lived here in Duluth, Enger tower was not a big tourist spot, having more broken liquor bottles and used condoms than tourists on any given day. About the only time it was talked about was when a teenager trying to climb on the roof did not make it, or someone decided jumping from the tower was a way to end their current life on earth.
Enger Tower yesterday was a completely new experience. There are many types of flowers and shrubs in bloom, manicured flower beds, trails, picnic tables and short walking paths so no matter how many people are there, there is room for everyone. After Enger Tower I drove over one of the bridges to Superior so the kids could add another state to the states they have driven through on the way here and back. We stopped and had lunch at a Hardey’s. Hardeys’s is a burger place, and was entrenched here before the burger chains invaded. Because they make such giid burgers for a fair price, they are still around and thriving.
I enjoyed dinner at my Aunt and Uncles house, as always it was very good. After dinner and catching up and trading stories three days of driving caught up with me and bed looked like a great option. I was out voted, andany it was off to the mall. It was late and the mall was would be closing soon, so I never made it any farther than a book store. It was a borg store, but much larger than any I have been to in New Mexico. I forgot how much passion people here in Minnesota have for reading. Five months of cold weather a year probably adds to that passion, but that is another story in itself.
I was woken in the middle of the night by the resident dog, and upon checking the outside temperature I saw it was a frosty forty-two degrees. Seeing I have experienced forty two degrees in a number of months and the fact the dog needed out, I opened the door to make sure the thermometer was correct. If it was not forty-two, it was a good imitation. The dog did his thing, I let him back inside the house, turned up the heat to a warmer sixty-five and went back to bed for a few more hours sleep.
Woke up this morning to light rain, perhaps drizzle. It has been so long since I have been anywhere where the rain last for more than twenty or so minutes, it was a pleasant change to my morning. It has been a lazy morning with the overcast weather and being tired from the trip, I am not moving very fast. I will probably drive us to the mall and maybe see the rest of the mall too.
The start of day two is a good one except it it obvious that the warm days of New Mexico are behind. I find a restaurant that has a good breakfast deal. Sitting down at the table the cool breeze from the air conditioner is a little to cool for me. About ten minutes later, I ask if I can move to another location, one that does not seem to be under the refrigerator door. The waitress taking care of us tells me that is fine with her. It seems that refrigerated air is big at this place, and there is no place that is not cold to me, so I settle into the table I am at.
The weather did not look that good and looks were not deceiving. About forty minutes into the morning drive it started raining and did not stop for over three hours. At some points I was down to forty miles and hour, because the rain was so hard it was difficult to see the road. The rain stopped almost as fast as it started but the sky remained overcast for a big part of the day. The rest of the dirve was pretty uneventful, and I ended the days drive in some little town on mid Iowa after swerving to miss what was left of deer on the highway. Deer and vehicles travelling at high speeds do not mix well.
I enjoy watching the lanscape and the slowly change from sand, rock, and cactus to rich soft earth, rolling hills, fields of wheat and corn. When travelling from the southern end of the US north the people also change. The Hispanic and Indian peoples become fewer and fewer and the remaining people become taller. Once the halfway point is crossed some women are as tall or taller the the average male in New Mexico.
The food also changes, New Mexican cooking now becomes something that looks like Mexican cooking, but tastes like something not quite Mexican cooking. Not that it is bad, just different. The staple foods become more English looking in nature, spiced with an occasional dish from Germany, Poland, or a dish from the Nordic countries. I am guessing because the weather is colder in the winter and more humid, Mexican cooking is not as good a choice for meals as what is served. I know I am going to start wanting hot food and not be able to find it.
Being in the center of Iowa the damage from the flooding is not as apparent as it is on CNN, but there are still signs of too much rain. Some of the fields are soggy and lay barren, other fields have wide shallow ponds in them that will eventually become muddy spots. I do not think we in the rest of the country will notice the effects of the flooding until this fall, but even from a roadside tour in the middle of the state it is obvious the harvest will not be what it normally is. We won’t notice the shortage too much because the increased cost will probably be blended with increasing gas prices, but third world countries will certainly notice there is less food to go around.
I always appreciate just how big our country is when I travel. Even though most of us are homoginized by chain stores, we all have a unique perspective on what we need for our country depending on where we live. I live in a large city in the south and my views are a lot different than a farmer living two miles from his neighbor in the midwest. I am sure their views are split up again depending on what they are growing and what price the crop is bringing. On the coastal cities the views are flavored by the ocean industries. Somehow we manage to pass laws and do things that either make us all unhappy together or marginally satisfied.
Lunch and dinner were prety uneventful, but filling. I spent the night in one non-descript hotel that had seen it best days in the sixties. The room was spotless and the price was right. Once the lights are out, I sleep as well as I would in a three hundred dollar a night suite. In the morning, the showers are always hot and and the towels soft and clean. I didn not see a continental breakfast, but for the price difference I can live without it.
Day two ended on a tired note. After the second day of driving, I am tired but not sleepy. It is times like these I really appreciate long haul truck drivers. I have had a few friends who used to drive for a living and said they loved it. I find the thought of knowing how many minutes to a destination hundreds of miles away from whatever bush is in view a little on the boring side. To each his own, although I always have a fondess for truck drivers, as they are the lifeline of our country.
