Almost

This is a story about a day that almost wasn't....

First, I set my alarm for 6:14am and I almost didn't wake up. I didn't hear the obnoxious buzzing about 8 inches from my head. I'm a very very deep sleeper, in case you didn't know. Fortunately, I know this about myself and scheduled a wake up call.

Then I had breakfast at the cafe here in the hotel. The waffle is the cheapest breakfast item and is also my favorite breakfast food. Good news, right? The waffle comes out looking giant and delicious, all covered in powdered sugar. It was almost amazing, except it was ice cold. I'm talking “just took it out of the fridge” cold. Being late, I ate it anyways.

Now, I knew it was only an 18 minute ride to my first school, but being a smart kid, I looked up 8am traffic and realized it would take closer to 40 minutes to get there. Being one who likes to be early, I left a full hour to travel. As I've said earlier, Texas has crazy insane overpasses. I get nauseous looking at them. I'm not afraid of heights but today going over the top pass, I thought I was going to drive right off the edge and die. Anyways, as I was driving, I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on the "Texas Loop" (Austin has lots of loops; not route numbers). So as I am sitting on the freeway, the alarm in my car starts beeping. "15 miles until gas is empty...10 miles...9 miles......8miles.....". Frantic that my school was still 11 miles away plus a lot of idling, I started to panic. Really panic. I almost ran out of gas. 5 miles left in my tank. I’m all for waiting until the light comes on to fill up, but when you drive for a full day on E, that’s a bit too close for comfort.

After stopping for gas, which was in the opposite direction from the school (there’s shockingly a lot less gas stations around here than in the Northeast. We have 2 on every corner. Here there’s only like 1 every 10 minutes), I get back up on the highway and keep sitting in traffic. As the minutes continue to go by and my car doesn’t budge, I get worried that I’m going to be late for my first appointment. I looked up the phone number to the counselor, typed it in and almost hit send. Miraculously, traffic cleared and I made it on time. 3 minutes to spare.

My day perked up from this point on. People came to my first 2 visits. I gave great presentations and headed to my last school. I sat around for a bit and no one came, almost. The counselor felt bad that the students who had signed up were no-shows, so she went and got them out of classes. Success.

After work, I decided to head downtown where all the action is. Before I left my mom recommended that I check out a top rated BBQ restaurant that David Letterman went to last week. She couldn’t remember the name but knew it was “Iron _____.” I typed Iron into the GPS, saw “Iron Cactus” and headed over there. I sat alone on the roof patio and checked out the menu – Mexican. I love Mexican, so that was fine, but this was no BBQ. Only after ordering did I look it up and realize Letterman went to “Iron Man” – a very different restaurant. I almost go there.

After dinner, I went to see the Austin Bats. Earlier in the day a student told me to go. Yes, bats, like little furry flying rodents. Google agreed that the bats were a must-see for tourists. Apparently, at dusk and dawn, 1.5 MILLION bats fly out from under the Congress Bridge. It’s the largest urban bat colony in all of North America. Sounds impressive, right? So I went really early to this bridge, found parking and decided I’d catch the Bat Cruise, a $10 boat trip that takes you into the lake so you can see the bats up close. I almost made the boat, but 10 minutes of looking for a parking spot made me miss it. So I sat around in some dog park for 2 hours. Of the 200+ dog owners and runners in the park, no one else seemed interested in the bats. I was the only person with a camera. And so I sat. And sat. And walked. And sat. (Thank you to A, H, and A for keeping me company on the phone. I appreciate it!!) After 2 hours of sitting in what was now a desolate, very dark park, which I figured wasn’t safe, I decided to give up and leave. Being stood up by 1.5 million animals hurts your ego a little. As I got into the car and turned Garmin on, I quickly realized I was at the First Street Bridge, NOT Congress. Two hours of sitting in a park alone and it turns out I was in the wrong sport. I was close – but one bridge too far down the river. I almost saw bats. Rather upset with myself that I never double checked the GPS, I decided to go to the actual Congress bridge, where I found other tourists with cameras. Why didn’t it occur to me hours ago that in such a big tourist attraction, it would be weird if I were the only tourist?I parked a second time and walked across the lake a 4^th time. Looking into the water, I saw about 30 tiny bats zooming by. I missed the major cloud of bats but at least I saw a few and met some nice people.

That’s pretty much how my day went. In the end, I wasn’t almost shot or almost mugged, so I guess I really have nothing to complain about. I made it to the schools, didn’t run out of gas, ate a decent dinner and saw some bats. A moderate success story. While some people may enjoy a good cocktail to relax after a day like this, I’m going to head to the restaurant/bar downstairs and get a hot cookie and a Diet Pepsi (almost a diet coke).