Austin, Texas, in 24 Hours

            My stomach felt the familiar knot where I knew I was about to do something that scared me.

            I stared down at the rushing rapids. Crystal clear water stared back at me, and the rock I stood on suddenly seemed like a slippery glacier. I almost lost my footing trying to keep balance. All around, deep evergreen hills stared back at me. Families and friends refreshed in the cool rapids below, taking a break from the dry heat of the holiday weekend. It was a jump with a view.

I glanced back at my roommate, Jordan. Her brow had a stream of sweat from climbing the face of the rock, face in a smirk. She didn’t really think I was going to do it. I took a step back, looked up into the sky like I always do, allowed my mind to go empty, closed my eyes, and just ran.

My body plummeted like a bullet until I hit a wave of what felt like subzero temperature water. My head bobbed to the surface like an apple. I screamed in utter glee.

            I decided to go to Austin, Texas on a complete whim. That’s pretty much how I plan all my trips. Always last minute, and always for the cheapest price I can find. I travel more on weekends in college than I do in the summer. I travel so much that when friends see me, they joke that I’m just on another layover in Tampa until my next trip. There is just something in the spontaneity of traveling and getting to explore a new place that draws me in. I’m constantly scouring travel sites, looking out for the discounted airlines where I can fly somewhere for the fraction of the cost. I take cheapest flight I can get, even if it’s not to the city I am traveling to,       

Austin came up for 48 dollars round trip. I had never been to Texas before, and it just so happens that my roommate, Jordan, is from Texas. It also just so happens she had a family condo situated in Austin. So I thought, “Why not,” and booked the flights. That was about a week ago. I came back from Austin two days ago.

            We flew into Dallas on an early morning flight and then proceeded to make the 3-hour trek to Austin where we would spend the next day and a half. The drive was tedious, fast food signs for Starbucks, various “TexMex” restaurants, and Whataburger popping out of the side of the highway. As we were making our way into Austin, a bucolic field of sunflowers came into view on the other side of the road. It was out of place from industrial playground of the interstate that I had only seen of Texas so far.

            “Jordan, we’re stopping there on our way back,” I said to her, nose pressed up against the glass as we passed by the field. She gave me a look as if I was crazy, and just kept on driving.

            Her condo was smack dab in the middle of downtown Austin. The 30th floor offered a double view. One of the city, in bumper-to-bumper traffic getting ready for the big University of Texas vs Notre Dame game. The other side, a view of the Colorado River filled with kayakers for Labor Day Weekend, and the mouth of the Texas Hill country behind it.

            Barely having two days to do an entire city, I Pinterested and made a makeshift board for Austin on the drive there. That was the extent of my planning, it always is.

            2:00 p.m.

 “SoCo” or South Congress Avenue. A vein of the city filled with shops, restaurants, bars, quirky food trucks, tons of street art, and live music. Everywhere. We stopped to take a picture at the “I love you so much” sign, which was spray-painted on the side of an old brick coffee shop by an artist who broke up with his girlfriend. Then we proceeded to stop at a food truck that was renovated from a 1950s style steel camping trailer for tacos.

4:00 p.m.

Hope Outdoor Gallery. We bought seven-dollar spray paint down the street, and walked up to the huge concrete structure. It was an amphitheater for art, cascading concrete covered with graffiti. It was ever changing, artists coming from all over to make their mark on the structure. Only to be covered up the next day by a 21-year-old whose definition of art is drawing a stick figure saying, “Hi.”

7:30 p.m.

Mount Bonnell. A vista overlooking the Colorado River, and Austin. We came for the sunset, and had to park a mile and a half down the road. It was so crowded we had to sneak under and over people to get a good view. The summit where we sat was situated in the perfect angle as the purple and pink haze of the sunset fazed from sight.

11:00 a.m the next day.

Twin Peaks. A marriage of waterfalls along the Colorado River trail. We spent the day hiking its hidden trails, jumping off rocks into the cool water, even though it scared us. I met another college student, who was even more ambitious than I was, and started jumping off tree branches. He was the only one doing so. I asked him why.

“It scares me and gets me out of my comfort zone. I like to do things that the average person wouldn’t. It challenges me. And when I finish one jump, then I go find the next thing I can go jump off on that was higher than the last one.”

4:00 p.m.

            Hippie Hollow. Texas Hill Country’s only nude beach. The entire point of why I travel, is to just get out there, do something you never do. I will do anything once. I dragged Jordan in. We decided to just rip our bikinis off and “free the nipple” in front of anyone. We joined a drum circle for an hour. Seeing forty nude people circled in front of bongos, was something you just can never really quite put into words until you’ve seen it yourself.

6:00 p.m.

            We were driving back to Dallas. Our flight to Tampa was early the next morning.

            “Jordan, pull over.”

            I made her get out as we made our way to the sunflower field on the side of the highway. The flowers were entangled together, a jungle gym of plants. Behind us, cars whizzed by in a blur, each person entangled in their own lives, paying no attention to us on the side of the road. The sun was setting, and Jordan and I looked at each other. I knew we had the same urge.

            “Ready? Run.”