Texas Canyon Rest Area

I make it to this special place before the sun rises and I'm grateful to be through the California desert that never cooled off last night.

A few angry white men truckers (both the 18 wheelers and the pickups) blast horns, flip me off or drive their rigs over the line to my side of the road during the night but here at the rest stop, only very positive people react to my messages.

One very tall, beautiful dimpled man whose smooth skin glistens like oiled walnut and who later tells me he is 1/4th Japanese rushes over intercepting me as I return to my truck from a brief jog around the area. Even though the immense sky has filled with masses of clouds, some promising rain, it is still too hot to stand in the sun for long or exercise.

Sora - which means sky in Japanese - is a struggling photographer on his way to a photo-shoot for friends getting married. Of course, he wants to take pics of my truck and post them on social media.

We of course talk about Cuba and the significant value of both musicians and artists in that country compared to here.

And we talk about gentrification and the recent fires set to small homes in Oakland in the neighborhood where developers want to tear down old homes and build new expensive high rises.

A couple Native men stand on the hill looking down towards us and sing an enchanting song that silences us and fills us with even more beauty.

I'm so filled and strengthened, ready to go forward into fuckin Texas...