Remember Star Trek with the Cyborgs taking over the known universe, and mechanically modifying every life form they came into contact with? The show carried a strong message on many levels. “You have been Borg’d”, brought a smile to many people’s faces. The sad thing is we have been ‘Borg’d’ but not by some outer space race. We have been Borg’d by our own modern style of living. It is now not possible to drive across the whole United States and never eat, or sleep, like you could in your own home town.
When I travel and time permits, I like to do things that are not in my home town. That means eating at a cafe or restaurant that does not advertise on national television. It means sleeping in a hotel that is not part of a national chain. Guess what, it is a lot of fun! The meals are usually very close to home cooking, and inexpensive. The hotels are clean and quiet too, but not the most modern. And you do not spend your night trying to sleep with a freeway fifty yards away from your hotel window. Of course you have to plan ahead, because the really small towns are pretty much shut down for the night by seven p.m., and if you do not have any snacks you can get pretty hungry by morning.
I was driving through Kansas two years ago and drove into a small town looking for somewhere to eat dinner. What did I find but a beach bar and grill with a salt water aquarium, and a singing Mermaid! I was a thousand miles from the ocean and here is this fun little place with a seaside theme that is not only surviving, but thriving! I had a good meal, and talked to the woman who was tending bar, about the place, an asked her if I could hear the mermaid sing. Of course at first she was reluctant because that only happens at nine p.m. each night, but considering I was passing through and asked politely…I heard a mermaid sing! Now how often does tha happen in a national chain of any type?
I drove on for another hour or so and ended up at a small hotel that had about fifteen rooms. I was tired, but it looked well kept, although it was empty except for me. The man at the desk told me I could have a room for twenty-eight dollars. Then he asked me right away if I thought that was a fair price? I started to say yes, but he interupted and said it was their ‘slow’ season and I could have a room for twenty one dollars, but he could not go any lower. It was a nice clean room, a little on the old side, but when I turned off the lights it was hard to tell where I was, except it was oh so quiet.
The next morning I found myself in the Texas Panhandle wanting breakfast. I stopped at a little place with all of six tables in a town with a population that could not have exceeded a few hundred. I am greeted and placed at a table where the regulars have already had breakfast and the next group would not use that table until lunch time. A group of four adults showed up who of course were regulars. They made small talk with the waitress, who was fresh out of high school. It seemed that down at the electrical substation two miles out of town, there were doughnut marks in the driveway, and someone thought they saw a blue car down there last night, and was it her? After they got done teasing the waitress, I became their focus. It turned out that one of them had lived in a little town I once did many years before! The world sure is a small place some time!
If you have a weekend, or you can afford the time to drive somewhere, you might give it a try? Stay off the freeway and take the ‘back’ roads. There is a lot of America out there to discover, and you will have fun along the way. As I mentioned meals and lodging are usually very reasonable and you will sleep soundly without big city or jet noise coming through the walls of your room. If you are really lucky, you may even get to hear a mermaid sing! Or you could stay at a national chain hotel and eat dinner at a burger place just like back home.
I met a man in a village in England some years ago. I was trying to hitch a ride in a small village, traveling to the coast for some sightseeing. I was standing on the road side when he approached me and asked where I was headed. On a side note, it is obvious when we are visitors to another country, but not always obvious we live six states away from where we are standing.
Natural curiosity gets the best of people and I thought this man was no different. He asked me where I was going, so I told him. Then he asked me where I started from and I told him where I was staying. He then asked me if I like the people where I was staying, and I said, yes, I thought they were very friendly people. The man then asked me what type of people did I expect to meet when I arrived at my destination? I replied I did not know how they would be.
The man changed the subject and asked about where I lived in the United States? I told him, and he followed up with another question about how did I like the people back home? I said, I liked the people back home; I thought they were nice people, they usually offered help when they could, and they were generally good people who try to do the right things.
Once again the man changed the subject and offered that perhaps I would find the people where I was going to as good as the people I already knew? I thought about this for a few seconds, and decided it may be a possibility, and offered up the people in the next town were more likely to be good people than stand off type of people. The man laughed and said, the people I met would be just the people I expected to meet. I asked him why he thought this, and he said, because I seemed a friendly person, I could expect that most people I would meet would be friendly to me.
I thought about this, and asked him why this would be? He replied that no matter where we go in life, the people around us generally do nothing more than reflect back who we are. Because I seemed a happy person, most people would act happy around me. In my lack of any real perspective on this, I had to take the man on his word. I told him, that was quite an insight on people and was he a psychologist or psychiatrist? He said no, he was unemployed, but generally did odd jobs and minor carpentry when he could get it. I then asked him if he traveled a lot? He told me no, he had never been farther than three towns away from his home in his life.
I forgot this man and his wisdom that day as I enjoyed new sights and sounds by the English seashore. It took me many years to appreciate the wisdom of his conversation though. On that day, as I walked on trying to hitch a ride, I thought what a silly person he was. Him never having been anywhere really, never even leaving the area he lived in, what could he possibly know about the world? An expert on human relations who had never been more than fifty miles from home! I know now what he knew, and what he told me turned out to be so very true, he knew a lot more about the world than I did, even though he had barely been away from home in his lifetime.
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