Texas, Part 2 and A California Story

If Texas wasn't big enough, I still need another whole chapter to tell the story. Laredo wasn't too bad, temperature-wise this time around, if you consider 98 degrees an improvement. Compared to 107, it was. Something must be wrong with me, I'm actually getting used to this kind of weather. It was good practice for what I'd feel in Arizona. We'll get to that part. No treacherous tumble weed, Hawaiian shirted psychos or Tommy Chong look-a-likes this time around.

The beep on the Qualcomm gave me an opportunity I was happy to get. California here we come. Cali as my hip friends like to call it. 1400 beautiful miles beginning in Texas. I had a nice sunny ride up to San Antonio to pick up the load headed to the most weather perfect city in America. San Diego. I was excited to be headed to the coast. Life has just not taken me there since a road trip with my best buddies Rusty and Joe in the 80's. That trip is an entire book itself and was more fun than humans were supposed to have. To make a complicated trip easy to tell, in short, we started in LA and then went down to Tijuana, Mexico, where we saw geek neck chickens in storefront windows. A turnaround was in order and we then blazed a wide path all the way to San Francisco by way of Yosemite and Lake Tahoe. The pinnacle of that trip was dune buggies and the miles of sand dunes in Pismo Beach. At night, we stayed at the Shore Cliff Inn where I rolled myself up in a colorful Mexican blanket like a burrito that I had purchased for 8 bucks on a street corner in Tijuana. One delightful morning, we picked up hitch hikers near Big Sur on The Pacific Coast Highway. They turned out to be two fine young gentlemen who pulled a gun and announced they were going to hold us up. Joe was driving and when he heard the great news, he swung the steering wheel of the big white rental Buick LeSabre across the opposite lane in front of oncoming traffic three times and convinced them that we were all going over the cliff into the drink if they tried to rob us. We had to stop and let one of the potential perpetrators out so he could get sick on the side of the road. We told them if they behaved, we would give them a ride to Carmel. We did. I think Clint Eastwood was the Mayor of that upscale seaside community at the time. I'm sure he would have kept them in line if they stayed in town. Make my day. Throw in the Theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly if you prefer to go in that direction. After 19 days of Three Musketeer fun, we flew home out of San Francisco. Such are the memories of 28 year olds from New Jersey with the missing fear chip in the brain.

Back to Texas. Texas is one big arse state. It takes a long time to get across the Lone Star Nation, but the trip is worth it. When you cross into Tex from the eastern Louisiana side, there is a mileage sign on I-10 near Beaumont that says "El Paso 857". If there is a longer mileage sign out there, I haven't seen it. Big, long, unweilding...that's Texas. There is a statue of Sam Houston on I-45 near Houston. This is the biggest statue of a person I've ever seen....maybe the Statue of Liberty is bigger, but this one is enormous. Sam Houston was a larger than life guy. In short, in the 1800's, he was Governor of Tennessee then went to Texas and became Governor there. Has anyone else ever done that?

I was thoroughly awed at the western suburbs of San Antonio. There was a series of hills with magnificent homes perched atop. This is a place where you really get that Texas-Southwestern feel. Barrel, clay top roofs blend with colorful stucco dwellings. Texas likes to line its interstates around the metro areas with service roads filled with all kinds of businesses...so there's a lot to look at along the way. I saw a Masserati dealership in San Antone. To me, that says a lot about what kind of money you might find there. It doesn't hurt that the speed limit opens up to 80 west of town. But, that's only first gear in one of those exotic Italian sports cars.

I-10 through West Texas offers some great hilly scenery on what they call plateaus. At the end of Texas, you're in the massively spread out metro of El Paso. Marty Robbins' old song "El Paso" played in my head as I rode through. I kept an eye out for Rose's Cantina. I didn't see it, but I'm sure it's there. Felita didn't come out of nowhere either.

As I crossed into the "Badlands of New Mexico", I felt a wistful sense of farewell to a state...err...nation I called home for a week. It's big diverse place where I feel I've barely put a dent in, even though I've driven the entire stretch of I-35 from the Oklahoma line to Laredo and all of I-10 from the "Triangular Galaxy" of Beaumont, Port Arthur and Lake Charles in the east to El Paso in the west. Adios Texas, we'll see you soon.