Wednesday, September 13, 2006
DAY EIGHT: Travel from Texas to Muskegee, OK (via Dallas)
One would think one could get a perfectly good night's sleep in a rest stop with 14 eighteen wheelers next to a major interstate. But for some reason my eyes took a while to clear this morning on my way to Aledo, TX.
Patrick, who works at Acadia Summer Arts Program with me in Maine, met me at the top of his street in the "ranch cart" with Rocco. The blurry bits in the photo are all the dead insects on my windshield.
They led me to the house he's been building with his father-in-law, wife, and stepson for the past two years. I am in awe of it. Patrick took me on a tour and explained they are trying to bring the house to code so they can close on the loan. The terrain reminded me of Puerto Ayorra in the Galapagos: low trees, scrub brush, and rocky. I could only stay a while.
In Dallas, I swung by the school I attended from 4th to 7th grades in order to say hello to my 6th grade English teacher. He is now the assistant head of the school and was at football practice and I somehow missed him. OK, I gave no warning about the visit, but I should have marched out to that damned field and said hi. The receptionist was laconic and mildly aware of this planet.
If I were to plunge into self-analysis, I would notice I have been polite and unwilling to, shall we say, claim my agency. That, and planning might be a good idea for future visiting ideas.
I did get to see the house my family lived in for three years. The current owners were on the front lawn, so I did a creepy slow drive-by. Everywhere I looked I simultaneously existed in the Dallas of 20 years ago and the present, and that's a major headtrip. I muttered things like "Oh, that's where the Mr. M store used to be."
I decided to get a hotel in Muskegee, OK. On my way to a predictably unsatisfying dinner at Denny's, the Canine Unit of the local police stopped me. A second unit stopped out of self-proclaimed "nosiness." They asked me questions like "New York? What's there?" The ungrateful citizen that I am, the usefulness of police often eludes me.
One would think one could get a perfectly good night's sleep in a rest stop with 14 eighteen wheelers next to a major interstate. But for some reason my eyes took a while to clear this morning on my way to Aledo, TX.
Patrick, who works at Acadia Summer Arts Program with me in Maine, met me at the top of his street in the "ranch cart" with Rocco. The blurry bits in the photo are all the dead insects on my windshield.They led me to the house he's been building with his father-in-law, wife, and stepson for the past two years. I am in awe of it. Patrick took me on a tour and explained they are trying to bring the house to code so they can close on the loan. The terrain reminded me of Puerto Ayorra in the Galapagos: low trees, scrub brush, and rocky. I could only stay a while.
In Dallas, I swung by the school I attended from 4th to 7th grades in order to say hello to my 6th grade English teacher. He is now the assistant head of the school and was at football practice and I somehow missed him. OK, I gave no warning about the visit, but I should have marched out to that damned field and said hi. The receptionist was laconic and mildly aware of this planet.
If I were to plunge into self-analysis, I would notice I have been polite and unwilling to, shall we say, claim my agency. That, and planning might be a good idea for future visiting ideas.
I did get to see the house my family lived in for three years. The current owners were on the front lawn, so I did a creepy slow drive-by. Everywhere I looked I simultaneously existed in the Dallas of 20 years ago and the present, and that's a major headtrip. I muttered things like "Oh, that's where the Mr. M store used to be."
I decided to get a hotel in Muskegee, OK. On my way to a predictably unsatisfying dinner at Denny's, the Canine Unit of the local police stopped me. A second unit stopped out of self-proclaimed "nosiness." They asked me questions like "New York? What's there?" The ungrateful citizen that I am, the usefulness of police often eludes me.
