Don't Mess with Texas
When I was in Tucson I stopped at AAA. AAA Northeast in Rhode Island had prepared a trip tic which worked beautifully on my travel to Arizona. Tucson’s AAA was not at all as useable. There, I stood at a counter while the expert typed into google maps. As a result the final product was a list of cities in which I would connect with the next interstate highway. So I would start out on I-10 pick up I-20 in west Texas, change to I-30 in Dallas, then to I-40 in Little Rock etc.
Faith, Jim’s navigator and geographer, provided much more than the AAA clerk. She reminded me how “Next Exit” identifies the facilities at each interstate exit and taught me much more on how to use it. We set a goal of reaching Odessa on the first night and making it to Texarkana the second night. If I were to make those goals I would have been in the state of Texas during only two days. On the third night I could decide if the weather and travel conditions would allow a stop in Ohio.
I pulled into the first Rest Area on I-20 and called two RV parks in Odessa. Neither answered. That meant working back toward where I was and I did get an RV park in Pecos. Pecos seemed like an oil town.
Men wearing hard hats congregated in front of the domed building.
Before dawn there were many workers driving out of and around the park in pickups. I topped up the diesel tank at the entrance to the interstate. Around 2 o’clock I explored the Good Sam RV park application. My choices were between a site the was about an hour away west of Dallas or a couple hours away I could be on the east side of Dallas. I chose to go further. Up until this point driving through Texas cities had been easy. My luck ran out. Amongst beautiful sky scrapers we were in bumper to bumper traffic. In the morning I would be driving in Texas during my third day.
My start the next morning was later than usual. The clouds were high. It was blustery but the predicted rain had not begun. The sky was bright without sunshine. In less than an hour flashing blue lights struck my mirror followed by a “blurp, blurp” of a siren. Then the blinking official dropped behind me. My right turn signal on I drifted to the edge and waited for the officer.
When he came to the door I leaned over to open it.
“How are you doin’ today?”
“Doing fine, sir.”
He stepped up on the bottom step and I stepped back. He quickly stepped one foot back. Then, “Oh. Is that a stuffed dog?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can I see your driver’s license?”
I slipped it out of my bottom pocket and handed it to him.
“The reason I stopped you is that you were wavering across the line on the right edge. Maybe you are nervous of the passing cars.”
“I don’t recall crossing the line at all. I do tend to favor the right though.”
“Can I see your insurance card?” It was handy in the cabinet below the console. “The registration?” He looked at both then handed them back. He slipped my license under the clip of his clip board and said, “Come out.”
When I came out down the two steps he was already around back of the RV. When I got back there he said, “In. Sit down.”
He asked where I was coming from. I related that I had left Rhode Island January 2nd went down through DC to Georgia and then to Florida. After that I visited Florida before going to visit my sister in Arizona.
Did I have any outstanding warrants?
Our conversation was intermittent with him reading my license number to a dispatcher or some woman in an office. Eventually she called back that, “Your suspect is all clear.”
“The last time I pulled one of these over it had 900 pounds of marijuana.”
I uttered a high pitched “hulnhn!”
“Yeah they ship it from out California and Arizona up north and east”
“Yes. I saw that on the news there.”
“Did anyone there talk you into smoking a little weed?”
“Aww my sister is almost as straight as I am.”
“Didn’t do any heroin?”
“No sir.”
“Cocain?”
“No sir.”
“Meth?”
“No sir.”
“Is it alright with you if I search that?”
“Absolutely.”
“You look young for your age.”
“I run three miles a day when I am not traveling like this.”
“My Dad is like that he is always busy.”
“Were you in track?”
“No. Where I went to high school there were only 65 students. We didn’t have enough for a track team.”
“In my elementary school there were only eight in my class. Then I was kind of a big kid so they convinced us to move up to Sulphur Springs to play football. Turns out I was pretty good. So I played for Texas Tech.”
“You guys were our rivals way back we used to play before Arizona was in the pac 10.”
He wondered if I was an Arizona Cardinals fan. He played with the new coach there when he was at Tech. He knew two coaches with the Cardinals. But he is a Dahome fan and likes KC better than Dallas.
“I believe you. Just sign here and you’re on your way.”
Texas is the lone star state. The state motto is, Friendship.
All along the way I read signs stating:
“Don't Mess with Texas”