Texas and spare thoughts

Of all the state caricatures that filled my mind,
perhaps the best defined was that of Texas.
Wide, brash, big hair, chiselled cowboy under a stetson, oil. Also that big belt buckle. So with some eager anticipation we floated down from our happy farm in New Mexico into west Texas, replete with cacti and prongorn antelope plodding along in a far away haze. Evening caught us in the fading light of Pecos where home was the wasteland on an RV park next to a big interstate. No matter as we travelled into our 16 wheeler dreams with plates of wonderful Mexican food in our bellies.




The following day's travels took us through a vast plane populated with oil pump jacks and tired old towns worthy of many a photographic anthology. Sky everwhere with a mere bump of hill many wagon days trail away. Those were my thoughts as I imagined myself on my steed wondering what I would have been thinking of were I that chiselled cowboy with my red bandana. I would certainly have noticed the road runner that scuttled across our car's path.






Then as though slipping through a door we emerged into the green and sea gifted breezes of Austin. And to see the shiny face of one Don Broyles who like a Scarlet Pimpernel dropped out of the sky to spend a wonderful 24 hours with us. Austin is an enticing city- lithe river runners, Dell, a university, green, vast clouds of bats, music and good food. But perhaps just the happy cloud of seeing Don again....drinking a beer and listening to great live music.

Onto Houston where we met the city on steroids (via 2 south africans and one bemused american eating a McDonalds (block your ears Tylers) meal on the lawn outside of said emporium). Vast with now what feels like terrifyingly highway driving. But from the hospitality of Don we drifted into the happy home of Cyndy and Howard (parents of an Alaskan friend) for more Mexican, great ice cream and a late night of packing before the adventure of Costa Rica.

-M