I am in Fort Stockton, Texas right now, which is a tiny, tiny city. The nearest movie theater is 90 miles (!) away. We stopped here because we had a massive tire blow-out, and had to get a new tire, and so we ended up calling it a night about two hours driving time further west than we had planned. So, we'll have to get up earlier tomorrow and drive a bit harder than I had hoped, but we should still get into Austin in the early afternoon, so it will be okay.

Driving from LA to here has been interesting. I've heard people talk about the Midwest being boring and flat, but for God's sack, at least we have grass. We drove through one 60-mile stretch where I swear, we didn't see a rest stop, a gas station, other roads, houses, even exit ramps. Just rocks and dirt and icky scrubby bushes, as far as the eye can see, for hours. We have corn and cows. That's something.

So far, people in Texas are very nice. A man pulled over and spent 45 minutes with us in the 100 degree heat helping us change the blown-out tire and put the spare on. My mom checked us in to this brand new-hotel, and told our sob story to the desk clerk while she was setting us up, and the clerk gave us this ginormous, beautiful suite for less than we paid for the kind-of-crappy hotel we ended up staying at in Eastern California. (Go ahead and drive another hour or so into Palm Springs or Indio. Yes, you're tired, but don't call it quits in Beaumont. Trust me.)

The next few days will be busy, setting up in Austin and such, and then I have orientation and registration and all that good stuff, but I'm actually quite excited to actually be doing things. Yay!