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Travelling west out of Texas was magical.  I had 900 miles to cover in the day and 500 through the remainder of Texas were by far the nicest.  The state route that constituted the first 90 miles consisted of a landscape I’d never encountered with rock formations seemingly grown and a highway straddled by saturated flowers.

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Grown Stone

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They formed a ribbon when passed at high speed.

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A sky that made keeping to the road tough.

The drive was uneventful except for a part where I came within 2 minutes of running out of gas as driving at 85 had changed the distance per tank of my car.  I also hit 100 for the first time in a vehicle I was driving and for only the second time in a car period but my speeding (87 MPH) later got me pulled over by a Pecos County Sheriff.  He asked for my license, saw it was a PA and asked me if I was going home (despite travelling west).  I honestly replied “I need to get to Tucson to catch a flight to PA to take care of something”, a factually true statement which resulted in me only getting a polite warning from the officer who looked like some sort of train conductor.

The drive held another moment of interest as I’d never really seen the sun set over the actual horizon.  Normally, the setting sun is obscured by trees, houses, hills, or what have you but the blankness of New Mexico allowed an long uninterrupted view of the setting only impeded by small hills and the curvature of the earth.  I don’t think I’ll encounter this again until I hit the Pacific.

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Splendid example of the limitations of a camera's dynamic range.

I also got to go through a US border checkpoint despite being entirely in the US during my trip.  The rigorous inspect involved being asked if I was US citizen, was hiding any non-US citizens in my car, and had any contraband in my car.  Whew, that was a tough one.

My Arizona host bent over backwards to have me even proffering his bed for my use.  I was armed with my inflatable mattress which was so noisy on the wooden floor we’d equip it with a fleece silencer on the second night of my stay.

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Driving South to meet a former OSR staff member was dull with little to look at besides the cavalcade of frontages that lined the secondary Frontage Drive that skirted the highway.  I was afraid of not having any pictures for the day so I pulled over at a Texas rest stop to take a picture and discovered some things.  First, all Texas rest stops offer wifi, which is somewhat impressive in that there’s no real place to use it except for surfing while taking a dump.  Second, Texas rest stop toilets are 3.8 gallons per flush which is 2-3 times what a normal toilet uses.  I timed the flush period and it clocked in at a full 24 seconds.  That’s a hell of a flush.

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Clouds, blown by the force of a flush.

Also, Texas has some peculiar road signs:

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How can it be the law to obey a warning sign?

I met Alex in Austin and we reminisced over girly iced beverages.  He’s happily married and hosts some kickin’ parties as witnessed by the fact that his wife still had highlighter on her.  We chatted about school, work, and the joys of becoming adults and moved on after a few hours; it was good to see him.

My next meet-up was with Ellice Sanchez/Ellice in San Antonio, the land of history and malls.

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Soft light is soft.

The meeting was fine and our nightcap was watching her boyfriend raise 20 flags.

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My Texas host wasn’t available until 11:30 PM and with only a 4 hour drive to Dallas I had to kill eight hours after waking up to arrive at a reasonable time which I thought would be easy in that I was visiting a national park.  I was sadly mistaken.  Hot Springs National Park does have some wooded areas to it but these seem almost ancillary, the purpose of the park is to preserve the hydrology that provides hot mineral water to the historic bath houses, something I have little to no interest in experiencing.  I took the tour of the park proper and there was really nothing of note.

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This could have been taken anywhere.

They had a lovely observation tower that one could climb and look from for a mere $8.

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It did have a nice snack machine.

I blew through the park in under an hour despite my best efforts so had to find a way to kill 7 hours, it required some creativity; every time I saw a brown landmark sign, I did my patriotic duty and pulled over.  These detours included:

  • Army Corps of Engineer Dam Education Area
  • Recreation Zone 7
  • Arkansas Reservoir Museum
  • Texas Cotton Museum
  • Mary Puddin’s, the world’s largest independent chocolatier (a claim that makes no sense)
  • Texas Veterans’ Highway Monument

This only killed six of the eight hours but I received additional assistance from having to take an impromptu stop for some flash flooding on I-30 W but even this and my attempt to keep to the speed limit still had me in Dallas two hours before I could actually do anything.  I pulled into a Starbucks for some free (if you’re using a iPhone) wifi and proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes using my MiFi to try to learn how to fake out the network so my laptop could mask itself as a phone through dicking with user agent options.  My host shot me a message that I could meet his at his restaurant for some free food (woot) so I drove across Dallas to exercise this option.  Dallas doesn’t have streets so much as a network of boulevards with double turning lanes, four or five across expressways and multiple ways of exiting and entering tollways.  Even on a Friday evening, the combination of quickly moving traffic and tight turns allowed Wanda the Wonderbrick to navigate wonderfully and I’m tempted to return just so I can tool around more.

In front of my host’s restaurant as I readied myself to change in a nearby convenience store I received a text message from a team mate that in effect said “we’re under attack”.  Boo.  I pulled into a no parking lane, pulled out my laptop, connected it to my giant portable battery, plugged in the mouse, connected to the MiFi, put on my headset and set to work.  I got a lot of strange looks from passersby who stared at me like I was either the world’s fattest spook or some sort of UAV coordinator on vacation.  A nice policeman told me to move my car so I wrapped things up and having missed my restaurant window, shot gleefully across Dallas to meet my host.

Dallas/Sensei is both a Scouter and highly kinetic and meeting him in person was revealing.

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Philmont shirt, I approve

He has joint custody with his ex-fiancée of his cat, Muffin, the most resigned cat I’ve ever met.  Normally, I’d describe such an animal as lazy, calm, or docile but the blank knowing stare of this cat bordered on nihilism.

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A kitty Sartre, or Camus if he dies young.

I wonder if any other animals have the ability to present this type of ennui.