July Day Trip

 For our July day trip, we rolled a 4 sided die and came up with the direction of northeast, and this morning we loaded up and headed out in a general northeasterly direction meandering out of Austin. 
 Our first stop was the town of New Sweden, a wide spot in the road. The only thing of note that we could find was the New Sweden Evangelical Lutheran Church out in the middle of nowhere.

 Next stop was Coupland, population 298, home of the Old Coupland Inn and Dance Hall. 

 Next door to that is the other main tourist attraction in town, the former train station. 

 It's a museum now, I think. There weren't any signs of it being open, but there was a case with some old items in it inside. 

Coupland is also the birthplace of Morgan C. Hamilton. Exciting. 

 Leaving Coupland we headed north on 95 to Taylor, 8 miles up the road. The countryside out here is flat, mostly farmland growing maize and hay. Boooring to look at. 

 Taylor is a big larger town, about 17,000 people. There are definite signs of growth, as it is one of the hottest new bedroom cities to both Austin and Georgetown. The old downtown district still had some cool old buildings, but it looks like they are quickly being gentrified with new construction. 

The original bank building for the area. It's all boarded up now. What a badass home that would make for someone with the $$ to rehab it. 

 After our bit of sightseeing, we headed to Louie Mueller BBQ, owned by the Mueller family for three generations. For my blog post and review of that, click here. 

 Sorry about the fuzzy pic, I didn't take it. 

 Our trip home took us through Hutto, where they are frantically building to handle the overflow from Austin. We did stop at a nice little veg stand outside of Hutto and picked up a few things for supper. 

 All in all, a nice quiet little half-day trip. I look forward to the August trip! 

Sadness and Anger

 Lately the news seems to be all bad. The Stamford Rapist, and now the Pulse shooting. It seems that things are getting progressively worse, not better since the Great Recession. The country has been divided socially and economically for decades now, with the poor getting poorer and the rich dodging the massive amount of taxes they should be paying. Reading last month about the atrocities that American companies have perpetrated on Central America, it makes me sick. The people are being exploited, and the environment will take generations to recover, if it ever does.

 Westboro Baptist Church is speeding their way to Florida right now, to vomit their hate all over the grieving community. People carp on 'free speech', however, they have no clue what it is, exactly. Constitutional free speech simply means that you can criticize the government without fear of being snatched up and sent to prison or worse.What is does not do is allow you to say whatever you damn well please without repercussions. I find it thoroughly amusing that every member of Westboro will be going straight to their Hell, express lane. And they don't even see the irony. When a mother can't even feed her baby in public without some ignorant fucknut screaming "WHORE", it is past time for us to retake our country.

 As much as I admire the people preaching love and peace, remember that it took violence at Stonewall to get the message across that we will not just lay down and let the government and worthless pieces of shit like Westboro stomp all over us. Stay strong sisters and brothers, and we will overcome.