Watched the weather forecasts like a hawk and paid heed to all the storm warnings. I wanted to have a perfect launch on this trip with no rain and sunny skies.

After getting aggravated by all the wrong forecasts, there appeared to be a window this morning to make a dry escape.

Not 30 seconds after pulling away from my garage, a light rain began to fall. I sighed but pressed ahead letting the droplets fall away as I continued along the highway out of Austin.

A couple of hours in and a few more light showers, I think I got what the Great Spirit was telling me. "You can't control any of this and the best you can do is surrender to the flow."

My grip on the handle bars relaxed. As all the tension left my body giving in to the highway current, the clouds parted revealing that sacred blue. Come what may.

The winds are fairly dramatic on the plains of Northwest Texas around Abilene and all the way through Zephyr and Lubbock. There was a giant fire in the distance around Muleshoe. The smoke and dust burned my eyes, but nothing could shake me out of the flow.

Finally made it to the Oasis State Park near Portales, New Mexico... only to discover it's really nothing but a barren, lonely fishing pond in the middle of nowhere. Still, the peace I'm feeling right now as I lay aloft in my hammock in sync with twilight, has me grateful to be alive.