Monday (April 7) was a relax and have fun day. Nell had charged up overnight at my casita’s level 2 charger. I was in the People’s Republic of Austin, Texas. The capital of weird that had weirdly now become known as the headquarters of certain Ketamine-binging right-wing tech oligarch whose weirdness had become so acute that even the California Bay Area finds him a little too freaky for their taste. (SNL now calls him White Kanye and that seems about right.)

We started out with lunch. D’s mother grew up working class in a small town in the mountains of western Pennsylvania. She had an interest in flavor and a subscription to Bon Appetit. I also had an older brother with a Bon Apetit subscription and an interest in eating well. Our family gatherings were regularly graced with ambitious dishes that far exceeded anything our rural neighbors were encountering at the dinner table. How lucky was I? D inherited his mother’s nose for flavor so we headed to El Rinconcito Chapin, D’s favorite Guatemalan restaurant.

Rinconcito is very unassuming in appearance. It’s in a strip mall. The decor is pretty much like every other Mexican/Central American restaurant you’ve ever visited. The menu follows the fonts, color schemes, and pictures of food that are typical in such places. But, the food. Well.

We started with garnaches as an appetizer. A plate of little freshly-made corn tortillas with ground beef, topped with a little tomato sauce, a few crisp shreds of cabbage, a thin slice of onion, and spritzed with cheese. I don’t have the langauge to describe the spices, but they are subtle, complex, and alive. The savory beef balanced by the crisp cabbage and onion mellowed by the cheese and tomato sauce made a jazzy little overture that was quite delightful.

For my main course, I ordered a shuco longaniza which was an oversized hotdog bun filled with ground sausage (not chorizo), guacamole, mayonnaise, ketchup and shredded cabbage. More of that delicate spicing that separates an artist from a cook. Again, I can’t do it justice, but all the ingredients work together to create something magical. I’m convinced and I will insist on eating here again when I return to Austin. I’m persuaded that you are in good hands at this modest restaurant and I would try anything on their menu. Note: Their online menu does not include everything that the restaurant menu has so just go and try something you’ve never heard of.

It was the perfect spring day. Highs in the 70s. Everything green and blooming. What freaky thing would we get up to? Well, Austin’s favorite swimming hole, Barton Springs, was closed and I wasn’t quite freaky enough to venture Austin’s nude beach (although with the high only being 72, it was probably chilly enough that I could have gone to the nude beach without being immodest).

As it happens, Former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson took a special interest in Texas Wildflowers and she founded in Austin what today is the 286-acre Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Ms. Johnson said, “Where flowers bloom, so does hope.” And she was quietly just as persuasive as her husband. Although D.C. was known a gray company town, she pushed the National Park Service to beautify D.C. public areas with blankets of flower beds and other improvements. If you feel a sense of pride when you visit the National Mall, thank Lady Bird.

Lady Bird also campaigned hard to beautify the Interstate Highway System pushing to have junkyards and other sources of visual blight removed (we’ve backslid a bit on her billboard restrictions) and more importantly to clean up and eliminate litter. It’s hard to imagine now, but when I grew up in the 70s, all of our major roadways were lined with garbage, fast food containers, beer bottles, you name it. There was kind of a sense that God had given Americans the right to throw their garbage out the window and that was part of what it meant to be free. Well, Lady Bird, quietly and persistently worked until that changed and eventually people realized that if everyone just held on to their garbage until their next rest break, we could all enjoy long roadtrips without having the view filled with garbage.

Back to the wildflowers. D and K have a quite lovely collection of wildflowers at their home so D and I saddled up Nell and headed out to see what Ms. Johnson had bequeathed us.

It was spectacular. Acres of Texas bluebonnets. Berlandier’s sundrops. Four-nerve daisies. More bluebonnets. Desert peonies. Plains coreopsis. More bluebonnets. Prairie penstemon. Bluestem pricklypoppy. Moar bluebonnets. Annual Phlox. Lanceleaf coreopsis. And then as a digestiv. A few bluebonnets.

