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JULY 10, 2006 - THE STARS AT NIGHT, ARE BIG AND BRIGHT …
DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS.

Safety has always been paramount in making this particular trip. When I am tired, I get off the road. If I am too tired, I don't get on the road at all. I had promised that I would check with a police agency about taking the border roads around the southern edge of Texas, and so I did. I spoke with an officer in Orange Texas (The last taste of Texas). When I told him what I was doing, and showed him the intended route, his eyebrows shot up and he smiled. He asked me if I wanted to get shot. I told him that I didn't think I would like that. He told me that I stood a good chance of getting shot if I used the southern border routes across and around Texas. I told him I wasn't going that way. In frustration he alluded that I had just said I was going that way. I said, "yeah, but that was before you changed my mind." So, tonight I am at the Drury Inn in downtown San Antonio, just blocks from the Alamo. I am going to go see the inside tomorrow.

I walked the River walk today and tonight. What a delightful way to get around the city. Shops line both sides of this subterranean river. It is a secret garden that isn't bothered by traffic, since the roads are all above the river. Bridges span when necessary. I had the best steak I have ever had at one of the steak houses on the river. It wasn't broiled, it was smoked. I only needed my fork to cut the darn thing. I couldn't believe the tenderness of it.

I have on occasion during this trek, compared Detroit to other cities. I have to do it again. San Antonio is everything that Detroit could be, but will never be. The visionaries that saw the potential sure could have taken a trip up north. Come  to San Antonio to see the "River Walk". Pictures in the separate posting will explain, I think.

I walked along all the sides of the Alamo tonight. I was hoping to hear Sam Houston's ghost, or Davey Crocket's, ghost, but no luck. It is a very awe inspiring place. Santa Anna probably wishes he had never ever messed with that place. It was almost lost 100 years ago, because someone wanted to put up a new hotel and needed that particular spot.

Obviously, cooler heads prevailed. I will head further west tomorrow. I have been in contact with Dana, my niece and with Tim and Eileen Logsdon, my cousins about my coming into Phoenix.  Tim is going to hook me up with a dealer to get the bike in for the 20,000 mile service. I left home with the odometer reading 14,000 and some miles. Right now it reads 22,224 miles. The driving in Texas is different than in any other state.

Everyone does 80 if the speed limit is 65 miles per hour. When the speed limit is 70 miles per hour, I do NOT get out of the right lane at all. I have seen Long Horn cattle, but not armadillo has made his presence known. The only one I have seen was a taxidermied one on the back of a bike, ala my rubber duckie. Speaking of which, boy is THAT thing getting comments. Kids want it. Two gas station attendants wanted it. I ain't selling.

I am tired tonight. I miss hearing laughter. I didn't think that would bother me, but it does. I don't hear laughter, and I wish I did.