VISITING AUSTIN TEXAS (UNCOMMON OBJECTS, HAMILTON POOL)

MY WEEK IN PHOTOS: OCTOBER 1–7, 2018! (VISITING AUSTIN TEXAS (UNCOMMON OBJECTS, HAMILTON POOL)

This week I try to get into the Halloween spirit and make the journey to Texas with Zach. We spend two full days in Austin doing Austin-y things like eating barbecue, thrifting, and driving out to a Texas natural pool.

Enjoy!

I was in Austin for two days, and San Antonio for two days—I took too many photos so this week in photos will be divided into two posts.

The drive home from work on Monday featured a particularly beautiful and dramatic sky and sunset.

Zach caught walking the pups red-handed.

No pottery tonight. Zach got tickets to watch My Neighbor Totoro on the big screen during a Miyazaki film screening weekend/week in LA.

I truly love this movie so so much. Reminds me of my childhood, my mom, I love…this film.

My mom got me these new running shoes for Christmas…two years ago? Finally changing out my running shoes. They are so bright! I sent this pic to my mom and she said she wanted a pair, maybe I’ll gift her a pair right back.

Hi, I’m just a paper bag.

Took the dogs on a longer than normal walk, I secretly just wanted to go to the Halloween store.

Why! Why why why so many whys.

Daria beanie

I remember having a really high quality fake Halloween dismembered leg growing up. Much higher quality than these. Where is it now? I wonder if my parents still have it. I used to LOVE decorating for Halloween as a kid. I got to do the inside and outside of our family house, I basically just loved fake spiderweb.

We did cave and end up buying these ghost string lights.

Got out of there alive and then ate some Subway.

Woke up early to get to work early (you guessed it, I’m leaving early).

I wore a raincoat because the weather promised it would rain. I can tell you…it did not. At least not where I was in LA.

On a plane at sunset, the best time and place to watch the sky change color. On the way to Texas with Zeen, his friend is getting married this weekend and I took the opportunity to sneak in an extra vacation day to enjoy Austin.

Snow app—living my life as a little cute goat.

Thursday morning, after sleeping in a bit we pulled ourselves together to get some breakfast tacos at Counter Cafe.

One of my favorite things about Texas is that you can eat tacos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

So happy to come back to Monkies thrift store, I came here once before. I managed to resist this Pooh sweater.

Resisted this dress that made me look 10.

Did NOT resist on this weird green jumpsuit shorts thinggy. Now where will I wear it? Hmm…

Boba break

Stopped to pick up sandwiches for later and then hit the road to drive out to a Texas natural pool.

Made it out to Hamilton Pool! We managed to book the very last reservation for this day the night before. (Yes, you must reserve!) Was sad to see that this walking stick holder had no walking sticks in it.

There’s a small and beautiful walking trail from the parking lot area to the actual pool. Berries on the way!

Almost there!

Made it to the pool! Found a rock to lean against in the last shady area near the water. Set out to do some swimming (among CATFISH and other little fish) and then sat to read and enjoy.

Hamilton Pool Preserve was created when the dome of an underground river collapsed due to erosion thousands of years ago. SO. Cool. The water is sometimes closed because of high bacteria levels.

After swimming and reading we decided to wander around under the overhang. There were little stairs and railing to the waterfall.

Me and a turtle

The park offers life jackets so you can just float along in the pool.

On the way back into Austin, we passed this brewery and decided to give it a try. It’s called Family Business and it’s in the countryside, very pleasant.

Played some Battleship. I lost the first round, Zach lost the second round.

Dog spotting. The beers were definitely up my alley, I liked the brown ale a lot.

As we were leaving it was getting a bit later, the sun was going down and everything was starting to glow.

Texas highway landscape

Back into Austin as the sun finally set.

Guero’s for more tacos, margaritas, and so so so many chips.

The next morning we drove over to Pease Park to check out some outdoor sculpture and walk around near the Shoal Creek. The park has some nice running and walking trails.

Artist Patrick Dougherty led 200 volunteers to collect invasive species of Roosevelt Weed and Ligustrum around Austin. Together they built five corner shapes of an invisible cathedral. In a few years the sculpture will be dismantled to be used as mulch in the park.

Caught

We looked really closely at the structures, truly not sure how they are all being held together. I suppose the stronger reeds are holding in the smaller dry sticks. And how do they stand?!?! HOW was this made!!!

I love these trees that collect and grow little moss balls that hang down into the shade.

We went to the Blanton Museum of Art on the UT Austin campus.

Their newest show wasn’t open yet so we wandered around the permanent collection to see what was up.

