Lone Star

Texas from El Paso to Dallas has taken up the majority of my travel in August. Take a look at this timeline map. Red dots mark places I spent time at.

How I do love to get out of Texas! Let me count the days.



Monday, August 22nd
Abilene, TX.

Blogging day.

A lot of Christian universities in the area. I browsed through a biochemistry textbook on my laptop while resting at University. The first paragraph was in hardliner secular terms: biology is a unique science because of macroevolution. No wiggle room at all for Creationism. So I'm curious how university biology is taught in religious schools.

Specifically what textbooks they use, and whether they try to fudge God into it somehow, or they gloss over it like... well the textbook people got the 'life evolving from bacteria and being poofed into existence by God' completely wrong, but let's just brush that aside and focus on life on earth exactly as God created it. Except for the do-do, and those dinosaurs that did not exist.

The faculty at Abilene had soft degrees in stationary biology specializations like ecology and marine animals etc. Consistent with the religious attitude of appreciating what God put on earth for us to eat and lord over exactly like it was 6,000 years ago. Not asking deep probing questions of how life became the way it is, or what directions it is moving forward to. 'Cause the Bible already tells us the unequivocal truth: God says, 'all me' and 'don't think about it.'

The only pic taken today:

So here's road pictures the day before.

Tuesday, August 23rd
Abilene, TX to Eastland, TX.

Let's kick off a leg of travel.

It rained at night, so I camped the front of Lowe's instead of 'round back.

Made a credit card phone call, filled some forms, and paid bills in the morning. After taking care of that stuff, I felt better about the days to come and I got a surge of motivation to travel.

Small towns had more derelict houses than businesses.

Cisco Community College was like a couple of all-black sports teams and the bare minimum of classrooms to be considered a school. I couldn't find a shower there.


Wednesday, August 24th
Eastland, TX to Ranger, TX.

Looking for a shower.

Morning camp at an un-leased property.

Couldn't find a shower for many days and I almost gave up. Ranger College had one basketball gym with a tiny restroom on either side. Could hardly fit a sink in there.

Automatic ball machine

But on the far end, an unlabeled narrow door led into what looked like a janitor closet that was furnished into a team locker room. A silhouette of a male basketball player on the wall outside was the only marking to suggest anything was there. Three shower heads, bing bing bing!

Ranger had a first place national championship rodeo program from 2010-something. They'd better win at rodeo - nothing of the sort exists in most places. I hope all the teams were from Texas. 

I wanted sleep. Too hot outside. Where was I to go? There were several sports fields with a little booth in the bleachers above each one. No way they'd leave that unlocked... but we should check anyway, right? Ha ha ha.

Guess what? Free air conditioning, electricity, and seating.

Girls softball held practice. I could see them real close from above, but no one seemed alarmed by my presence. I think glare from the afternoon sun prevented anyone from seeing inside my booth, if they chanced to look up. But one girl wanted to play some music...

She opened the booth. I said hi. She was surprised. I'd been sleeping at my laptop with headphones on, listening to the Beverly Hills Cop theme 'Axel F' on repeat. I said, I could get out of there if I was in the way. I don't think she knew what to make of me.

Maybe she felt a little creeped, but not distressed. She left her phone hooked up to the loudspeaker, resumed practice without telling anyone I was there. Retrieved her phone afterwards and told me to have a nice day. LOL.


Thursday, August 25th
Ranger, TX to Santo, TX.

Racist locals.

Morning camp at a Vietnam memorial park.

Truck stops and diners all play old Western flicks and reruns of Walker, Texas Ranger. I get a kick out of saying the latter name as I pass through a town. 'Wah-kuh. Tuh-ke-sus Lane-zher.'

The ethnicity is bit by bit changing from Mexican to Country White as I approach the great big capital city. Not a lot of thick dialects though - seems to be going away, as people want to avoid the negative connotations that it's backward and uneducated to speak Texan.

I'm in checkout line and the cashier pours on 'Hi, how are you!' and 'Hope to see you again!' to everyone except me. She makes a point to turn her attention to greet a guy who just walked in the door, instead of saying anything when it's my turn in line. LOL.

Later a guy complains to me about Mexicans talking loudly as he walks out of the bathroom. I pass him off with a 'meh' shrug but I'm thinking, dude why u saying this to me? We Asians do the same thing, so you'd hate us too. LOL.

West Texas is full of run-down crap towns anyway. What they got to be so stuck up for?


Friday, August 26th
Santo, TX to Weatherford, TX.

Laundry and rain showers.

Lunch.

Laundry. Sudden rainstorm.

Weatherford, TX after rain.

Evening camp at baseball park. Used umbrella to block the sun, I felt so smart.

Saturday, August 27th
Weatherford, TX to Fort Worth, TX.

Into big city. Difficult intersections, rushing cars, and confusing navigation.

Maybe I'll get run over by Mary-Kate and Ashley.

Big city has services but a hassle of restrictions. I was allowed to visit the UNT (University of Northern Texas) medical campus library, but first floor only. It had about five occupied tables, some chairs, and that was it.

