On the roads of Texas

I could say we were wearing jeans, cowboy boots and hats. Alas, no, although you can easily meet Texans dressed like that if you leave Downtown of Austin with its skyscrapers, take a car and go to meet the hot wind at Ranch Road.

Have you ever seen the pictures of endless flower fields of Texas? For instant like this

this pic is not mine -  you can find a lot of postcard like this in gift shops in Texas

 

If your answer “yes” you shouldn’t choose a highway to reach your destination. On highway the only way to enjoy your trip is to bawl songs, tap a rhythm on your knee and ignore the endless ugly sheds on both sides of the road lavishly decorated with equally ugly giant signboards.

However, the road signs in Texas are masterpieces itself:

We did exactly like this on our first day of weekend trip. We took a highway to the South. We were going to San Antonio, the city which became the symbol of independence of Texas because of Alamo.

After visiting the fortress we found out that
1) an American way of talking about tragic pages in the history is quite different from European one
2) there is Bowie Street in every city in Texas but this is not about David, this is about James, the hero of the Texas revolution (David chose his pseudonym in honor of James).

 

San Antonio also has the famous embankment and it is overcrowded a lot. You may object there is nothing remarkable about crowds and most likely you would be right. But we have never seen such a weird, insanely dressed, chaotic and frightening crowd before (however, we haven’t been in Asia yet). So we reacted predictably: went to have some margarita.

There are a lot of boats overloaded with tourists go to and fro on the river (three million visitors per year by the way). It looks exactly like in Giethoorn in the Netherlands.

The food served in the restaurants along the embankment is excellent, although you need to be lucky enough to take a table close to water (we were!).

My enchiladas with shrimps were delicious as heaven though a hot as a hell.
San Antonio turned out to be a great place to watch the life of a typical southern Texas city. We did our best trying not to stare, but did not succeed much.
The city has preserved many buildings from the past two centuries. The Spanish church built in seventeenth century stood then and keeps standing now.  Because of Easter it was overcrowded there.

Squirrels here afraid nothing. Just like cats!

Like Marilyn

The easier way to enjoy of pure beauty of Texas is to take the less loaded scenic roads like Ranch Road. We did so on the second day of our trip. Our aim was to visit the caverns of Sonora. We need to go through a half of a state to get there. I dare to assure you, these caves are so incredibly beautiful they are worth every mile we passed.
Driving itself was an adventure. We didn’t see any cowboys on horses. It seems like now they prefer the trucks which look like tanks.

Anyway we have met a friendly hippie riding a tractor. (I sincerely believe this is even better than cowboy riding a horse.)

Our guide to the caves was huge, too loud woman. I know for sure now the typical warder in American prison you often see in movies and serials is not a fantasy but a cruel reality. She threatened us with jail all time we have been there: we should not even think of touching anything in the caves. (However, these threats are not coming from nothing. The act of vandalism has happened ten years ago so from then it prohibited by law to touch or take anything out of the cave. You easily can go to jail acting like that. The tricky part is even explorers themselves can’t take out some stones collapsing into passages.) I quickly found out I had the unprecedented depths of obedience. I literally was keeping my hands in my pockets for an hour and a half! However this is a place you immediately forget about everything else. You can think nothing about except this amazing caves.

Would you like some bacon?

This is the famous butterfly (this nice pic I found in internet):

As you can see the roads of Texas promise to you a lot of fun. Perhaps in the couple of years when I  be able to forget about Nocturnal Animals we will take even the most deserted roads of Texas at night. Till then we say bye!