Texas Road Trip 2012: Thoughts

Flying from Austin to Denver yesterday on my way back from Texas, I could see the effects of the drought. While I was in Texas I was surprised at how green everything was (everything except the burn area of the 2011 forest fire near Bastrop). But by the time the plane began descending over southeastern Colorado, the effects of the drought could easily be seen in the number of dry streams and stock ponds. It looks pretty bad out there.

By the time the plane took off from Denver, the Giants-Cardinals game, game 5 of the NLCS, had begun. For the first time ever, I sprang for in-flight wi-fi so I could follow the progress, and was happy to see the Giants win the game to survive in the series.

I got home about 9:15 pm San Francisco time.

So my trip was somewhat successful. I was able to see some oil drilling, and the truck traffic associated with the recent fracking boom, with my own eyes. And I was able to experience the meadow, or pasture, in the nature preserve which in my novel is a ranch which a character has inherited. Actually both Texas bits, the ranch and the oil drilling, are part of a story within a story. But as I wrote earlier, I'm also thinking of setting another book in the same locale, so the trip did double duty for that.

Today I was back in my writing office, working on the novel.