Oh. And I almost forgot. We also caught of a glimpse of the serene presence presiding over all of this. Athena, the Great Horned Owl. There was planter high up in the corner of two walls that she decided would be a nice place to hatch some owlets. Can you spot her?

My photography skills are pretty poor. Here’s a link to the Athenacam placed by experts from Cornell Ornithology Lab:

https://www.wildflower.org/visit/athena-the-owl

Supper was La Fonda San Miguel. They have serious Mexican food and serious art on the walls. Seriously. I really just wanted to wander around and look at the art. The Rufino Tamayo print was probably the least interesting piece in the place.

I have lactose intolerance which means that dairy is always an adventure for me. The consequences of being too conservative with the lactase pills are literally explosive. D and K thought it would be a hilarious joke to order Queso Fundido as our appetizer. The primary ingredient of which is, as you might have guessed, queso. I was seeking adventure so I dove in. My lactase supply was sufficient and so dinner was blessedly uneventful. For the main course, I had the Pescado a la Plancha which was perfectly grilled. The fish was done, but not overdone and the flavor mix delicious. The grilled vegetables were outstanding. The bill was substantial, but worth every penny. I’d like to bring my sweetie (who enjoys art) the next time we’re in Austin.

Tuesday morning (April 8) was a pleasant day. I spent the morning working on these reports. The afternoon high was going to be 90 so D and I joined K at her favorite spa for pedicures. I’d never had a pedicure before so I had my calluses sanded down, my cuticles pushed back into place, and a very nice and relaxing foot massage. Happy feet!

My nephew T is a remote worker who travels the world while logging in to the office. He is currently staying an exotic game ranch northwest of Austin so he came down to join us for supper Tuesday night at the legendary Austin joint, Stiles Switch BBQ.

The movie that made Richard Linklater and Matthew McConaughey famous was “Dazed and Confused.” They mostly shot the movie in California, but they came back to Austin to shoot on location at some of their favorite hangouts. Stiles Switch has stills from the movie on the wall as you are waiting in line. There’s a cocky, young Matthew McConaughey leaning against a wall in front of Stiles Switch already thoroughly enjoying being Matthew McConaughey.

They had a huge run that night so they were out of nearly everything, but the pulled pork. I’m not complaining. It was delicious!

T’s been just about everywhere so he had a lot of helpful tips about my next stop in Big Bend country. The restaurant in Alpine, Texas serving “calf fries” made me squirm a little bit. They’re just like fried mushrooms doncha know? Having grown up on a farm, I had helped turn young bulls into young steers. But I dug into the pulled pork and the conversation moved on.

Stiles Switch is across the street from the famous Yellow Rose Gentlemen’s Club. A block beyond that is Mehl’s Motel which pays tribute to the historic days of the wild west with a sign shaped kinda like a gun.

Austin is lovely in April (and then ungodly hot for the next six months), but I barely nicked the surface of its offerings. You won’t regret a visit.

I don’t have detailed charging information on my time there. Every night I charged up at my casita’s level 2 charger and then we drove all over Austin with the A/C blasting. The charging didn’t cost me a dime. Legend has it that Austin’s traffic is horrible and the legends are true, but Nell never broke a sweat. I don’t think I ever managed to get the battery below 80 percent.

Also, I will just say that adaptive cruise control is a gift from the gods in stop and go traffic. I just relaxed and let Nell do the stopping and going. She does it smoothly and her attention never wavers. She never gets frustrated. Totally stress free and much safer than any human could do it.

Day 1: 688 miles traveled. $12.01 Spent on “gas.” $51.08 in “gas” money contributed by Hyundai. Cost of “gas” with an Electrify America membership: $47.32.

Day 2: 377 miles traveled. $9.82 spent on “gas.” $90.82 in “gas” money contributed by Hyundai. Cost of “gas” with an Electrify America membership: $68.12.

Days 3 and 4: All over Austin. Not a penny spent on “gas.”

Trip Total: 1065 miles traveled and all over Austin. $21.83 spent on “gas”. $141.90 in “gas” contributed by Hyundai. Cost of “gas” with an Electrify America membership: $106.43.