I left Austin today. I went to Buc-ee's. It's a gas station that's also a destination people take trips to. They're never in big cities, always in the middle of nowhere.

Lots of gas pumps.

Cheap gas.

They sell shirts.

And more.

I was planning on sleeping in my car at a truck stop or something, but it was so hot out (~90 F) that I tried to find a room at a hotel.

The first motel I checked out was operated by a fat guy wearing big silver rings on each one of his ten fingers, and the lobby was full of cigarette smoke. They were out of rooms.

As it happens, every hotel in Temple is out of rooms. I sit at a truck stop, and I am going to try to sleep in my car tonight. Wish me luck.

P.S. I talked to a retired truck driver named Howard at the Subway at Love's. He told me about how mechanical devices used to be designed: all pencil and paper. You need a part, you look it up in an enormous book, call the manufacturer, get the drawing, trace the drawing into your drawing, then see if it works.

I asked him what he did in his retirement, he said he spent a lot of time browsing the internet and reading about politics.

He was a nice guy, but he had a subtly different vocabulary than I. The Civil War was the War of Northern Aggression. 2024 was going to be Trump's third win rather than his second. The State was the Deep State.

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