We woke up at a HoJo's a couple hundred miles closer to Texas. Gray skies, and a whole lotta fuggit. I tried to repair a damaged morning by pulling over to gawk at some five-pound gummy bears. We got some late-morning candy and tried to wait calmly for conditions to improve.
Westward. Texas next. We entered the battered dusty roads and asserted our right to drive amongst trucks. A big road gave way to a smaller one, and toward evening we had that road mostly to ourselves. The situation was improved, and soon it got many times better.
I've been typing back and forth to George ever since I moved to Key West in a box truck. I don't know how he found out I exist, but my self-published log of activities garnered his notice. He's been kind enough to wave his hand and confirm that similar minds exist. Over the last years he has checked in on occasion. I'm always happy to get word - our lives are following a similar path, and I am lucky to share thoughts with someone who has a knack for validating my existence and putting my heart in a calmer state of ease. George is one of the good people who confirmed to me that people are great. Even as I gain cynicism with age, I am relieved to share the Earth with him. He is one of my people. I'm glad I looked, and most gladdest we finally had occasion to meet.
Big hugs! Okay, a somewhat tentative greeting squeeze. The first order is to reconcile the human with the paragraphs you've shared. Pretty quickly, I saw that he was who he said he was, and I was happy to get the opportunity to solidify our knowledge of one another.
George built a tiny house. He built a sauna. He built other structures, and a satellite dish is used as a roof on more than half of them. I forgot to mention that he is a genius.
We were invited to sauna with some Austin weirdos. I've never been in a room so hot. A dim strip of LEDs greet you as you enter through a round door into a cylinder that will cook you. Pallet wood feeds a stove with a pipe glowing red hot. When you can't take any more, you fall back out the door and rinse off under the outdoor shower. You start again. And repeat.
Me and Kristin sauna'd with folks and I felt cleaner than if I'd been gone over with a pressure washer. Egad, I need a sauna like that.
Me and my girls slept in George's truck. I could talk about this truck forever, but instead I'll just say it had a bed. And also everything else you might ever need. He's lived in it for more than ten years... (!?!) Well, now he owns a house in Austin that he rents out, and has a tiny house in the backyard that he built, and lives in, and the truck has a docking port to connect to the house as an extension, and you can move seamlessly between the two, and holy cow is it awesome.
What does this guy find interesting about me? Everything I aspire to, he's already accomplished with aplomb. Maybe I'm like the bumbly younger brother and he's just hoping for the best. I slept great in the truck I've known about for years. I got a comfortable sleep in a step van, connected to a tiny house, next door to a sauna, sharing a yard with other eclectic and artistic structures built by a guy who lives simply and only works at will.
Not shabby at all. I have some work to do.
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