Labor Day Weekend

I spent my labor day weekend in Austin, catching up with some of my study abroad friends that I had not seen in a year. It was refreshing to see familiar faces and recount memorable stories of our summer in the Mediterranean. We spent the afternoon shopping and dining along South Congress and went out in the evenings to experience the Austin nightlife.

the weekend kicked off with a heartbreaking football game
under the friday night lights of Waco, TX.

well worth the long wait on a Saturday afternoon

this restaurant has a good Mexican breakfast menu that won't break the bank

unusual drinks: raspberry mint tea martini & avocado margarita

Ayesha, Bonnie, Me & Landry

After our mini SAS reunion, Bonnie & I headed to Lake Travis to soak up the sun with my roommate at her lake house. As we were driving toward Spicewood, I said, "I'm surprised there haven't been more wildfires out in the Hill Country like in East Texas. It's so dry here. It would be horrible on a day like this, with all the wind." It couldn't have been more than ten minutes later that we reached the top of a hill and spotted a steady chain of grey smoke building up in the cloudless blue sky.

We enjoyed a few blissful hours at the lake house, laying out in the sun by the pool. And then our weekend took an unexpected turn when the power went out and we were forced to evacuate. As we all took the long route out of town in a caravan of vehicles, we passed the wildfire which had made its way right up to the main road, only a couple of miles from the house. We ended up spending our last night in Austin and going out on Sixth Street, which is not too bad for having just fled the scene of a wildfire. 

Austin skyline at night

Bonnie, Rebecca, Me, Brittany, & Lauren

our first glimpse of the wildfire as we were driving in

new water restrictions in Austin go into effect today

It's been nothing but hot & sunny since my return to TX
(in Fahrenheit and Celsius)

 news coverage on the fires 

It makes me sad to see Texas, the land that I love, burning from border to border. Driving back to Fort Worth, I noticed that the sky seemed a little less clear than normal, tainted by the smoke of thousands of acres burning--so much smoke that it is visible to the astronauts in space. Where there was once green pastures and crops is now as brown and dry as a Triscuit cracker. Lakes have been reduced to the size of rivers. Cattle have nothing to graze on. A home is being destroyed every four minutes. It seems ironic that I spent an entire three months in Germany resenting the constant rain from preventing me from enjoying a new country, and now it is the one thing that can save Texas from this natural disaster. Although the temperatures have dropped significantly, it does not look like there is precipitation in the forecast for the next week. I can only pray that God might send some of that Saarland rain down here. We certainly could use it.