Deep in the chest cavity of Texas.

I woke up relatively early this morning, I suppose. Drank coffee with my brother and watched the same baseball highlights that we watched last night. Until we realized we had watched the same highlights on repeat for an hour, then switched to sports commentators discussing the games from the previous night, again, the same games with the same situational highlights, just being discussed at a greater length. Interspersed though out their commentary, Billy and I added our own. It was absolutely fantastic, it is really the only thing my brother and I do together and I absolutely cherish it.  You see, we didn’t grow up together, Billy is 15 years my senior and he has a different mom. I was born in Dallas but I grew up in Flagstaff, AZ and he was born in Dallas and never really left. I don’t think he would trade his life for the world, nor would I trade mine. But the occasions when our lives cross, it’s mundane and absolutely wonderful.

I left his house, unfortunately not getting to say good bye to his wife Jill or their 6 year old Grace, who is simply magic. I rolled out around 9:30am and headed south for Austin to see my friends Myles and Nick. I was supposed to see another friend from New Orleans, who lives in Austin now, named Kim. But Kim also owns a home in Galveston, TX and apparently her renters flooded it last night so she is headed there instead of having a lovely dinner with me. These things happen, I’ll miss her smile once more, but I am sure I will see her soon.

On my way to Austin I decided it was a good idea to stop outside of Waco and take pictures of the Branch Davidian Compound at the Mount Carmel Center ranch in the community of Elk, Texas.  I got off the freeway, something I am always happy to do, and made my way through the small towns full of churches and rolling hills cut by back roads of asphalt. Finally I came to EE ranch road and hung a left. I meandered down the road for about 1/2 a mile to find a few vehicles parked on the road and four people standing in the ditch talking, one with a clipboard and one with a very professional video recorder. I (like I do) immediately entered a realm of extreme anxiety and began overthinking everything. Should I be here? Is this disrespectful? Am I disturbing their interview? Should I roll past them and then turn around? Should I stop now and park the bike and walk up to the main drive way??? Weeeelllll…..

So, I decided to roll past them slowly as it seemed like they weren’t actually doing the interview or recording anything right then. I edged to the right side and began turning the bike around to the left. Admittedly I was extremely distracted by them though and didn’t make the full turn. I stopped and backed the bike up for a few feet, then completed the turn. However I found myself right at the edge of the right side of the road, facing the other direction and as soon as I noticed the the pavement had a very extreme 4 inch drop off, my right foot noticed it wasn’t touching anything either… Only thought now…? Dude, you are a dipshit. Then the bike and myself went down to the right. I went rolling down the ditch and my beautiful r1150gs landed on it’s crash bars. I cursed myself a number of times and pulled my helmet off just in time to look back and see that the gas cap door had managed to come open and was dumping fuel all over the handle bars and subsequently my iPhone that was attached to them. Needless to say I was bummed, frazzled and had difficulty in picking up my top heavy motorcycle that was on it’s side and leaning downhill into a ditch. The two older (ex?) FBI agents that were being interviewed by the British journalism crew came over and helped me pick it up. I have never been so embarrassed before in my life (probably not anywhere remotely near the truth, but it sure felt like it for a moment.) I learned very quickly that the crew was from London. I would have loved to strike up a conversation about my love for England and the time I had spent there, but this wasn’t the opportune moment… I just now learned via wikipedia that there were 33 British Nationals in the compound as members when the siege happened in February of 1993 and that 24 of them had died. Just trying to tie together why Brits would care about this situation some 23 years later.

After the commotion died down, I took out an allen wrench and tightened up my mirrors that had been jarred loose and were crooked, put my helmet back on, unzipped my jacket a bit to get added airflow over my soaked with sweat torso, climbed back on my silver stead and headed out without any pictures. I made my way to my hotel in Austin, where I am laying in bed writing this from. I have to admit it was nice riding the rest of the way without gps. It’s nice to remind myself that I know where I’m going sometimes and I don’t need to have a screen in my face to get there. I saw my buddies from highschool, two wonderful dudes who I get to see about once a year when I make the trek to Austin. Something I never mind doing as I do love this city.

I am not going to over think this next statement, nor am I going to beat myself up for it. I did have some beers with my friends, I pretty much knew I was going to coming in. I knew that I didn’t want to have any conversations about why I was quitting drinking. I am proud of myself though, I didn’t over do it, I came back to my hotel early. I didn’t let myself get intoxicated. I did enjoy their company WAY more than I did the alcohol. Who knows, maybe I got this thing in the bag. Who knows, maybe I shouldn’t put too much thought into any of it. Willie is singing to me about Good Hearted Women… I’m done writing for tonight. Goodnight Austin.