Day 13: Austin

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny" CS Lewis

It's father's day today. If you haven't gathered it by my previous posts, my dad passed away a few years ago from Alzheimer's. I remember going on facebook on mother's day and it being hard to scroll through my feed, seeing everyone happy with their moms. I'd give anything to have my parents back with me, and it's especially hard on holidays like these, where I'm reminded of what I don't have anymore.

So after a lot of thinking and toiling over the thought, I've decided to head back early. I mean, I'm in Texas, so it's not like I can just blink my eyes and be back in Seattle, it'll only be about 4 days earlier than what I had planned. I decided to skip Chicago and Yellowstone, but I'm still headed to New Orleans today and from there I'm going to head to Mt. Rushmore and back west. It's going to be a lot of driving in a short period of time, but I feel like it's the right decision for me. It may seem like I'm giving up, but I'm trying not to look at it that way. I feel like I've gotten a lot from this trip and I'm ready to go home. I never thought that I'd miss my cat this much but I do, and I miss all of my friends and family, my support system.

Last night was my second night in Austin. After I got back from the sculpture garden I hung out at the house I was staying at. Carlos, the guy I was staying with, invited me to go see an amateur wrestling match with him and his friends. I didn't have any plans and it sounded fun so I went and it was pretty wacky. I stood ringside with Carlos for a few matches, the theme of the night was dinosaurs so all of the wrestlers had dinosaur themed costumes, at one point a puppet was wrestling, so it was interesting to say the least. The building it was in was like a warehouse and the air flow was not good. I was drenched in sweat from head to toe so at intermission I decided to head outside. Carlos and his friends stayed ringside the whole night, I'm not sure how they did it, I was dying after 45 mins and they stayed out there for 3 hours. They had screens set up all around so I ended up just watching from those the rest of the night. The people that were there were so into it, it was very entertaining. We headed back to Carlos’ after the event was over and I had my first taste of Whataburger, a local burger chain in the south, I wasn't too impressed. Overall I really did like Austin, it reminded me a lot of Portland, I'd like to come back when I'm in a better mindset. It felt kind of like San Francisco, it's hard to enjoy something when you aren't feeling your best.

Today I'm headed to New Orleans. I stopped at Jiffy Lube to get an oil change before I left and I'll probably head through a car wash. Carl has driven a lot of miles in the past 2 weeks and deserves a good wash. I'm constantly worried about what other people think about what I'm doing, the decision to go home early is no different. So think what you will, I will eventually learn not to care what you think. For now, I need to do what's best for me, and I think that going home is.