Day 5: June 4 (Austin, Texas)

Dallas is roads. Highways, tollways, expressways, freeways, parkways. I've seldom seen traffic like the traffic in Dallas. It's not such much a reflection of congestion or accidents but more the sheer volume of cars and the people in them. Everyone racing around, jerking the wheel and veering in and out of lanes, right foot hardly ever straying from the accelerator. Building after building adorn these thoroughfares. The ones downtown glow neon green and blue in the night, while the others shimmer with gold and silver windows. So many buildings reaching up into the sky, so many people zooming around their bases. After 4 days in Dallas I feel like I know less about the city layout than I did before I came--my head awash with byways and buildings. Though I can say that Dallas is the following: it's big, it's noisy, it's rich, it's fast, and it's a lot of fun.

For the last 2 nights I slept in arguably the nicest apartment I've ever been in. Floor to ceiling windows with a view of a highway and the chaos that takes place on it. But tonight, 200 miles south of Dallas and 2o miles west of Austin I am sleeping not in a plush luxury apartment overlooking the SMU football stadium, but in my car. Tonight I am without the two old friends and a half dozen new ones the 220 miles to the north. I am alone in my car in an empty parking lot attached to an empty campground save for Roger, the owner and operator of the park. There is only one road, there are no buildings, and it is very, very quiet.

A female deer walked past the hood of my car while I reclined in my seat and tried to sleep. As she walked in front of me I wanted to ask her what she thought. What did she have to say of this--of Austin and Dallas and empty parking lots? And what of me leaving St. Louis? And of my car, loaded up with most of my life and me behind the wheel? What did she think of it? What did she think of me and my return to the West?

I fingered the window button to pull the glass between she and I down, removing the barrier between my car and her woods. Before the glass began to slide the sound of Roger's Winnebago door slamming startled her and she ran off into the woods and into the quiet.

Windy Point Park on Lake Travis, Austin, Texas