Pages

06 October 2008

Falling in love slowly.

I've been doing a lot of driving for work lately. I have a love/hate relationship with all of this driving. On the one hand, I sometimes drive 4 hours one way to give a 1 hour presentation. Ugh. On the other hand, I'm getting to see every corner of the state and I'm actually starting to fall in love with it a little bit. The first 3 years I lived here, I only liked it when I was driving OUT of town because the cities and 'burbs are ugly. Seriously. Ugly. Barren, dusty, not green. The 'burbs are painfully homogenized. I'm not a fan. But if you leave either of the metropoli, the vast majority of the state is farm-land and desert. And there are some really really beautiful places. There are even places where it snows and where the leaves change. And even the places where there are no leaves or snow are still beautiful. I'm still very partial to the tropical paradise that is my true home, but this place is beautiful in its own way. So... I never thought I'd say it, but I kinda like it here.

I went out to the Superstition Museum with Big Mama and the kids a couple of weeks ago and took a bunch of photos. I love that the little cowboys wore their boots. Boodji dressed himself that day and was wearing his little brother's pants which are too short for him, but he insisted they were fine... until we got out in public and he was embarrassed. Poor little guy. I told him to tuck them in his boots and no one would notice. The museum is an old ranch that used to be a movie set. A lot of old westerns were filmed out there. The chapel in the background is the Elvis Presley Memorial Chapel. He filmed the movie, "Charro!" there. It's a pretty place.









6 comments:

Em said...

So cool! I love those pictures. Good thing you have your Yaris since you're traveling so much. Phew!

Kirsten said...

i bet you get to listen to some really awesome stuff on tape??? that is a HECK of a lot of DRIVing!! I hope you get paid for it.

Leah said...

I basically listen to NPR all day. I was thinking yesterday though that I really need to get some audio books since I don't have time to read otherwise. I DO get paid for it. I get reimbursed for every mile I drive while on the clock... in addition to my salary. Last month they cut me a mileage reimbursement check for very near $400.

Unknown said...

I totally agree that sometimes it takes time to see the beauty.

Nama said...

i love that last picture of the weathervane against the clear, blue sky. awesome!

i didn't think houston would be that beautiful of a place at all, but everything's so green and HUGE trees are everywhere. i've (kind of) started to fall in love with houston, or at least the area where we live.

Em said...

If you go to www.librivox.org you can download audiobooks from the public domain for free. I listen to books all the time now.

Post a Comment