Everything's Bigger in Texas

I left Madison with Mat around 2pm on Friday, bound for Hubertus, WI, where Natalie grew up and we were set to launch our trip. We meant to hit the road that evening, skirting the hellish Chicago traffic under the cover of night, but discovered as we finished eating that the van's raditor fans weren't working. A local mechanic was consulted and the verdict came around 9:30 -- a faulty Radiator Fan Relay. The Relay, as we learned, sits between the radiator fan motors (which were working) and the thermometer on the radiator (also working), and decides whether to actually turn the fans on. "It's a nothing part, until you ain't got one, and then it appears to be everything."

We made a mad dash into Milwaukee to pick up a replacement from a Dodge dealer that closed at 10, but couldn't get it installed until the next morning. We decided later that it would have been more fun to just hotwire the fans to run all the time, but Natalie's parents insisted on a more civilized repair. At any rate, we were on the road by 11 and drove in shifts through the day and night, until 5 when I finally gave in to park and sleep at a gas station. Natalie was up with the sun, though, and we were moving again by 7. We hit Galveston, TX around 12:30, and the van hasn't given us any problems, although it still has an odd number of wheels; it remains to be seen how that will turn out.

Our adventures since arriving in Texas include swimming in the ocean, burning skin, watching the Houston-St Louis baseball game from a Texan beer bar, and camping in a national park just south of Austin. And, of course, plenty of driving and pictures. After swimming under the (very small) waterfall near our campground this morning, we drove into Austin and have spent the afternoon in a coffee shop, which is suitably away from the downtown tourist district, somewhere between the resisdential expanse and the university. The coffee shop's main attractions are Coca-Cola in glass bottles and free wireless, which we've taken our turns exploiting for good or ill.

We'll camp again tonight, and then it's off to Roswell, the Petrified Forest, the Grand Canyon, and Las Vegas. We'll hit Los Angeles (or some other suitably large California city) by Sunday, where we'll lose a member; after that, to be announced. Stay tuned.