Hypnotizing

“Honor Roll” by May Stevens, painted in 1963. I took a photo of the wall text to share with you: “The canvas honors the bravery of seven young African-American men, women, and children who were among the first to attempt to integrate schools in the South in the early 1960s. Stevens renders their names in child-like lettering that looks like it was carved into a tree or wet pavement, in the hope that we may remember them.”

“We Belong Here (Blue)”, by Tavares Strachan in 2012. Wall text reads: “In this work, Bahamian-born artist Tavares Strachan offers a seemingly concrete and affirmative declaration that, upon closer reflection, is abstract and fluid. As Strachan recently stated, ‘As humans, we all struggle with how we fit in and belong…Who gets to determine who belongs where? And where is here? And why does it matter?’ Any change to the location or context of this work changes who ‘we’ might be and where ‘here’ is, bringing new nuances to the phrase.”

Detail from “Sprouting (The Transmigration of the Soul)” by Yayoi Kusama painted in 1987. Text reads: “Kusama made this painting in the late 1980s, as her international reputation as an artist and author expanded significantly. Kusama was an important member of the downtown New York art scene in the late 1950s and 1960s, but returned to Japan in the early 1970s and voluntarily entered a mental hospital, where she lives to this day. This painting echoes the paintings she made in New York, in which her obsessive repetition of dots and the canvases’ large size generate a sense of profusion and absorption in infinite space. In “Sprouting,” Kusama updates that motif by adding tail- or vine-like forms connecting the dots, which seem to pulsate as they cover the paintings’s two panels and encroach on the verdant open space at its center. Kusama’s work often contains personal allusions; here, the suggestion of growth may refer to her family’s business of cultivating flowers and wholesaling seeds.”

“Mission/Missions” (How to Build Cathedral), by Cildo Meireles made in 1987. Description reads: “Cildo Meireles’s installation was first commissioned for an exhibition about the history of the Jesuits in southern Brazil. The artist created a contemplative space that functions as a critique of Jesuit missions established during colonial times to contain the indigenous Tupi-Guarani people and covert them to Catholicism. The work’s symbolic elements reveal the complicit relationship between material power (coins), spiritual power (communion waters), and tragedy (bones), while the black shroud and overhead lighting evoke ideas of life and death. Meireles’ use of cattle bones references the importance of ranching with the region’s colonial economy. Yet the bones’ physical resemblance to the human femur also alludes to the human losses associated with forced acculturation.”

Down the stairs and out we go to check out the Ellsworthy Kelly building.

Ellsworth Kelly gifted the plans for this building (made of stone, colored glass, and abstract black and white panels) in 2015. He passed away the same year.

I can imagine it to be really spectacular and colorful inside when it is really sunny outside.

And then it was time for food. Can’t leave Texas without some Texas BBQ. This place is called La Barbecue. You just show up, wait in line, and then order at the counter.

We got brisket (my favorite), pork ribs, and a sausage to share.

Seriously so delicious.

Since we were in East Austin I wanted to see the other side of the lake.

Another nice little walk for the day.

Came for Uncommon Objects but noticed this cool dome building that was a fish store! The Aquadome!

I just love the building so much. I looked for my favorite little kind of yellow fish but couldn’t find it.

Made it to Uncommon Objects! This is their new location, I haven’t been to this one before since they moved.

An emporium of antiques from 24 different sellers.

Bought some goodies for the new place.

Always tempted, since being a high schooler.

Couldn’t resist a biology poster.

I didn’t take a pic of what we actually got. It’s still all wrapped up to be moved over to the new place. I’ll show it eventually! 🙂

The evening ended with magic hour on the lake with Zach’s family. We had dinner together and got in bed early to get ready to make the drive out to San Antonio for Zach’s friend’s wedding the following day.

I’m going to end this half of the week here! Read the next part to see what we did in San Antonio.

Thanks for reading!

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Some questions that you may or may not feel inclined to answer? Let’s do it. And make it fall themed. I invite you to answer in the comments:

1. Do you decorate for fall? What do you do?
2. What’s a fall tradition you did with your family as a kid?
3. What is your favorite season?

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My answers:

1. Do you decorate for fall? What do you do?
   I try to get a pumpkin or two from the local pumpkin patch. I love carving pumpkins, and tend to be alone in carving. Something about those squishy insides…love it.
2. What’s a fall tradition you did with your family as a kid?
   At home we would carve pumpkins and my mom would roast the pumpkin seeds. I used to decorate for Halloween, which I loved. Yes. Bloody foot on the TV, spider webs everywhere…
3. What is your favorite season?
   Spring!

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Much love friends.