Get your ass to the southwest. Buy a used copy of Desert Solitaire and make it your bible. Poke a cactus. Make friends with the lizards. Go see Meow Wolf in Santa Fe because that place is cool as shit. Spend at least one night sleeping outside, under the stars, ideally somewhere far away from major light pollution. Hike Big Bend or maybe Enchanted Rock and ask an acquaintance from a small online forum who happens to be visiting Austin starting September 4 if he wants to come (he'd love to). Bathe in the heat, and thank your lucky stars that it's a dry heat. The French Quarter's pretty but New Orleans' humidity is deadly this time of year.
I endorse nearly all of this. Speaking as someone whose mother served as a model for a character in The Monkeywrench Gang, I've tried and failed to read Desert Solitaire at least four times. On the other hand, Douglas Preston's City of Gold taught me to appreciate a region I have loathed since birth.
Big Bend is a stunning place. My dad took me out there when I was 12 or 13. The highlight was taking a whole day to start out on the desert floor, hike up blue creek canyon to the south rim, and down into the basin. It's one of my favorite memories. I was almost too tired to stand by the end. If you have the chance to go in March, all the cactuses boom. If you get the chance to go with a geologist, that's interesting too. Enchanted Rock is a fun little park. Crawl through the caves on the back side. They hit capacity kind of early on weekends when the weather's nice though.