I am still amazed at the size of grocery stores in the heartland. Back in the day, say the eighties, stores were cramped and dirty: one cart wide aisles, little selection, lousy greens and dingy floors. There are now bigger stores, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s have made beach heads with large stores. Still, the spaciousness of the floors with so much room around the displays is still a shock.
In coming posts I will write about the rest of our trip to California. See the gallery of images from Texas here.
When we find ourselves growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp and drizzly November of the soul; and when it requires a strong moral principle not to knock off people’s hats then—instead of signing up for a three year’s whaling voyage to the other side of the world—we headed out of town for a much more modest length of time and distance. This is our way of driving off the hypos after 18 months of being in the same few square blocks of the city of the Manhattos.
After so long in one place and so isolated from so many, it was hard to even plan to travel. We seemed to have forgotten how to travel, how to pack, plan. We finally overcame our hesitancy and left the city behind.
But we didn’t start out with great ambition, we were just going to see old friends and family in mostly familiar territory.
Except Texas.
My experience of Texas has mostly been trying to get from one side of the state to the other as fast as the law allowed. And the old Mac Davis song had been mostly true for me—“happiness is Texas in my rear view mirror.”
Growing up in Kansas I had enough of flat monotonous land that goes on forever with grain silos to mark the small towns along the railroads. But my childhood friend Louis and his husband, Sterling, who had performed the wedding of Rosy and myself, had moved to San Antonio the year before and had invited us to their new home.
We had a great time even in the hot days of summer. We went for walks and went sightseeing either in the mornings or later in the evenings. Of course the museums and indoor spaces are chilled to Alaska temperatures.
