Barack Obama Rally

You just gotta enjoy his sincerity!
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I drove to Austin to see Barack Obama's rally. Now the city is on my shrinking to-do list. After a quick disappointment when the attendant at a garage listed as letting supporters in turned me away rudely, I had a turn of luck. Destiny was on my side as I found a small public lot with only one space left, with an all day pass for exactly the amount of cash I had left in my wallet.

So I walked to Auditorium Shores in a great mood, watching pedestrians and cyclists of agreeable diversity stream towards the same destination. I have never seen real diversity (as opposed to staged diversity) at a political rally. Ages, colors, and backgrounds were displayed in a great range. A sign-toting hippie protesting 'Dem's beware, the fascists are everywhere' and telling me 'you just can't trust 'em anymore miss' just a few feet from the Gucci-toting college student I stood behind. Remembering my Mardi Gras posting, I tried to pick the best folks to stand near. Thinking back, why I didn't stand next to the aging radicals eludes me, I get along with them so well. But I chose a group of college students who seemed quite enthused. One was smily and dancing, the women urgent-looking and their male counterparts bored. It was obvious the latter were there to score points in order to, well, score. They were rather affectionate, especially a couple who must have just recently slept together for the first time because they were riding that line of impropriety with pink cheeks and awkward grins. Before Barack even took the stage the guys were asking if the chicks were ready to leave yet. They booed the group (a great funky band relocated to Austin from New Orleans after Katrina) who probably did play too long but by no means overstayed a welcome.

real diversity (as opposed to staged diversity) at a political rally

Raise your signs for the 'copter!
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Oh Barack Obama, can I vote for you? He is rousing, and rouses that audacious hope he writes about. The audience was predictably quiet during his segments on the south, on the civil rights groups who made the difference, and at other times I found myself among the minority cheering. These were Texan Democrats, and their pride was at stake. Is he too young, or does the junior senator have the gumption and inexperience necessary to foment change? Is he the provider of a political shift that we, the dissenters, crave? I can't say yet. But oh what a speech! Within the typical framework of a candidacy speech, who speaks openly on the true source and inspiration for terrorists? Who says, on C-Span, that America funds both sides of the war on terror, citing foreign policy far back enough to elicit cringes at the thought of this doomed war? Who talks about health care believably, who has a plan that will actually work? (Besides Kucinich, and maybe Nader).

Great intro dancers
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So it was a grand afternoon. Then I drove on to Sonora, to my tour guide's ranch, where I would spend a night before traveling on. The ranch was big and flat, as expected. The main house was homey, and we spent a few hours with family there shooting the shit (without actually shooting anything) and drinking beers. We discussed growing up in Houston, as opposed (in a polar fashion) to New England, and I saw the largest spider of my life before hitting the hay.

I woke up with that itch to get on the road. I can't stay in one place for very long, and Texas had certainly fulfilled its due. We walked around a pasture and I read a bit in the death room- a taxidermist's paradise- before departing. This room, because I have to share, included some twenty or so heads, one half-body, of mostly dear and antelope, a havelina, an audad, many full pheasants, and dozens of furs. There is just nothing I can do to appreaciate this hobby- the cooler I attempt to be, the harder my goose pimples when I sit in a room like that and try to discuss methods of killing. But the hospitality was  quite nice.

Barack Obama!
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So on I drove to Big Bend National Park!