April 8, Tuesday, Trade-offs

I spent a cool, quiet night among the working people. The pickups started rolling in around 7 last night. This morning they were all in bed when I decided enough of rolling through the desert in 90 degrees. I pulled up stakes and headed out into the total darkness (I’m on Central Time now) behind the first pickup. It was 6 a.m. I had the freeway all to myself. Within the first 30 minutes I had the hell scared out of me: three deer grazing just off the shoulder in the black of night. When I drove up from Big Bend yesterday, I saw a dead deer beside the highway at least every five miles. At 60 mph it would make a mess of Snee-Oosh and me. Soon after first light the terrain drastically changed and so did the weather. I entered under a cloud cover – the first in five weeks. I started to see low trees and slopping hills. I had entered the famous “Hill Country” of Texas. It was beautiful. The temperature was reasonable finally but the humidity took over foiling the comfort level. It was up there – way up there.
At noon I stopped at a city/county park that Rick and Alix had recommended. It was spot-on. Kerrville-Schreiner 508 miles in on I-10 from the western border. (I looked at the road atlas and the last exit in Texas was 873. I-10 goes basically straight across from west to east). I got a site in the park with hookups for $18 and relaxed. I opened all the windows and slept. But it was hot and sticky; slowly the light bulb in my poor head started to glow. After three hours of suffering, I plugged in the shore power and turned on the air conditioning. What a difference. Outside of my car I’ve never used A/C. There’s been a male toughness thing about it. Wanna be a tough sweaty dude or a cool comfortable wimp? Five minutes with the A/C on told me which side I was going to come down on.