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Sunday, January 02, 2011

On Bus Trips and Barbecue and Buffalo

Jean Sexton writes:

As many of you know, I am in Amarillo on what has become an annual winter pilgrimage. As is the norm, I ride the bus out and back, seeing much of the country and meeting new people. I spend a week of hard work on a project and then head back. Still the Steves and Leanna make sure that I enjoy my time here.

The big project this time was GURPS Federation and I think that before I walk out of the building today, SVC will have something he can hand to Steve Jackson. Some of my global changes made the text's appearance less than our professional best, so I want to clean that up before I leave. It was a complex process, but the end result is something we will be proud to release.

However, books are not written on empty stomachs and Leanna and SVC have been hard at work to make sure that I sampled the barbecue out here. I think I've sampled nearly a restaurant a day! I think my favorite may be a little place called Robinson's where the Steves took me one evening. Still, I enjoyed the variety of tastes and textures in each place.

Since I will be living here someday, they also wanted me to see the countryside. The very first day SVC drove me by a place that had a mother buffalo with her baby. Today I spotted a whole herd of buffalo! There were also hawks to be seen and tumbleweeds. I got to see real working oil wells and a wind farm. It is the land, however, that has gotten inside my blood. The wide open space, the sharp edges of the canyons, the short trees that aren't peach trees but rather mesquite, the grass moving in the wind all seem to draw me in.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be getting on the bus back East and leaving Texas. I'll miss the Steves and Leanna dreadfully, for it feels like this is already my home. When I am back in Red Springs, I will again dream of winter and my future pilgrimage to Amarillo.