travel
comments 4

walking across austin

austin backyard

Spring feels late in DC. It’s not really late, of course. The seasons are not beholden to our human calendars and arrive on their own schedule. The magnolias are blooming and my potted plants are waking up with bright green growth, but the air is still biting cold. I find myself reminiscing about the omnipresent Austin sun.

potted succulents

austin sign

Austin is not a city that is meant to be walked. So naturally, I walked it. I woke up early one morning and walked across the freeway, past trucks whizzing by at 50 miles per hour, around thickets of wild flowering bushes crowding the sidewalks (if there even were sidewalks), through quiet residential streets and past towering prickly pear cactus plants. To a coffeehouse, to a taco restaurant, to South Congress, to downtown.

wild flowers

vines and window

abandoned building

christmas cactus

woman outside hotel

fran's

The streets teemed with trucks and cars and a cyclist here and there. I only passed by a couple pedestrians and many structures seemed eerily bereft of life. Juxtaposed against the stark structured spaces and the webs of telephone lines were the plants, the larger-than-life cacti and succulents. They grew to encompass full city blocks. This is what the city could look like without people, I thought. Giant plants slowly snaking their way over the mailboxes, through the kitchens, below the asphalt.

How very peaceful.

giant cactus

Many new things coming soon… stay tuned.

4 Comments

    • Ah yes! Totally! I lived in Cape Town for half a year and drove through Port Elizabeth, but never made it to Uitenhage. BEAUTIFUL place to call home!

      Reply

Leave a Reply