the garrison show

how often does texas get an ice storm?

so i’m heading west along I-10, an enomous interstate that runs across the entire country, when i see a notice that about 100 miles of it are shut down, starting in boerne. so i’m on the phone to adam and puzzling over my AAA maps trying to figure out a way around this. i end up having to backtrack east a ways, shoot up north 40 miles or so, and then go west on route 190.

190 is not a road that’s seeing a lot of traffic. i end up on it for 60 or 70 miles and probably see a dozen cars, total. never mind the fact that i’m driving through a blizzard, this is some rural land. there’s a house every 3 miles and not much more to be seen. i figured out that if you want to live somewhere, do whatever the fuck you want and have no one bother you, texas is the spot.

i can’t drive too long without having disturbing visions of what’s going on at some of these houses. bestiality is probably the nicest thing i’m imagining. i’ll spare you the gory details and simply let you know, and i swear i’m not making this up, that i drove by a scantily-clad man dancing to a bonfire in an oil barrel in the backyard of his house. ridiculous. i couldn’t actually see the sacrifical virgin covered in pigs blood, but i’m sure she was there.

only slightly less bizarre was the town of Iraan. after some internet research (a fancy term that means ‘google’), i found out the name is actually a “clever” combination of the names Ira and Ann, the founders of the town. with a population of around 1000, it’s not setting any records for anything other than creepiness. it felt like the whole “town” was just some fake front for a secret military installation. you might say my imagination was working overtime, but i say screw you. there were weird lights, tanks, everything just looked official somehow. maybe the aforementioned blizzard i was driving through had some impact, as well. or maybe i was starting to hallucinate.

in any case, overall, it was a harrowing and hair-raising drive, and i only made it as far as fort stockton. i’d wanted to get all the way to phoenix, but with I-10 closed, that was never going to happen. for $40 i got a bed at the executive inn and hoped for faster travels the next day.