On the road again

Yeeeeee-HAW! I'm back on the open road! And boy howdy does it feel good.

For this journey, I'm planning to first head pretty much due east, towards Miami, and then after spending a few days there visiting my dad and stepmom, make a turn to the north and head up to Virginia where I'll get to while away some enjoyable hours with Brooke and Aaron. Mark is planning to fly to Roanoke on the 19th and join me, allowing him to ride along on the trip back to Texas with me. I've found a long list of marvels (several of which I've been dying to see for a while now) to stop and gander at, and will certainly keep my devoted blog readers up to date on what I find.

Today, after a somewhat exhausting and action-packed morning spent rounding up last minute items (dang-which fire extinguisher should I take???) and tucking them into the car, it took me most of the rest of the day to get out of Texas. People that aren't from Texas probably don't realize it, but it takes the best part of a day to drive out of Texas from the center where I live, no matter which direction you head. It's a huge honkin' state.

Today was mostly about getting underway and getting some miles under me, so as I barrelled east along I-10, I discovered only two sights worth mentioning. First, some sort of outdoor statuary business near Sealy, Texas, had an immense team of golden unicorns drawing (whom I assume to be) Apollo along behind them. Just on the side of the I-10 feeder road, like they were in a used car lot! It took a few miles for what I had fleetingly glanced out of the corner of my eye to sink in. Finally, I turned around and headed back to search for the curious sight, not knowing when the next opportunity for me to stop and gawk at an enormous golden team of steeds pulling a Greco-Roman commuter would be.

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The other beautiful moment came just after I had crossed the border from Texas into Louisiana. The sun had set and it was pretty dark on that remote stretch of the interstate. In the distance I could see the twinkling sodium vapour fairy lights of an oil refinery up ahead and as I got closer I realized there was an enormous flare burning near the interstate. What made it perfect as a moment was the Rammstein (German heavy metal techno) song playing on the stereo just as I passed by. It was a scene right out of the Terminator. Awesome.

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That's it for day one. Stay tuned - I'll do my best not to disappoint.