In 2001 my trip lasted for a week and a half and was dubbed the Austin-to-Austin Adventure because I started in my new hometown of Austin TX, heading for a dried lake-bed (playa) in the vicinity of Austin NV. There I was to camp out with some San Francisco friends for a few days, meet up with my friend Sandi and drive back to Austin with her.

Yeah. So I made it there and back; here's my travelogue, interspersed with some photos I took and excerpts from my travel journal.

PROLOGUE. The folks I was meeting in Austin NV are (like me) graduates of the Burning Man festival. We crave a degree of freedom, spontaneity, and privacy that the festival has become too big to permit in recent years; we get together once a year in the new moon of July and make our own mini-Black Rock City. In our crowd's diaspora of the last few years, more than a few of us have scattered from SF to other places around the country, and I wasn't the only long-distance traveler to blow into camp this year - but I'm almost certain I was the one to come the farthest by road.

I made the trip in a rented midsize SUV, a Mitsubishi Montero Sport. I'd originally reserved a midsize sedan, which, since I don't pack light, prompted a few worries about adequate cargo space (especially for the return trip with Sandi and her gear). However, when I got to the rental agency desk at Bergstrom Airport, the nice Jamaican woman behind the counter offered me the SUV at the same rate as the sedan.

Like that was a decision I had to think about twice.

No sir. I traded in the sunroof and better gas mileage of a sedan for the increased storage space, high clearance and 4WD of the SUV in a second. (That, and I'd never driven an SUV before - woohoo!) The Montero had 29K on the odometer and pulled to the left a bit, but had an ear-pounding stereo with a CD player. Gimme tunes and I don't care about much else.

So after I picked up the truck I spent the rest of the night twitching with the desire to get out on the road. I would have left at midnight in my eagerness if it hadn't been for an un-rescheduleable appointment the next morning. As it was, I had the truck loaded with all the necessary gear - tent, wing shelter, rugs, camp chairs, boxes of more food than I'd ever eat, packed-to-the-rim cooler, costumes, blankets, backup tent, pistol and ammo for target shooting, 60+ CDs (including 2 mixes I'd made just for this trip), glowsticks, water jugs... when I was done, I was surprised to find I could still see out the back of the truck - by 10 that night. I didn't sleep much. You know how it is - when you gotta go, you gotta go.

TUESDAY, JULY 17. Up and out the door in record time, done with my appointment and on the road by 9:15. Headed west on 290 towards Fredericksburg, then north on 87 through Brady and San Angelo. After a quick stop to pick up some Hill Country peaches outside F-burg - the peach-guy assured me that the rock-hard fruit would ripen in 1-3 days, which meant they should be at their juiciest just as I arrived on the playa - I just kept rolling, ticking off the miles that would get me out of Texas. I was tempted by more than a few of the local bbq joints on the way - by the time I reached Brady I knew I wasn't in tourist country any longer from the swarms of genuine good-ol'-cowboys I saw heading for lunch towards the funky-looking Q joints that lined the streets - but held out for a place that proudly advertised itself as the "best cheeseburger in San Angelo." Maybe it was; if I'd taken more than 15 seconds to wolf it down I might have actually tasted it.

After feeding myself, I started fretting about feeding the car, i.e. what sort of gas mileage I was getting from the Montero's 6-cylinder. Eventually I figured out that 20 mpg was about average for the highway and started concentrating on just getting as far down the road as I could in one day.

Fuck. Texas is big! And hot. Very hot. Around 5 in the afternoon I finally turned west again and crossed into New Mexico at Bronco, gaining an hour. The outside-temp thermometer on the Montero's rearview read 103.

Crossing into NM did nothing to dispel the heat. For the next few hours I was flanked on both sides by far-off thunderstorms; I could see the lightning streaking down towards earth miles away, but my own constantly-receding patch of sky remained clear the rest of the day.

Just east of Roswell I turned off the highway for Bottomless Lakes State Park, hoping to wash away the day's travel-sweat with a swim (I'd driven with the air conditioning off to conserve gas), but the only thing that was bottomless there was the stinky impassable mud surrounding the lake's edge. Ewwww. None the cleaner, I passed through Roswell - making sure to snap a picture of the Furr's on the south side of town where Angela and I had digested (only barely) the Worst Thanksgiving Dinner Ever the year before - and headed down the Hondo Valley towards Riudoso.

What I remember about the Hondo Valley: the quietness, the evening deepening-dusk smell of sage and the thunderclouds that hung ominously to the north and south. Many times the sun broke through the clouds in shafts, the beatific "Hand of God," and I felt blessed by such beauty for company on the road.

It's been 5 years since I was last in Riudoso and it's become a total tourist-town - but not so developed that you can't almost wreck your SUV swerving to avoid a sizable deer on the main street at near-dark. Progress? Those herbivores are just waiting out there in herds for us to fuck up so they can have their land back. In places like Riudoso, it feels like that won't be too long at all.

I was so travel-weary that I took at least 3 wrong turns and had to stop at the police station to ask for directions before finding the road leading to a National Forest Service campground I knew from years before. I pulled into the Skyline Campground well after dark, 700 miles and 13 hours from Austin, travel-jittery and in no mood to appreciate the 9000-ft. altitude nor the spectacular views it afforded. Enough is enough. I pitched the tent, made a modest fire, and stared into it until the road-buzzing in my head subsided enough to let me sleep.

Or try, at least. I never sleep well my first night camping out, and that combined with the altitude (which meant having to get up and pee every 27.5 minutes or so) and the downhill slant of my tentsite made for a pretty disturbed rest. It was a lovely night out, though, still and quiet, and I had the entire campground to myself. No complaints 'bout that.