It only took a year and a half and more going away shows/parties than the Who and Eagles combined, but I'm finally on the road to L.A. Pointed westward, car full of the things I thought I would need in the next three months. I'm sure I forgot some stuff and I know I brought shit with me that I don't need. Like some sort of anti-Johnny Appleseed, shedding unwanted crap across country. I actually have stuff stored in 4 states. Every time I move, I seem to be unable to just throw away flotsam and jetsam that has followed me town to town in unopened boxes, so as my vehicles get smaller and my crap expands, I end up stowing a box or 10 in a storage unit/friends house/relatives garage/bar I worked at/etc.. Soon enough I will have added a 5th state. I am moving to California, but I have already worked in my eventual return to NOLA. I am going to live in L.A. for a while, but I am a New Orleanian. You don't live in New Orleans so much as you have a relationship with her. Albeit a tumultuous, dysfunctional relationship, full of super high highs and pit of despair lows, but a relationship. Soon enough, if you are one of the unlucky blessed few, you find yourself hundreds of miles away from the Crescent City, standing in your kitchen, crying as you make a roux (not for gumbo, but merely for the smell) and singing to a Rebirth C.D. Wearing Mardi Gras beads. Nothing but beads. Plotting how to move back. It happens. To fight this is futile.
Anyway, here we are in beautiful North Lake Travis, a few miles from the city where I went to college. UT. Hook 'em and all that. The route here included the absolutely necessary detours through Shiner, TX to visit the brewery of the beer that fueled many a crazy nights of my young Austin years, and through Lockhart, Tx. to grab some killer BBQ from the CenTx Hatfield and McCoy's of the smoked meats universe. Google "Smitty's" and "Kreutz" and read the story. Good stuff. Almost as good as the sauce free 'que. Tonight I drive down to San Marcos to make some more people laugh and have a few drinks with friends. If we are lucky, and the weather holds out, a float down the river is in the cards for tomorrow. I'm in no real hurry to get out to Lost Angels. My plan is to experience as much of the country as I can on the way. America is a wonderful place if you get out of your house and off the Interstate. There will be many pit stops and much food consumed and quite a few pictures. If you want to follow, feel free. Or maybe you could just jump in a car and join me on an adventure of your own. One minute you are watching TV and the next you are a lump of fertilizer in a box way under ground. Make the best of it.
Now for some pictures!
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