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Whew! The problem with my car last night was indeed a broken alternator. After a sleep-deprived night, I called one of the local Vidor
repair shops, and asked if they could take an emergency repair job. The nice lady on the phone said they could but that it might take
until the afternoon to fix. I told her that I could wait as long as it took, and she said to bring it in. She gave me directions, and I told her
that I might not be able to make it, and if the car stopped I’d call so they could send a towtruck. Fortunately, I got the car started after
checking out of the hotel, and I limped down the service road as far as I could before getting back on the Interstate. The car had enough
power to start, but as I drove down the road, the needle started falling towards the redline. It was only a mile or so from where I got back
on the Interstate, but that was about the longest piece of highway I’ve been on. I took the exit she had told me to take, pulled up to the
light just as it turned green (yes!) and made my way into the parking lot of the garage. I got it parked just as it gave up the ghost. When I
went in, I told them they’d have to push it into the garage.

The guy in charge, who I figured was the owner, took my info and my cell phone number, and welcomed me to sit in the lobby while they
worked. Fortunately, the garage was next to a Burger King, so I told him I’d be there getting some breakfast. I hadn’t finished my C’rsandwich
when my cell phone rang. It was the garage guy, who told me it was definitely the alternator, and that they had one in stock, so it’d be fixed
by 11:00 AM. Greatly relieved, I hung up and leisurely finished my breakfast while reading one of my books (“Mortal Prey”, by John Sandford).
I walked back across the parking lot to the garage, exchanged some pleasantries with the other folks there, and promptly took a nap in one
of their comfy chairs (wasn’t planned, but they were so comfortable, and I was so sleep-deprived)

Once I put the $280 charge on my card for the repair, I got back on I-10 headed east. The trip was completely without incident, and I made
it all the way to Granada, Mississippi, where I’m writing this. And contrary to some comments, this is the first time I’ve had broadband Internet
access the whole trip! It’s so refreshing, being able to actually load web pages again, and download my email, and do all the other net things
a true geek needs broadband to do! Comfort Inn here provides free DSL to each room. Interestingly enough, I saw a couple of truck stops in
Texas that offered wireless Internet access, but I never stopped to try them out. Wireless Internet access at a truck stop. Who would have
thought?

Anyway, Granada MS is about 90 miles south of Memphis, and just for the heck of it, I’m going to stop by Graceland, if it’s easy to do. Then, on
to Nashville to visit my brother and his family!

Well, today has been a real up and down day. The day started up, went to tour the Alamo, spent the
morning there, had a small lunch while the local western wear store cleaned and blocked my felt
cowboy hat. Left in time to get to Houston right at rush hour, so I wandered into a mall for a couple
of hours, to eat supper and wait out the mess. Hit the road headed east to Beaumont, when my battery
light came on, and found that the battery was draining as I drove. I coaxed it, and thought once or twice
that it was recovering, but as I got a little ways past Beaumont, the power practically went dead. Almost
no headlights, other lights started coming on as the onboard computers stopped getting enough power.
Worst of all, I drove into a storm in this condition, and had almost no power to run the windshield wipers.
Finally, as the car was dying, I made it to a town called Vidor, near the Texas-Louisiana border, and
pulled into a little roadside hotel. Almost didn’t make it, but thankfully Texas has these service roads
that run parallel to the Interstate, and I could limp along with no worries about hitting or being hit, but
I had a moment of panic when I found that the hotel was on the other side of I-10, and there was no
bridge visible! I kept on the service road, finally seeing a sign showing a way to turn and go under
the Interstate, so I could go back to the hotel. That’s where I am as I write this, and I am anxiously
waiting until morning, to contact a local garage to see if they can fix my car. I’m hoping it’s just the
battery, but if it’s something else, I may be here for a while.

Well, I wanted an adventure! Thank God I don’t have to spend the night in my car somewhere along
the Interstate. At least I have cable TV and Internet access!

Ft. Worth, actually. I went to the DalWorthIngton metroplex to see my nephew and his fiance. Had a really nice time, I took them to an incredible
steak restaurant a friend recommended, “Pappas Brothers”, in Dallas. Hefty price tag, but man, was it worth it! The New York strip was fantastic,
and the desserts were indescribable! We split a Key Lime pie and some kind of chocolate mousse-based concoction. Woof! And to think I was
losing weight for a while!

We went to a church-group picnic down by one of the lakes Saturday, which was nice, but for some reason the National Weather Service decided
to turn the “summer” switch on, full! Went from 70s -80s in Denver, to over 100 each day in Ft. Worth! Fortunately there was a slight breeze near
the lake. Afterwards, we were going to see a movie that night, but “Finding Nemo” was sold out, and we were all worn out. So we went back to my
nephew’s place to watch videos and play with his and his fiance’s kittens. And soon everyone was fast asleep, except the kittens!

Sunday we went to the Ft. Worth Botanic Gardens, which was nice, so they could scout out where they wanted to have their wedding. Ft. Worth
has a nice cultural center, with the gardens, a nearby zoo, and some pretty good parks. Of the towns in the metroplex, I’d say Ft. Worth was the
nicest. Dallas is a bit more run-down, and the other towns are just names on a map, for all I could see. Decent enough, just nothing very distinctive.
Oh, and one thing made it worse. The drivers in the metroplex are among the worst I’ve found, much worse than St. Louis, and worse than DC! It’s
indescribable, the things that the “drivers” did. I guess it’s not too surprising, since I only saw a couple of state troopers the whole weekend, and
they might have only been looking for seatbelt scofflaws.

Monday, I left Dallas and headed to San Antonio, but not before stopping at Nerdvana, Geek Central. I’m talking about “Fry’s Electronics”. For
anyone not in the know, Fry’s has been famous for many years in the Silicon Valley area as a place to get anything electronic or even remotely
related to computers. It is to electronics what Wal-Mart is to everything else. I was stunned when I was driving through Irving TX and saw they had
just opened a branch in Texas. So, no matter what, I had to stop. I raided as much of their Anime DVD section as I could afford, and found a bunch
of add-ons for my cell phone. It was hard to do, but I left without buying one of everything they had, just on general principles!

The drive to San Antonio was uneventful, other than the huge supercell thunderstorms and random tornadoes that touched down in some towns
some distance from my route. “Out of sight, out of mind,” that’s my motto. If I can’t see it coming, it can’t hurt me! Once I got into town, I ran into
traffic as bad as rush-hour DC metro traffic. Stop-and-go for miles. And why not post a few more signs to tell you how to get to the [CENSORED]
Alamo? I drove around trying to find some sign to tell me which exit to take to go to the Alamo area, but until I stumbled across I-37, I never saw
anything saying “Alamo this way.” I guess everyone is just supposed to know which roads to take. I must have missed that class in school. At any
rate, I found it, and took some pictures of the outside, which was nice, the front was lit by the setting sun.

Most shocking thing: having lightning strike so close to the car that there was no delay between the flash and the boom.

Tomorrow: The inside of the Alamo, and then on to Houston and parts east!