Evidence Photos
Sep 12, 2001
Fredericksburg, Texas to Lubbock, Texas
"Our Nation Saw Evil" and "America in Agony." are the headlines.
Fredericksurg is too small to have its own newspaper so these
machines carry the Austin American-Statesman and The San Antonio Express-News.
"Bush is a Texas boy. He'll get the job done." So said one of the guys at the Fredericksberg fire station and somehow I found that comforting.
He also added: "when we graduated from fire school they told us you're now all official idiots. That's because only an idiot runs
into a burning building and now that's your job." I didn't really know what to say. The engine you see in front is a pump used for structural fires.
They also had a couple of large pickups with water tanks and tool racks for brush fires.
The German influence. Strudels for sale, a biergarten, and a German owned B & B.
This boot shaped tennis shoe by Tenny Lama (yep, Tenny)
is what you get when the Texas meets the Nike Generation.
Eden found on HIghway 87 in Texas! Honest! Here's proof: a prison on the left, a large local industry and
meat ranch raised in the Garden of Eden on right.
I' ve read that when a loved pet dies the owner will often continue to see it from the corner of their eyes, frequently coming into
a room or towards a favorite corner. Something kind of similar started happening to me on the ride from Fredericksburg to Lubbock.
From time to time I'd just make out sirens in the background when there were none. At first I thought it was just the wind
or tinnitus....the intercom in the helmet made earplugs uncomfortable I hadn't been wearing them as one really should
when going long distances on a bike. But I realized I was hearing _sirens_, not just ringing.
I'd hear the sound switch from wail to the welp mode emergency vehicles use to clear intersections.
When I tried to localize the siren I would cease to hear it.
I'm happy to say that these sirens became less frequent and then stopped.
The landscade to Lubbock was featureless but somehow beautiful in its emptiness.
4000 miles!
We spent the night in Lubbock glued to CNN. Even allowing for our state of mind,
Lubbock struck me as about as sad and uninteresting a town as you are going to find.
Dinner was in the cafe of a local supermarket and the only person I talked with with the hotel clerk,
a pharmacy student who hated her biology professor. Life goes on.
