We saw the best holiday lights displays in Austin, Texas. On 37th
Street off Guadalupe, the entire street of college students and
regulars decorates every house. But this isn't like the same-ole
Disney decorations we get in Rocklin, or even the Santa-on-the-roof
type stuff. They are truly creative here. One house had a six-foot
tall spinning steel dradle (forgive my spelling) covered in geometric
patterns of lights. Another had a small train set climbing up into
a white 1940s gas stove, which had, in its oven, the North Pole and
Santa's workshop. Many houses had chosen to string lights up their
electrical wires and across the street, making an otherwise ugly
sight (the old-fashioned overhead wires) really beautiful. One house
had fasioned a ten-foot wave out of blue lights, with white ones
on the top for the crest, and had turned their trees into palm trees
using lights, and then had made an actual waterfall coming off their
roof onto the front lawn (that's commitment, man). But that wasn't
the best. The best was this one house that folks lined up to walk
around and see the back of. This guy (it had to be a guy)
had taken entire packages of lights and applied them to one corner
of his house (god I wished I'd taken my camera) without taking them
out of their internal plastic structure, so they were just lines
of a colored light. Just stapled the whole thing to his house (actually,
to some sort of black plastic covering his whole house), making
very pretty geometric patterns with them. And he took balled up
sets of lights and just tucked them everywhere into his bushes. And
he placed prescription containers over each light on one string, and
non-prescription bottles over the lights on another. . .he stuffed
dozens of them into glass bottles. He used
everything I can imagine, including dryer vent hose, to put lights
in. Then he had a wire strung over our heads, and folks were clothes-
pinning dollars to it to help him pay his electric bill.
By the way, we followed up this fun light show by walking across the
street for some of the best ice cream I've had, at Amy's. Real rum
in the butter rum, or they'll smash up your favorite candy in front of
you and add it to their amazing vanilla (among others) ice cream.
Best part: they're open till 1am, for that late-night ice cream need.
The rest of Austin was fun too. There are a lot of creative people
here, and gentle hills, and neat stores and cheap homes (new ones
as low as the 90,000s!). Katie and I went to an
art fair and tried on cool clothes (I bought a T-shirt) and I got
lots of ideas about stuff I'd love to own or make. Also there is a
wonderful park along the river, where you can run on unpaved trails
or take a kiddie train and then eat a snow cone.
Also, we took Katie to her second IMAX movie, and this time she
didn't fall asleep like she did in the Mars one. It was The Polar
Express (in 3-D), and it was wonderful. If you like the book, the
movie is very true to it, and a great Christmas treat. Katie didn't
like wearing the 3-D glasses, though, so she saw the last half
without them, which I tried for a minute, and don't recommend.
We stayed at a state park just outside the city (McKinney Falls),
and explored the waterfalls (Katie fell into a tide pool and got
soaked) and the ruins here. It's fun staying in the trees and near
the deer and smelling campfires at night, then driving a few
minutes into the city and enjoying what's there (like really good
beef brisket at the Green Mesquite).
Austin is wonderful. Now we're off to Houston.