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I slept in my car outside El Paso. I made coffee with hot water thanks to an interstate Love’s. I drove along southern Arizona in cutoff jeans while listening to the Gin Blossoms; I am my father’s son. I drove around Organ Pipe National monument and day-hiked around those hilarious Saguaro Cacti. I laughed at the Cholla tugged down by their own fruit and bent over from drought. I rummaged through the Organ Pipe itself, a piece of vegetation that should be underwater. I read Don Quixote while tribal, rhythmic drumming thumped across the border. I stopped in Sedona and ate an omelet, staying long enough to realign my crystals. I bought my favorite beers from the Colorado Plateau.
I made preparations to actually walk down into the Grand Canyon. I walked along the rim and cried again, like I do every time, including when I first saw it, and then I thought about all the previous iterations of myself that had done the same thing. I imagined them wandering around the trails below, remembering what they thought and how they felt. I had a nice walk down to the river, staring at that hellish deep brown and purple layer of rock. I crawled up boulder fields, walked up an entire creek for miles, scraped through the thicket, was knocked off the trail four times, hiked for twelve straight hours, and ended up turning back around to the same campsite—safety. I made a friend the next morning and hiked out alongside someone instead of all alone. I ate a vegetable party tray, stayed in an Albuquerque Quality Inn, ate another omelet at The Frontier Restaurant, caught up on “We Hate Movies,” and then crawled back to Texas.
I’m back. I’m alive. I’m strong and shredded. I’ll start writing about the football again. I’ll watch these young cats, write some rookie Film Rooms, and then knock out some of these offseason bucket list items I have. Soon we will all be puddles, and then football will go from a mirage to a reality.
Anyways, that’s all I got. Have fun doing whatever it is that you do. The rest is yours to talk about whatever you want, Texans-related or not. Just remember the standard commenting rules apply.