We're back home in St Mary's after a month in Austin. Kate goes back to work tomorrow.The photo at left was taken on our last day. We were biking along Town Lake and ran into this fellow. I thought the T-shirt was really funny. The stance some Americans take on race and immigration is not so funny.
We left Austin on Friday morning at the crack of dawn -- we were on the road at 6:00am. We drove all day Friday through Dallas, Texarkana, Little Rock, Memphis, Nashville and ended the day at 10:30pm in Elizabethtown just outside of Louisville KY. That's just over 1,000 miles (or 1,600km) in 16:30 hours. On Saturday we slept in a bit leaving at 10:00am and drove through Cincinnati, Detroit, crossing at Port Huron and arriving home at 7:00pm. The last 800km (or 500 miles) in 9:00 hours.
Road conditions were generally pretty good. We did see a bit of rain snow mix around Nashville and awoke Saturday to a bit of snow on the cars. We also skipped a Kinky Friedman concert we discovered on a bill board along the way -- a free concert on March 1 at Sulphur Springs TX. Kinky is touring in support of a new album Bi-Polar Tour: Live from Woodstock". That would have been interesting! We're big fans, especially of the song "Marilyn and Joe" which seems to make it's way onto most collections we make for friends.
Anyways, back to our drive home. Our intention had been to get to the Nashville area on the first day. We've been many times and know that we can get from Nashville to home in a day. Our intention was to stay at Bowling Green KY just an hour north of Nashville but we had to press on as the La Quinta Inn where we had hoped to stay was booked solid -- no room at the inn for these weary travellers.
We pressed on to the La Quinta in Elizabethtown because of the cats. The La Quinta Inns are pet friendly -- that's why we stay there. And why we'd recommend them to others travelling with pets.
The cats were pretty good travellers. They would whine and wander about for the first hour or so every day but after that would settle down and nap for the rest of the day. They seemed to get the hang of staying in hotels pretty quick.
We crossed at Port Huron rather than Detroit. It's not as busy and with the 402 connection it's easy to get home to St Marys. At the border the guard asked us how long we'd been away and how much we had purchased. He didn't even want to look at our passports or documentation for the cats. I should have bought a case of Rex-Goliath Pinot Noir! It was only $5.00 a bottle and I wouldn't have had to pay any duty! At Canadian immigration they're not as concerned about border security.
Finally, on the way home we listened to Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town which I had borrowed from the St Mary's Public Library (they lend MP3 books). It's a very depressing true story of how bad things can be in Texas. Race can be an issue (cf. "I only look illegal"). There are some things we do not like about Texas but so much more that we do.
In any case adventures are over. We are all happy to be safely back home in our small town of St Mary's, Ontario, Canada. Not happy to be back in the land of snow and ice, but happy to be home.
