magic club president.

I drove 900 miles yesterday, by myself, across three states. Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. It was the best drive I’ve ever had in my life, and I don’t even like driving that much anymore. This picture is of one of the wind energy farms in Texas, south of Abilene. These giants stretch on for miles in an impressive display of modern engineering and clean energy, and, to a degree, they make for an eerie dystopian landscape right around sunrise. I left my house in Austin at 4AM and was the only car in my lane of traffic for the first five hours of my drive. I’m doing all my long drives before dawn from now on. This picture is about ten miles before I figured out that one of the fuses in my car was blown out, specifically the one that powers the outlets I needed to charge my phone. Fixing that on my own was a good learning experience. I also had to buy the replacement fuses from a Wal-Mart, which was the only thing open at that hour. As much as I dislike them, I am thankful for the convenience in a pinch. 

The country road I was driving on was too small to warrant a “Welcome to New Mexico” sign, but it wasn’t hard to figure out when I crossed the state line. Texas and New Mexico, for all their similarities, each have their own identities on the highway. I was surprised at how green New Mexico was - I always assumed it was the kind of desert with barren sand dunes and tumbleweeds. I didn’t stop to take pictures, but Highway 39 between Ute Lake and Chicosa Lake State Parks was my favorite stretch of the drive. At one plateau, the drive up is subtle enough that the first twist in the road opens up to a surprise veranda of America, the beautiful. It’s the version of America I always read about in history class or books about the west in the mid to late 1800s, well preserved save for what probably used to be abundant mammalian wildlife roaming the plains. For all of our shitty schools and guns and death and destruction, this is a beautiful country.