2004 Trip to Texas

Friday, March 26th, 2004: Woke up around 6:30am and couldn’t fall back asleep. So I went ahead and loaded up my car and took off. I somehow managed to get slightly lost as I passed through Saint Louis. Then there was a thunderstorm that pretty much stopped all the traffic on the interstate. But I finally got out of Saint Louis at 10am. I drove all day without stopping except for gas. I brought my laptop full of mp3s to play as I drove, so the driving part went by really fast. I got into Galveston at about 1:00am. I immediately went for a long walk on the beach, then came back to my car at 2am and went to sleep in the front seat.

Back in 1991, the cops wouldn’t allow people to park their car on Seawall Blvd. (right on the beach) and sleep all night. But when I got there, I noticed RV’s parking all along the beach and setting up for the night. I saw a couple in a Bronco putting sleeping bags in the back to sleep for the night. So I didn’t get bothered by the cops which was nice.

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Saturday, March 27th, 2004: The sun shining into my car woke me up at 6am. I actually slept pretty good. Had some breakfast at the Waffle House, then spent my morning driving around the island and being impressed with how much things have changed in the past decade. Hung out in the lobby of the Holiday Inn for about an hour, writing emails. Then I drove around and found someone’s wireless connection so that I could hijack their signal and send the email. (This is the first time I’ve ever done that so I’m impressed with myself.) I tried calling my old friend in Galveston but she wasn’t home so I left and headed for Cal’s house. 5 hours later, I showed up at his door. We ended up going to a bar, playing lots of Foosball and getting home at about 1:30am.

Pictured above: 1- My laptop, playing mp3s while I drive. 2 – While walking on the beach, I took a few pictures as the water splashed up on me. 3- A sign pictured above a gas pump, warning customers not to use their cell phones while pumping gas. Because, you know, the radio waves from a cell phone will surely make a gas pump explode. Everyone knows this. I was daring and used my cellphone camera to take that picture. It came out pretty blurry, probably because of all the gas vapors interfering with the singal.

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Sunday, March 28th, 2004: Drove to Houston with Cal so he could meet some girl. Before we went, though, we stopped by a computer store and I bought a GPS for my laptop. I never realized how cool they were and it made the drive kind of fun, watching a little green dot make it’s way across Texas on my computer screen. I would have saved myself a lot of pointless driving in St. Louis the other day when I got lost if I’d had the GPS. I’m never taking another trip without this thing.

So we met this girl and Cal told me to get lost. So I drove his car to Galveston, which is about an hour away. I figure I can give my friend in Galveston a call and maybe end up having dinner with her. It’s all working out, right? Nope. As soon as my car crossed the bridge onto the island, Cal calls me and says to come and pick him up immediately. So I did. To make things worse, as I was leaving the island, my cell phone rang and it was my friend. Thanks, Cal.

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Friday, April 2nd, 2004: This morning me and Cal went to some wildlife reserve thing. The coolest thing we ended up seeing was a 15 foot crocodile. Cal threw rocks at it but no matter how hard he tried, it wouldn’t swim over and eat us. I ended up leaving today at about 3:30pm. I drove up to San Antonio and attended the 2600 meeting for a few hours. Then got back on the road and made it almost to Dallas before stopping in a rest stop for the night.

I neglected my journal pretty much all week while I was in Corpus. Our week consisted of going out to eat a lot, going to bars, clubs, foosball tournaments and driving around a lot. We ended up driving by my old place in Corpus Christi (that I lived at in 1995) so we got out and filmed my house for awhile until a resident came out and asked us what the hell we were doing. We told him we were looking for Brad Carter but the guy there didn’t seem to know him. Here are a few random pictures from the week:

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Saturday, April 3rd, 2004: Woke up today at 6:30am in the rest stop. I think I woulda slept a little later but the passing traffic kept waking me up. Ate a bunch of Nutter Butters for breakfast and drove all morning. I’m in aTaco Bell just outside of Little Rock, Arkansas right now, writing this on my laptop and getting lots of heavy stares from the other patrons & staff. Apparently they don’t have laptops in Arkansas. I’m hoping to make it into Illinois by 6pm. It’s noon right now…