Jeez, what good is visiting a library without access to books? For all that, the front desk asked me for driver license, school affiliation, and my major. Then they gave me a green laminated card that I was supposed to display at all times. What a joke.

I walked back out and asked where the stacks were. They said if you know the exact title, then a staff member would accompany you up to the top floor to retrieve it. Okay, could I look at a catalog to see what you have? Oh sure, it's Online.

Great, there's not a computer terminal and so I have to login with my own device? The university WiFi was sponsored username/password access only, couldn't reach beyond the lobby, and didn't work with the guest account they created for me. Forget this. What a waste of time.

Something looks not right with your UNT, maybe you should get it looked at. Yeah, I'm going to UNT Health tomorrow. What a name for a place. Bunch of UNTs. They ought to call it Central University of Northern Texas.

You know you're in a classy place when there's a billboard for generic plastic surgery off a highway. This is the message I get: "The doctor's name, why do you need to know that? Any one of our doctors can do it for you. Look honey, when you're getting breasts this large, you don't need to know who does them, trust me."

Fort Worth

There are run down neighborhoods. Ghetto fly kids wearing their jeans at the knees, Afro comb in the hair, puffy boxershorts sticking out like a diaper. Some guy wanted to sell me a tennis shoe for $1. Wtf, he only had one pair. What if it's not my size? I think he advertised just to close distance and rob me.

Sunday, August 28th
Fort Worth, TX to Arlington, TX.

Arlington, a serviceable burb with University and buffet.

Morning camp

Gallon jug swag. Manager let me sleep for a few hours outside the store before sending some grunts to wake me up.

A blood pressure machine at university. Bicycling has kept my heart pretty healthy.

And buffets have kept my weight up.

So many birds...

Monday, August 29th
Arlington, TX.

A spot of rain.

I like how there's a street called "Road to Six Flags". If only everything was so intuitively labeled for me, I'd have less trouble finding my way around. "Road to Walmart." "Road to the Buffet." "Go This Way" Street. "Turn Left on This" Road.

Morning camp

Because services were limited, I had gone without breakfast or buffets in West Texas, just eating fried chicken and drinking soda. Felt around my mouth one night and two top teeth were slightly wobbling when I shook them because the gums were loose.

Given my advanced condition of gum recession, I am but a few days from disaster at all times, even with regular healthy diet and maintenance. If I don't eat and eat healthy, even just for a few days, my teeth are at risk for irreversible damage. So I can't cheat on nutrition. The day my teeth fail, I will be fucked. I made it a priority to eat at a buffet and reintroduce lots of dark leafy greens, spinach, and dairy products into my diet.

Nice park to hang around.

Shaved my head. Trying to look for spots I missed without mirrors.

Mosquitoes making it hard to sleep at night. In the morning it was too hot to sleep without a roof. And big city restrictions making it hard to sleep during the day. Couldn't find an out-of-the-way spot on campus; students were coming and going around every corner. At lunchtime it rained and I couldn't look far. Found a decent covered bench in a park adjacent to the Texas Ranger's baseball stadium but security patrols kept waking me up. Security in the area was active, because there was a game in the evening.

My fingers are dotted all over with mosquito bites. My hands throb constantly with the swelling.

One of my toes is very sore. I think it's like dislocated, but it's probably not. The rest are kinda mushy and don't hold shape. The bones are very skinny. I feel like they're gonna snap off and dangle loosely. And I won't even notice.

I suspect the two hours of sleep every night is making them loose. Muscles atrophy when you don't get deep sleep. Because the effect from sleep deprivation is uniform throughout the body, small muscles are hurt by the loss much more than big ones on arms and legs. I ought to prioritize a sleeping day to reverse my toes wasting away. Hopefully.

If I take care of myself, maybe I can keep this up.

Tuesday, August 30th
Arlington, TX to Forney, TX.

Skirted around downtown Dallas without stopping. Metropolitan highways are not bicycle friendly, and big cities are no help to this traveling bum.

Morning camp outside AT&T football stadium.

I learned my tablet can take panoramas without uploading to Google. Weeeeeeeeeee 360 no scope.

Someone's rigging these fortune cookies to send me a message. They are so on point.

I don't care where you are in America, if you're on Martin Luther King Boulevard, there's some sagging pants going down.

Tried to get a working power outlet. Found a salamander.

Wednesday, August 31th
Forney, TX to Canton, TX.

Navigating with my stomach. Buffet to buffet.

Morning camp at a really nice huge athletic field park. Had a pleasant chat with a bicyclist when I woke up.

Longhorn and Shrek donkey.

Lunch continues to give me life advice.

Evening camp. A rare power outlet at the back of a Walmart.

Thursday, September 1st
Canton, TX to Lindale, TX.

Morning camp. Head netting helping to win the fight against mosquitoes. But it's so humid and hot.

Truck delivery played a mini-game of rolling tires into the warehouse. Hehehe.

Nice spot to play some tunes on the flute.

Only a hundred miles to Shreveport, LA. I'm almost out of Texas!