Abilene--Literally a Whirlwind Trip!

Yesterday, I woke up at 5am to leave my house at 6am, in order to meet Suzanne in Denton. We drove to Abilene and due to some ferocious Fort Worth traffic, didn't make it to HSU's Richardson Library until 11am. We had a great--though brief--chat with my friend Ellen Simmons, who is the govdocs librarian there. This is the second library visit I've made with Suzanne--we went to see David Rankin in Commerce last semester, and Suzanne went to visit with Tom Lindsey at UTA earlier this month (sans myself). It's oddly helpful to walk through other libraries' govdocs collections--by comparing them with ours, it's somehow giving me a more complete view of depository collections and what the core items are in a depository collection.

Ellen treated us to a fantastic lunch at the Cypress Street Cafe, an Abilene legend. Then I dropped off a Wii Guitar Hero guitar with my friend Jared on our way out of town--geeky errands, you know--and after just 3.5 hours in Abilene, we were on our way back out of town! (We had to leave so abruptly because I had a class that evening, and Suzanne had to drive to Tulsa that night.)

But as for “whirlwind,” it wasn’t just that we spent less time in Abilene than it takes to drive there… one-way… “whirlwind” signifies the fantastically enthusiastic/crazy wind that was going on. Yes, windy even by Abilene-ian standards, which is a bit terrifying. (This morning it was even worse in Denton: winds at 56 mph+ and grassfires that made the whole city smoky.)

It was nice to see my alma mater, though, for however brief a time.