Best View

'Twas the endlessly quotable Townes Van Zandt who sang the line "No prettier sight than looking back on a town you left behind," and even if that judgment did arrive in a song called, paradoxically, "I'll Be Here in the Morning," the sentiment stands. Your life was waterlogged in the great backwash of '01, the temperature's 104 in your hat, and the West Nile virus is queued up to fill the void left by yellow fever epidemics of yore. Even the staunchest Houston-boosters and stick-it-outers deserve a break every now and then. Get in the car, roll down the windows, crank up the a/c, and head to Austin, for God's sake. The road ahead may be bleak for miles, but that receding skyline in the rearview is an awfully pretty sight.