unexpected joy

This past Wednesday Brian and I drove down to San Antonio to see Willie Nelson in concert. We had a great time, heard him sing all his classics and a wonderful rendition of Woody Guthrie's "City of New Orleans" and the hymn "I'll Fly Away". We spent the night at an RV park that was kind enough to allow us to pitch a tent and not treat us like we were trouble.

We had planned on using the next day to visit with my best friend Livi who I don't get to see very often. But she's just started working and doesn't get off until four thirty, so we had several hours to kill until she was done.

First was lunch at Green. They're a nice change of pace from usual ultra healthy food Brian and I are used to...I've never had tofu buffalo wings before, and they were delish! But after a while the grease was a little much for me. While we were having lunch, I happened to pick up a flier about an exhibit at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens. Brian and I, both having grown up in families where most vacations were centered around learning something, are dorks of the first order. We love museums, science centers, art exhibits, but botanical gardens are our favorite. And since it was relatively inexpensive to get in, we decided right away that was how we were going to spend the next several hours.

Brian and I visit the Zilker Botanical Gardens several times a year, and our favorite there is the Japanses Garden by Isamu Taniguchi. So the Japanese Garden was the first place that we headed. It was much smaller than the one at the Zilker gardens, and sectioned off from the rest of the park with a bamboo fence. But I think that actually helped create the mood, because it blocked some of the outside noise, and you could hear all the water on stone noises that are so relaxing.


Afterwards we headed to what was my favorite part, the Conservatory. Here they had the artwork of Susan Budge--a San Antonio resident--worked in throughout several different room displays of different environments. I love her artwork, and really enjoyed the flowers and especially the orchids in the exhibits.


We spent the next two hours wandering around other sections of the park, visiting a bit of one exhibit and a bit of another. We did enjoy a walk around the lake and feeding the ducks in the East Texas Pineywoods section, which we had to visit because East Texas is where Brian is from.

So even though it was unplanned and spur of the moment, it ended up being one of the most enjoyable afternoons Brian and I have had in a long time. And we're for sure going to return the next time we're in town. If you're super interested, I have more photos here.

The List

While I am quite happy with my simple MFA degree, my (future) husband is not. So (unless we're lucky and he gets into UT) chances are we'll be moving next summer so that he can get his Phd in Literature. We've been throwing around schools and locations for a while now, and have come up with a wide range of schools (average to really tough lit programs) in a variety of cities where we wouldn't mind living. There was some give and take in this list (Kansas and Rochester will be hard sells), each of us picked a school by our respective families. And if Brian leaned towards programs with mountains of some type nearby, who am I to argue?

Anyway, here's the list:

Boulder, CO--University of Colorado
Minneapolis, MN--University of Minnesota
Rochester, NY--Rochester University
Lawrence, KS--University of Kansas
Eugene, OR--University of Oregon
Austin, TX--University of Texas
Ann Arbor, MI--University of Michigan
Knoxville, TN--University of Tennessee

There are goods and bads about all the places on the list...Boulder is my dream town, but expensive, Minneapolis is cool, but cold. Rochester is really cold, but beautiful, Kansas is kinda boring, but close to Brian's family and friends (and my favorite band plays there all the time!). Oregon would be cool, but expensive and very far away from our families. Texas would involve no moving, and I could keep my current job, but we've already been here for five years, and I'm ready to move somewhere new. Michigan is close to my family, but I've lived in Michigan already. And Tennessee would be be close to mountains, but I've heard the pollution is awful.

So we'll see what happens. I told Brian as long as we could rent a house and get a dog, I'd be happy. It'll be an adventure. And if we end up not liking wherever we end up, we'll be moving again in three or four years.