This time on "Becky Does..." we explore the capital city of one of America's stranger states:  Texas.  Melissa, taking a rare 4-day break from being stalked by Jake, asked at the airport, "Who's the governor of Texas now?"  She thought it was maybe Ann Richards, whom she decided to refer to as Ann B. Richards, confusedly mishmashing her name with that of Anne B. Davis, aka Alice from The Brady Bunch.  It wasn't until we were actually standing in the Capitol that it hit me that the current governor of Texas is Rick Perry, whom I described to Melissa as, "that jackass who wants Texas to secede from the union."

Texas:  Second only to Alaska in electing governors whom I find personally offensive.

Thursday!  Melissa and I met at the Austin airport and rented a car.  We had a couple of hours to kill before we could check into our hotel, so we hit up a burger joint called Fran's and with that I have exhausted the list of restaurants from the weekend whose names I remember.  (I never remember the names of any restaurants ever, and this weekend was no exception.)

We walked a bit, then, down Congress Avenue and stopped at a couple of shops, including this, the greatest costume store I have ever been in.

Then we checked into our hotel (which wasn't so much a hotel as a nice little guesthouse with neon lights, a wall of windows, and a shared backyard with a fountain) for a brief rest before heading out to Barton Springs where people who weren't us swam in the 68 degree water while the heat index of the air pushed 100.  We walked around a while, decided we were about to die of heat exhaustion, and went to dinner.

Afterwards, we hit up Whole Foods to buy overpriced organic cereal and milk for our upcoming breakfasts (our lodging had a kitchenette) and made it back in time to catch The Office wedding (HA HA on the last 10 minutes or so).  THEN we went a bar called Emo's where we saw The Postmarks and their opening act Brookville.  Melissa warned me that the show would be "late", and by "late" she meant "starting at 11:00," and by "starting at 11:00" that meant Brookville started at 11:00, not The Postmarks.  So I may or may not have nodded off a bit the hours past midnight. 

Friday!  IT RAINED.  And rained and rained and rained.  It poured so much that we didn't leave the hotel before noon.  And the air temperature?  Suddenly not so hot.  For the remainder of the weekend it would be cloudy and below 60 degrees.

After lunch we went to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, the first Presidential Library I've visited.  This one opened in the early 70s and looked every inch of it.  It featured two full-sized office replicas, one of the Oval Office under President Johnson and one of Lady Bird Johnson's office.  There was also a hall of Presidential and First Lady portraits...cases of memorabilia...displays of all the gifts countries gave to LBJ while he was in office...floors of archives...you know, Presidential Library stuff.  And a MODERATELY TERRIFYING life-sized animatronic figure of LBJ that leaned on a fencepost in the portrait hall and told jokes.  It was even more creepy than it sounds. 

Apparently LBJ's Library is the most visited in the country.  It was pretty interesting, but I had more fun in the gift shop than anything else because they had TONS of vintage political buttons.  And yes, I bought some.  (Last year, when Melissa and I went to San Francisco, I dragged her first thing to the local Obama headquarters so I could buy buttons.  This is what you get if you go on vacation with me.  Political button shopping.)

THEN we continued our politically-themed afternoon by seeing Capitalism:  A Love Story at the Alamo Drafthouse, where we were told to go but not told what to expect, and thus we timed our visit in between meals instead of taking advantage of the option of eating while watching our movie.  I'm saving my remarks for the movie (which EVERYONE SHOULD SEE) until later, as the film deserves its own blog entry.

Then dinner.  Then hotel.

Saturday!  We hit up the Capitol to see where such illustrious individuals as W and "that jackass" Rick Perry have governed the state (as well as many others whom I find more admirable).  We spent a long time wandering the different floors and the grounds and even tried to see the governor's mansion, down the street, but it appeared to be under extensive construction.

After lunch, I attempted to direct Melissa to a work-related company located just outside the city, but we drove and drove and couldn't find it.  So instead we stopped at Austin Lake where it was cold and windy and the sky was so grey that when we came up over a hill, I said, "I see water!"  But it wasn't water.  It was the sky.  Sad. 

We had things we wanted to do in the city for the duration of the afternoon but there was a UT football game that day and we could NOT find a place to park.  We drove FOREVER in circles and finally gave up and came back to our hotel where we sat and did nothing for the rest of the afternoon.

We ventured out again for dinner and attempted to partake in the tourist tradition of watching bats fly out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge at dusk.  But we couldn't find a place to park and spent many, many, MANY minutes circling until we found a spot, before race-walking to the bridge and waiting for 30-45 minutes in the cold.  The bats never showed.  TEXAS-SIZED FAIL, BATS.

To console ourselves, we had s'mores at a trendy bar.

Sunday!  It rained some more.  And we went home.

So that was pretty much Austin.  Shitty weather, shitty parking, but the weekend did have some nice moments.  It also had a lot of Golden Girls because apparently it's on the Hallmark channel every hour of the day and we spent a lot of time watching TV.

And I apologize for the complete lack of pictures, but I didn't take many and Melissa hasn't uploaded hers yet (she got home much later than I and is working today so she can [hopefully] be an extra in Jake's movie tomorrow).

I feel like I rushed through this and skimped on the anecdotes, but there really isn't much to tell.  I mean it was fun to leave Memphis and fun to hang out with Melissa, but Austin didn't win over any hearts this weekend. 

And that's all I have to say.

P.S.  God, I just re-read this and this is a TERRIBLE BLOG.  I am so sorry.  My heart was not in this.  Obviously.  Feel free to ignore this entire thing.