Austin Exploring

Mara hammering art
Mara and the creator of the Cathedral of Art

Junk and Mara

This morning we got up, ready to drive to Austin. We drove a couple hours then stopped at the Magnolia cafe. (Recommended by Daphne!) We both had really good sandwiches. Then we took a look at the gift shop next door. Then we drove to the Yard Dog Folk Art gallery. We saw lots of cool art like bottle cap chairs, paper cut outs and wood cut paintings. We stopped at a couple nearby stores, but didn't buy anything. Then we went to Women and Their Work. It is a gallery devoted to art by women in Texas. It was very small and hardly any work in it, but what they had was nice. (A lot of nudity, though.) One of the most interesting things was a wooden shed, with a pile of wood, nails and a hammer sitting by. They invited you to build onto it. I tried to hammer a nail deeper into the wood, since it was sticking out, but it made a great deal of noise, and some people were eyeing me, so I stopped. We looked in the large gift shop for a while, but didn't buy anything. Again. Last, before finding our hotel, we stopped at the Cathedral of Junk. We pulled up in front of the house, which was purple with.... junk all over the front yard and on the roof. I imagined it was a house filled with junk. After taking a few pictures we saw a woman with a camera leaving the yard, and a man standing behind the fence to the yard. He told us that it was closed, but he let us in anyway. We walked through the fence to his backyard where we saw what looked like at first a giant pile of crap. But no. It was a cathedral made out of crap. A structure made only of random things. Road signs, bikes, shopping carts, dolls, CDs, tires, you name it. There were three levels and about five rooms in the entire thing, but we weren't allowed to see anything above the ground level. He told us that the city government said he had to get a permit to have the cathedral. They already made him tear down some of it. He has been working on it for twenty-one years, and it would be a shame to have to take it down. People come to see it from all over the world, hundreds coming each year. We thanked him for letting us in, wished him luck with the government, and went off to our hotel. After relaxing for a bit, we drove to Iron Works BBQ for dinner. All of their pop was in glass bottles, and all of the bottle caps were in buckets around the restaurant. I stole a bunch for my collection at home. (I'm thinking about making a chair out of them....) We were planning on visiting Amy's Ice-Cream for dessert (Also recommended by Daphne!) but we completely forgot. Maybe on our way out of Austin. Tomorrow: Midland! We really enjoy reading your comments, so if you have anything to say, don't hesitate. If you can't figure out how to comment, send us an email. We also like suggestions!