...more austin.

we've had fascinating run-ins with a number of people who don't believe riding is feasible or fast enough to accommodate them and their lives. today was exceptional case though. while having an extremely unfortunate miscommunication triangle between: us, the tow truck driver, and AAA (after our car over heated and proceeded to spew smoke through the a/c the night prior), we had to ride and meet the tow truck driver at a random 7-11. finally deciding on a destination that wasn't 27(!) miles away, we told the driver we would meet him there. with a look of disbelief he asked, "and you're riding, those, there?" gesturing at our bikes.
we nodded, 'duh' (right?).
"...but you're going to be way behind me then," he continued.
allison steps it up (of course), "is that a challenge? yeah, we'll beat you there." we both take off down some sketchy street the bike map says we're not suppose to ride on (although the bike map clearly isn't in sync with our definitions of steep either, so psh). he pulls past us a ways down oltorf but we catch up at a light. we both arrive at the place around the same time. he's in disbelief and puts allison on the phone with his friend cause they both just can't believe it.

yet, this is one more of many occurrences where people just don't seem understand bikes or how their not just silly toys. but so it goes, it's great to demonstrate it so well to people. plus, the car is now being taken care of (a leaking hose? a cracked radiator? we will know tomorrow if we can leave on thurs am for new orleans) which is a mega relief. at least it wasn't in the vast expanse known as west texas, phew.

austin's been great to us. we stayed at lisa's last night, this rad older punk lady brigham had meet the last time he was in austin. she let the four of us take over her room. so after swimming in her apt pool at midnight with a 12-pack of lone star (texas' pbr, essentially) we had a mega-sleep over on her floor. today after the car-ordeal, there was bizarre weather that threatened to storm all day but didn't while we visited this awesome coffee shop (bouldin creek cafe), visited the post office, the remnants of a gallery, the wheatsville food co-op and the austin nature center, we finally made it to dave's house: a friend of a friend of a friend. yet him and his roommates have already been extremely gracious and live in this awesome old 2-story on the east side and also own a sassy cat named monkey. we'll see what the night holds...

(and really! pictures to come. we're taking them, just not uploading. they call is a cliff hanger)