Fourth of July and D Day

There is a fire ban in all of Texas right now, because a good portion of the Southwest is on fire, and so that means that in Austin, we had no fireworks display yesterday for the Fourth of July. A few people were pretty bummed about it but we didn’t let it get in the way of our celebration over at the house of a few friends, who are equally as charming and hilarious as they are good cooks. Oh, and they have a really nice pool. We paddled around and sipped watermelon juice and told stories and laughed until our bellies ached, which was about when it was time to eat, and eat we did: barbecued ribs; bratwurst basted in beer and topped with a homemade cole slaw; smoked trout wrapped in bacon and tarragon; arugula, feta, watermelon salad with a balsamic vinegar reduction; Texas caviar, doctored up to our Georgia liking; and a patriotic fruit pizza that has been a tradition in my family for almost as long as I can remember.

It was an excellent way to spend any afternoon, not just my country’s birthday— which happened to be the first for which I had actually been on American soil since 2005. But more than anything, it felt like the perfect way to spend the eve of my departure. At least, that’s what I thought yesterday. I woke up today intending to head out of town after breakfast, when I broke my blog with the irreversible click of a button. Trying to fix it set my whole morning behind several hours and when it started pushing lunchtime, I decided just to put the whole thing off another day. What’s 24 more hours, really?

In the meantime, while you wait for me to hit the road already, here are a few numbers to run through your head: since this trip began in Aug. 16, 2010, I have driven 11,711 miles, just over 9,000 of them in Roxanne and then another 1,700 in Marco, plus almost exactly 1,000 in borrowed vehicles— oh, wait! I forgot about the 300 miles from Edinburg to Austin in that rental car. Well, hell. That means I have officially done 12,000 miles of this trip, which is what the sticker that my brother-in-law designed for me said I would do.

But then if you’re also counting that I have flown 4,492 miles, then I have gone quite a bit over that original mileage prediction. I asked my sister if I should be counting air miles, too, and she said, “It’s your trip. You can do whatever you want.”

And I guess she’s right.