some weeks ago I drove about 470 miles in a day. that is about 750 kms. it was tiring. but also exhilarating. I started out early morning driving west against the sun on a beautifully cloudy and windy day. that's the best way to do a long drive. drive against the sun and back again, against it, by the way. its amazing that despite so many yrs in this region, I hadn't traveled west in texas. it was beautiful. forgotten and lonely and green. and of course flat. but also undulating. with eyes revealing the land for miles on either end. and this city ends very soon to the west and then its like nature lies untouched around the smooth paved steel grey road, curving with the yellow and white stripes on it, cutting into un-trampled wildness.

I was scared and excited and sweating like I do when I'm a combination of those two. it was just me and my faithful car. with the radio playing. and that stopped catching signal very soon (I did realize that I could still catch npr at a different wavelength). I didn't stop too much cos I was trying to avoid a sleep-over somewhere, cos despite a grown up job I'm still always short of money. and when I did stop, ppl stared at me almost as if I was an alien. a brown girl in and orange flowery skirt and a pink tank top, amidst truckers, mostly older white Texans, and some Mexican/Texans. I felt foreign. I felt like an explorer.

but at one of these stops a car stopped behind me, just as I was getting back into mine after clicking left and right randomly, my windows phone camera doing no justice to the panoramic views around me. a youngish hispanic looking guy was driving and talking on his phone, and then he hung up and got out while I could see him in my side mirror. he gestured to me to show that he was coming to me, I froze for a minute, trained by years of cat calling and sexually threatening strangers, and gestured back that I was driving off. thankfully he turned back to his car and I did not see him follow me after that. he probably thought I had car trouble, and maybe stopped to help..? or maybe the alternative, who knows..

I stopped to pee and grab a donut at a strange Chinese place just off the road at one point. the lady had a small praying display with donuts displayed in front of it, and I didn't stare at it too much fearing I'd cross the polite-line, but a customer before me commented on her deity being El Trump. I was amused more than horrified, but even more at the similarity of that display to what back home would be called a 'puja-ghar' with lil lumps of fried dough instead of the yellow laddoos one would see back home. like I've said before a million times... ppl are the same everywhere...

oh ya I did reach my destination unhurt and un-lost. and I did see the breathtaking water lilies that were the reason for the trip. but they aren't the point of this post. cos, although that was beautiful, it was the journey that jolted me into wondering why I don't do this more often. with more years tucked under my belt, I'm becoming more and more a misanthrope, and I realized how much I like being on the road by myself with the radio in my car.

I had another whimsical stop at a self-proclaimed 'red-neck' barbecue place for a late-lunch on my way back. where I almost left my credit card, I was so overwhelmed with the tender brisket and so intimidated by appearing so different from everyone else around.

there was one really sad bit to the whole day, one that I slowly got used to too (even more saddening, my getting inured). there must have been at least 30-40 small dead animals on the road in those 470 miles, squirrels, possums, armadillos, ... god knows what else, one freshly hit with its tail furiously wriggling while its body was pasted to the road by its blood and innards. it was mostly an empty road, except when it passed through some small town, and cars drove at 80-90 miles an hour (yes, me too, although I swear I didn't hit anything), way past the speed limits; and its sad to see that human life has such a casual destructive impact on the world around us.