Sunday, May 20th, 2012
I watched the sun set over the Mississippi River in Memphis and the new frontier of my life. Lonliness began to sweep over me with no friends to talk with. I had chosen to treat being alone as a challenge to learn how to be with just myself. I realized that no one I've yet met makes me feel fully whole, not even myself.
After waking up at 6:30am to bright sunlight radiating through my tent, I packed up and left my vacant lot turned campground by 7. I drove the 8 or 9 miles out to Graceland and caught a glimpse of Elvis' home and gravesite before continuing along my route through Arkansas to Oklahoma.My car started overheating while in Arkansas and has made me increasingly anxious about what would happen were I to break down along the road. I pulled off at an exit in Arkansas and a man at a body shop took a look. He poured some water into the radiator reservoir. Doing so seemed to help the engine from overheating, at least for the time being.
I arrived in Oklahoma and it was not the rolling prairie land that I had expected it to be. Sadly the landscape was not very foreign to me, just large pastures separated by woodland, much of what I'm already used to seeing in any country area in any given state. There are however small oil rigs sparsely dotting the landscape, reminding me that America still has some resources after all. On Thursday I just laid around by my friend's pool at her parents home. We got burgers at Johnny's and watched her father and sister shoot skeet in the evening.
By Friday morning I was ready to get out to OK. My route to Austin was hot and sweaty and I was glad to get a shower upon my arrival. I saw a very humbling feature along the way, the Texas Motor Speedway. It stretched out along the horizon like a stadium out of starwars and it was the largest piece of architecture I have ever seen with my own eyes. It resurged my feelings of hatred towards American culture, where we waste gas and watch cars race around an arbitrary loop.
My friend's place in Austin is very new, comfortable and echoey; her dog lives there which is a nice reminder of home.
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