Pre-Gaming

Every time I find myself in this position, it feels a little bit electric and a little draining. I’ve spent a lot of time planning and preparing for this, and the effort of it is draining in and of itself. At the same time, the excitement of getting out on the road and seeing new places makes me exhilarated.

I also know that I need to make a few changes in the standard format, specifically the numbering system, to make allowance for the fact that I’m about to go over the originally intended two hundred fifty-four counties. So I’ve decided to continue with the upward count of counties (I actually have 259 counties, but haven’t been to the county seats outside of Texas) with the addition of a state specific count tag. If I was using this system before, Austin would have been TX002, El Paso TX050, and Huntsville TX200. You get the idea.

I’m also going to, at least for this trip and further trips into certain areas, try to complain less about the continuously pervasive presence of the Confederacy and its iconography. Oh, I’m still going to document it and finger wag on occasion, but I realize that if I get upset about it every time I see it, my head will probably begin the primary stages of fission. Where I am going, I know I will see it quite a bit more than I’m used to, and if I bring it up every time I do, well, I’d probably like to talk about something other than that in some of these entries. And, of course, I’m promise you that I will be taking all appropriate cautions with masks, wipes, hand sanitizer, and distancing. I will spend most of my time in a bubble, away from other people. My health is important. Just because things have freed up enough for me to do this doesn’t mean that I’m going crazy in respect to the time of cholera. And it’s a good thing I have my trusty trackable because some things never change. There’s a 50% chance of rain in a place that’s 95% humidity…

My point here (and I do have one) is that the Big Show is about to be back on and, barring weirdness or severe calamity, Monday will open up with me talking about…