Open Road Driving To Austin, TX

Driving on the open road changes your perception of time and space. In normal life, going an hour or two out of your way to see someone -- in what amounts to drives of 100 miles or more -- is not sometime people tend to do. But when you're going on 1400 mile treks like the one I took from Pittsburgh, PA to Austin, TX, a 100 miles here and there do not matter as much.

So to see an old friend, I drove a few miles West to Lawton, OK yesterday.

Here's Nominal Me (left), FAPCer Susan Reefer, Lt. John Renehan and Lt. Kevin Mills. The twin Lieutenants are temporarily based in Lawton's military base. Normally, I don't put people's last names here, but they would like to be able to Google themselves. Please aid them in their quest for a slice of Internet fame by clicking on those links and then slecting this page until Google makes it a first page pick.

Susan is great by the way. The three of them took me out to a fun Mexican restaurant in town, and it was fun to catch up with them.

Today I drove through the flat lands of Oklahoma and Texas and I was faced with a truth about America: no matter how desolate a place, you will be able to find a McDonalds. This is one right at the Oklahoma/Texas boarder on a relatively unused road coming out of Lawton. Yet you can get your McBurger here if you like. God bless America.

You can also get "home grown" food, as I found at this greasy spoon in Texas, just north of Waco. Here, I saw my first Confederate Flag shirt, a pink one worn by a woman, and drank from my first big Texas glass. As our waitress put it, "sometimes they call these glasses 'Texas sized glasses,' but I call them 'lazy waitress glasses'". Man, Texans have a sense of humor.


The drive was great with some beautiful scenery. Austin, TX, and all it offers, awaits.

RELATED LINKS:
America's Treasures