WHITNEY, TEXAS | Saturday, April 10, 2010 - We two acolytes walked through the Kimbell Museum yesterday. Louis Kahn designed the building years ago. It still could be new. It could have been a thousand years old when they built it. Beautiful.
Will let photos talk about it. But on the grounds outside the museum, among the trees, the whole business about how a building meets the sky, and the Ft. Worth sky specifically in this case – this building connects – austere, quiet, ancient.
We ate cold chili and chips for lunch before heading in. We sat on the tailgate of Yellow Truck. We liked that. Adrienne had asked awhile back, maybe that morning in another city, another place, what I would wear into the Kimbell. It is that much of a mecca for some of us. That you would consider how you entered. In the end we didn’t dress up. But we were very proud of our style of arrival. Cologne of campfire. Odor of road. The scrappy architecturalists.
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Unassembled Notes: Forgot to mention the part two mornings ago now when we ran out of gas, coming into Alexandria, Louisiana. We didn’t know then yet, but with Yellow Truck freighted as he is with tools and the rest, the gas mileage has decreased slightly. So our range for a full tank is down to about 502 miles. That’s when Yellow Truck sputtered and quit, done, on a midweek morning in the downtown of Alexandria, a small place, not quite awake, we were idled in the middle lane of three. We had some gas in a can, luckily, about a half-gallon, so I poured that in, sitting there at a stop light. Only a couple cars passed. Didn’t take long to pour the fuel in. Yellow Truck fired right up. Will want to switch out the fuel filter soon. But anyway, found a gas station with diesel. Made a few calls from there, and once again, the two places in Fort Worth that had had it no longer did. Or didn’t pick up. One didn’t pick up. He’d had B100, the golden stuff. But we wouldn’t hear his tale of woe until later. So – straight diesel. From empty to full. No point even crying. Lucky after all. Off again and running.
Note No. 2: Now that the cat is out of the bag, that we’re running straight diesel, for this tank anyway: in the past two plus years I've bicycle commuted roughly 5,800 miles. At this point on the trip, Yellow Truck has logged a bit over 4,000 miles. So if, in karmaworld, I am allowed to trade each bicycled mile for a driven mile, we are going to need every one of them to get home to Seattle. On top of that is the immeasurable factor, not necessarily related to planet health, but still all this invaluable experience we're absorbing as we cruise along day after day at 62 mph must amount to some measurable redeemable. Having witnessed the four corners of this country, by mostly back roads, within a compressed moment in time, probably 40 days and 40 nights by the time we do it, or more, maybe 50 days and 50 nights - surely we can convert. We don’t know yet what the giant nut or nuts will be, but we’re closing in, very investigative. Very warm. Getting warmer. Something extra ordinary, no doubt.
Note No. 3: At the moment, it's about 8 am here, a pelican is floating by beyond the tent. He is so white and so giant he looks like a swan. Didn’t know there were pelicans so far inland and north.
Note No. 4: Earlier, when I woke up, out the tent window I could see a wren in a tree, flitting from branch to branch.
Epilogue: People finally stirring now, at the next site over. Got their campfire going. Grey smoke like a veil of anvil spreading into the morning. In pajamas, mushed hair, puffy faces, walking stiff-like, still zombied from sleep. Crack of twigs. Texas blue bells in a field.
We’re headed for Austin.
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