2/7/2022

Howdy y’all and welcome to Texas!

Well, welcome to Austin, Texas at least, which by all accounts is its own animal here in the Texas universe. When I first started college at UCSB (way back in 2004), one of the very first friendships that I made was with a girl who lived across the hall from me in the dorms. Her name was Jessica Chappell (Jess for short, never Jessie), and she was from what was a relatively small city at the time called Austin, Texas. Jess said ‘y’all’ instead of ‘you all,’ seemed capable of eating chili for every meal (thank God she didn’t), and never really seemed to grasp the hipster, computer culture that permeated California at the time. I used to tease her about being from Texas – some lowly backwater where no one wants to go. Oh how I am eating those words now. Humble pie is hard to swallow.

Fast-forward to 2022, and Austin is now the fastest-growing city in the United States in terms of the amount of people moving here each year. Currently, approximately 100 people are establishing residence within this city each-and-every day of the year. The entire city skyline is ablaze with the sights and sounds of construction of new skyscrapers, providing an energy and excitement to the cityscape that must match what F. Scott Fitzgerald was trying to capture in his description of 1920’s New York in the Great Gatsby. Right before our very eyes, the old, sleepy capitol of Texas is being transformed into a sleek, modern, tech megapolis that extends as far as the eye can see up-and-down the Colorado River.

Austin has become mecca for the California exodus, as corporations and tech hubs flee the high tax, high regulation Golden State in droves. Austin is the new home of Tesla; and will likely also end up being the home of SpaceX as Elon Musk continues to move his operations out of California and over to Texas. But it’s not just Elon Musk making moves out here. As you walk the city, you start to notice all sorts of tech corporate offices dotting the skyline. Google, Apple, and a host of popular websites are all jockeying for space within the city’s real estate.

Of course, this unprecedented population influx is not without consequence. Public utilities here have been strained by the sheer amount of growth. You may recall last year, when Texas had historic cold and snow, the city’s power grid failed for the better part of a week. And while I’m here right now, the entire city’s water system is on a boil water notice. But, outside of the hiccups, Austin proves to be a remarkably livable city. It is full of running trails, bike paths, and green spaces; and for the past several years, it has routinely ranked at the top of lists for livability, affordability, and all-around hipness. Whatever Jess thought of the hipstery, computer culture of California in the early-2000s, it is now for-better-or-worse here in Austin.

My visit here to Austin is especially exciting because I get to catch up with not one, but two blasts-from-the-past. The first person I’ve been catching up with is Shelby Lehor, who has been doing an awesome job showing me the city and what it has to offer. I don’t think my trip here would have been even slightly as enjoyable without Shelby acting as host and guide.

Shelby and I were actually locker mates back in high school in Red Bluff. Back then she was on the FFA/ag track at the high school and I was on the STEM track. I don’t think you could really call us friends back in those days because we hung out in different circles, but we usually would bump into each other at our lockers at some point during the day and exchange ‘hellos’ while hurrying off to our next classes.

Following high school, Shelby became an extremely adventurous sort, and is probably even more of a serial traveler than I am. She has already walked the entire Camino de Santiago through France and Spain (and plans to do it again), has been to Italy several times, has traveled Croatia, and has been to even more States than I have (which at this point in my travels is really saying something). She is also kicking butt in the business world as the marketing director for Independence Brewing Company, one of the largest (if not the largest) breweries here in Austin. You can find their beer just about everywhere here in Texas, as well as in several other States, thanks to Shelby’s marketing efforts.

When I was looking for places to stay here in Austin, Shelby advised that I book a room at the Hotel Zaza, and I’m glad I did. Despite the funny sounding name, the place is perfectly located downtown, showers you in luxury and opulence with some of the best views of the city (the cover photo for this blog entry was the view from my balcony this morning), and yet is well-insulated and quiet. I guess my one complaint is that it is a bit new-age like the place I stayed at in Nashville, but this place does it right with a fun movie theme throughout the hotel (although I will be haunted forever by the picture of Stanley Kubrick that someone at the hotel thought was a good idea to place in my bathroom). Despite the creepy Kubrick picture, I highly recommend this hotel if you come to Austin!

After I checked into the Zaza, Shelby, her friend Heather, and I just went out barhopping around downtown. It was a blast, but I think we might have drank a little too much. Perhaps as recompense, Shelby offered to take me to Terry Black’s for lunch today, which apparently is a very famous Texas bbq spot here in Austin. But first, I decided to walk off my hangover with a visit to the Texas State Capitol. While there I saw a bunch of interesting statues, mostly of a confederate nature, and…a bunch of rattlesnakes!? Like an insane number of rattlesnakes out in the open with several people gathered around them??? What is this place?

Yeah, that was a whole lot of nope. I guess here in Texas they have an annual ‘rattlesnake roundup’ convention thing, where 1000s of people gather and bring the rattlesnakes that they’ve rounded up over the past year (that’s the stupidest convention I have ever heard of, hands down). These people were just showing off a few of the rattlesnakes at the capitol, to try to get people pumped for the convention… Hard pass for me.

After I got back from the capitol, Shelby picked me up and took me over to Terry Black’s. The place was already packed at 11 am, and people were like standing outside taking selfies like they were at Disneyland or something. I had never even heard of the place before, but man was it good! Knocked Corky’s in Memphis out of the park. Nope, Texas bbq is the best bbq hands down.

Following the biggest, most-filling lunch ever, Shelby and I said our goodbyes and I went for a long stroll along the Colorado River (thank you so much for the hospitality, Shelby! It was great catching up with you, and hopefully we bump into each other again someday during our incessant travels). This city really is amazing, and I hope that the tech world does not do to it what it did to the Bay Area – invest, develop, and then abandon leaving a bunch of problems behind. That would be a terrible thing to happen to Austin. No, Austin needs to remain as the sparkling, laid-back city that it is today.

I think I stuffed about as much as I could stuff into a day here in Austin. Tonight, I’ll be catching up with my second friend here: Jessica! We have a lot to celebrate in Jess’ life. She got her PhD a few years ago from the University of Georgia, moved back home to Texas, and she is now a Coastal Planner at the Texas General Land Office. Apparently part of her office’s job duties includes clearing beaches and monitoring environmental issues at Space X launches, which sounds awesome! Also, she very recently got engaged and I cannot be happier for her. It should be a fun night of catching up.

But at dawn, I ride! Strap on your boots and grab a cowboy hat buckaroo, because we’re heading to Fredericksburg and San Antonio!

Cheers,

-Rob