After three weeks travelling, we are at home.  It’s good to sit in my familiar chair, to type on a proper keyboard and view things on my full size screen rather than my little laptop.  But getting back into the routine will be a challenge, I know!

It’s been a grand trip.  One of the best, we think, with hardly a dud in our busy schedule.  So it was a bit unfair that on our last morning in Austin, we felt short changed.

Our experience tells us we need to save something for our last morning, for having packed up and feeling ready for home, we don’t want to waste those precious last hours.  My hero had spent much of the previous evening looking for a suitable distraction and came up with the Blanton Art Gallery – perfect.

So, all set and checked out of the hotel, we were there at opening time and paid our admission, noting that one exhibition had closed on Sunday evening.  Shame.

“But there is still the Goya” said the young woman on the desk, “and the Xu Bing”.

The entrance hall to the museum is decorated in a swimming pool blue tile, which had been a temporary exhibit but is now permanent.  It’s very effective and the perfect welcome when one steps in from the oppressive 100+F outside.

Our first stop was the Xu Bing exhibit, Book from the Sky which takes up the whole of this space.

On the walls and overhead are large sheets of printed “Chinese characters” – except they’re not.  The artist devised these nonsense letters and words to look real, but actually, they say nothing and cannot be read.

They are in book form too.

Once they got the video working for us, we gained a better understanding of what it was all about, but I’m still none too sure.

OK.  Done with that one.  Loved the lettering and the hand made books and admire the principle.  But did I need to see it such quantity?  I don’t think so.

Next was the Goya exhibition.  Well, the prints were incredibly detailed and beautifully created, but oh my, the subject matter?  Bull fighting?  War?  Brutal scenes from life?  Not really my cup of tea (dear) , thank you.

Let’s go up to the permanent exhibition.

Oh.  What do you mean that’s it?

I had heard the conversation about the temporary exhibit coming to an end, but had totally missed the bit about the other gallery being closed too.

So yes, we were indeed looking for the art – but sadly, it wasn’t there.  Shame someone didn’t think we needed to know that before we paid our $9 each entry fee, when there was time to reconsider and maybe go somewhere else.

It wasn’t long till Mary’s check in time anyway so we drove her to the airport, said our fond farewells (See you in September!) and went our separate ways – Mary home to California, the two of us back into Austin for a couple of hours, since our flight wasn’t till gone 6.  As we mooched around a bookshop, I received a txt from Mary: There’s a Salt Lick outlet in the terminal building!  Sure enough there was, and the people in front of me in the queue bought a whole brisket to take with them on the plane.  Now, there’s a popular passenger, I’ll bet!