At This Moment...

Found in an abandoned journal…

I. Hate. Texas. More specifically, I hate the town of Pecos, Reeves County, west Texas. Every day the dry wind whips off the Chihuahuan Desert and through town. The only discernable feature in the landscape is the mighty Pecos River, a glorified creek that winds through the red dirt hills. Oh, the hills! They stretch out into the flat horizon in every direction, giving the land a kind of suffocating infinity. The big gray sky presses down imperially from above.

I have to get out.

Ever since I was little, I knew I had to get out of Pecos. So I saved up my money, waited until I could buy an old junker from the used car lot—and made a plan. And today is the day, my friends. At long, painful last, I am headed Out! The open plains, the snowcapped Rockies, and the deepest gorges are beckoning to me.

As I abandon the torpid pace in Pecos to search for my own manifest destiny, I leave you with this, dear reader:

““It should not be denied that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led West.” 
― Wallace Stegner