Subtitle: “how long does it take to drive to Dallas?”
Doorstep to doorstep, Shady Acres (in South Austin) to Ma & Pa Wetzel’s, (in South Dallas) is 193 miles. I’ve done it in as little as two and half hours, or as long as five hours, maybe even longer, depending on road conditions, meals and music. Memorable trips include the epic Thanksgiving Day trip, took six hours, I kept waiting on the weather to let up just south of Dallas, then Hillsboro, then Waco, then Temple, then North Austin. That trip? The freezing rain stopped south of the river – in Austin.
When I was motoring north in a 2003 model rent car, I kept thinking about stories and wishes. Maybe walking from Austin to Dallas, alongside the Interstate’s access road would be a good story. At one point in my life, I was doing a commute like this almost every three weeks. That was a long time ago, but the roadside hasn’t changed too much.
It’s that very roadside that I figure is so steeped in stories that beg to be told. I’m not sure what I would write about, not yet, but almost every exit seems to have a tale or two.
The cities feel a little closer together, and there’s a more hurried pace to Dallas traffic. Consider that I was pulling out of Austin in time for the north-bound bottleneck of suburban commuters, I spent at least half an hour creeping along at 11 MPH, dialing for alternate plans on my cell.
Trips like this usually mean that I will forget something important. This time, it was the phone charger. Such are the vagaries of modern life. I still figure that this little stretch of highway has a story or two – The New Yorker agrees, as I just read a piece about a town that was just off the trail.
Sometimes I’m just a day late.