DAY 08: Carlsbad to Austin

Monday, April 7th (Happy Birthday Janie!!!)

We woke up in a timely manner, packed the car, and set out to get a decent meal at the Blue House before taking off for the final leg of our trip. The Blue House was just as charming as before, and everything was just as delicious. As we walked out to the cars, Dave noticed that the electronic key wasn't working. Ack. He tried it and tried it, and then I reminded him that the driver's side has an actual lock. He unlocked it, and the unholy horn that is our security system started blaring. All was bad bad bad for a few minutes, Dave trying to start the car in the hopes the horn would go off (it wouldn't), people in the restaurant running out to see what was going on, and so on. Finally it timed out and we stood around thinking, NOW what are going to do? Dave called various numbers to try and figure out what it was, but basically we were stuck in a town that was essentially closed, with a packed car and no idea what was wrong. Luckily, we had Scott. He noticed that he was having the same problem with his key, but they don't have the security alarm, so he could start his car. He did that, and drove across the street. 30 feet from where we were, his key worked. I looked for traffic, and Skye and Scott pushed our car across the street (enduring the horn) while Dave steered and lo, as soon as we got across the street the key worked, the alarm went off, and we were all much relieved, though very perplexed. The consensus was to leave while the leaving was good (and it was noted that had this occurred in Roswell, not far away, we might have felt a bit more jumpy about it).

As we were gassing up the cars to leave town, Scott heard an older gentleman at the gas station yelling into his phone, "I don't care what it costs! Just tell me how to get out of this godforsaken state!" I don't feel that way about New Mexico, but Carlsbad proper? Well...

We drove and drove and ate bad road food and talked (I hung out in the White's car to give Dave some loud music time and to get some important catching up taken care of, not to mention a lot of jewelry-making). About an hour out of Austin I switched back to our car, so we could ride in together. We hit town about sunset, with the hills gleaming gold. It was about 70 degrees and felt tropical, like being in Hawaii. Dave had a huge grin on his face.

We had a nice dinner with the Whites, then drove to the duplex we're subletting. We were feeling a little trepidatious at first--the actual moving part of the move was hitting us (moving to a new space is always disorienting), and how much money we were spending, etc. etc. We moved our stuff in, and then met the folks we're subletting from, Mark and Annie (and their baby daughter Lulu).

Mark and Annie are great, and we felt immediately better. Basically our Austin counterparts, they were very friendly and told us lots of useful things like where to get the best tacos at 4 a.m. (down the street), where to get the best pitchers of margaritas (the same), to not let the lady next door into the house (she's nice but addicted to pain killers), and that there's a 4 foot ratsnake that lives in the big oak tree out back. "A snake?!?" I squeaked, "Yeah," said Mark, grinning, "welcome to Texas!" Ratsnakes are not dangerous to humans at all, but I am glad we left the kitty safe at home. I can see our small gray (slow, old) cat being mistaken for a rather large rat. Also, though I am afraid of snakes, I feel it is a beneficial, protective sort of beast to have around, although I may not spend much time out in the backyard.

We blew up our air mattress (we're getting a lot of stuff from Laura, including a bed, but hadn't had time to yet), had a beer in the unbelievably warm, sultry evening, and settled into our first night at our new place.