Locals wonder constantly whether Austin is still "weird" - a true refuge from modern American life.
Austin came of age as a quirky capital city with a strong permissive bent: Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Naked, if you wish. Preferably while floating in Barton Springs or some other shockingly cold, clear burst from the Edwards Aquifer. In a word: hippy.
Those aging hippies despise young hipsters, new money, and development.
Their tree-hugging legacy is in the city's numerous parks, leafy urban canopy, and woefully inefficient highways designed around our urban wildernesses.
Turns out those greenbelt wildernesses are treasures providing endless enjoyment for Austinites, and softening abrasive days of commutes and deadlines.
None more than Barton Creek Greenbelt, a densely forested canyon one mile from downtown. It's still a little "Austin weird" down there. People do still smoke 'em (partially) naked. Mustache-twirling hipsters cliff jump. Hippies waft patchouli.
There are miles of trails, and if it's rained enough, picturesque places to soak, like the dad and daughter I nabbed above.