Day 58 (Thurs., August 4)

I woke up at 5 a.m. and headed out the door for another day of football tour. This stuff is fun. I get paid to drive around west Texas and enjoy the scenery so that I can go shoot photos. It cannot get any better than this. During my early morning drive to Sonora, Texas, I was lucky to see the sunrise. It looked very nice and since I woke up early to be at the high school on time, I had a chance to stop and shoot some photos of the scenery. However, the drive to Sonora is pretty plain. There is just country on both sides of the high way. A few windmills like the one that's peeking through on the top photo. It was a beautiful drive, nonetheless.

High school football, high school football, high school football. What else can be said. Oh yeah: West Texas high school football. This is fun. I have yet to shoot a game and I wont this time around, but I am all hyped up for it. Well at least I get to catch a little bit of that drama.

Hanging out at Sonora was fun. It started to rain, so the drive was made nice. I love rain. I like it when it's enough that you don't have to hit the super high speed mode on your wipers. It also made for a good light to shoot under. Photography is a lot nicer when the weather is overcastted the way it was this morning. Well, to some extent. But I like it because there is no hard shadows on your mug shots. I guess it's all preference. I don't like the shadows. When there are clouds, you can get a nice standard exposure and some colors like red and green pop out. It's a beautiful thing.

Next stop was Junction, Texas, which is about 125 miles away from San Angelo. It was a nice day as I drove away from the rain and into the hot Texas heat. This was another pretty town. Lots to see as you can check out on te photo above. Ok, fine, that's an overview of the town. Want a better look at the town? Look at the next photo.

There! Don't say I don't give you different angles of the same thing. This town was very quiet and slow as I approached it. It's so relaxing. I drove by the South Llano River, which runs right on the side of town and it looked so peaceful as there was no one in sight. The photo below is of the river and the bridge in town.

Oh, again I gave you too broad of a photo. Well, then how about the next one?

A closer look at the bridge. Pretty sight.

Today I drove 244 miles during my football tour. Which puts me at 586 miles for the three days of football touring that I did this week. I drove a lot and saw a lot of new towns. I can see why people love living around here, it's so pretty. So peaceful. And, so cool. I just love driving places because you get to see and do new things all the time. As a matter of fact, I drove 1,600 miles in the last seven days. Wow, that's amazing. That's like going from San Angelo to Los Angeles through the long way on the 40 Hwy. That's a lot of miles and sounds painful, but it really isn't. I had fun.

Speaking of painful. Remember I told you I nearly broke my leg as I fell off that fence on Sunday night? Last night I soaked myself in the hot tub as I listened to some jazz and let the candle-lit setting relax me a little. The bath must have helped the swelling on my leg to come down. There was no pain on my leg today. I think I am finally OK. But since the swelling came down, the proof of how hard I hit myself came out.

If you look closely to my calf, you can see how purple it is. Imagine how it was a few days ago. Well, it was hard to see since my leg was so swollen. Well, at least I am no longer in pain. Now I got a patch of fading purple on my skin.

Some of you have shown your concern after reading what happened to me on Sunday. Thank you for your kind words. I am glad that you felt my pain. Sorry for putting you through it since I know a few of you were really scared when reading the entry. It really wasn't too bad, just a mild concussion. War wounds, if you will, for future generations. Haha.

Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, my San Angelo adoptive parents, thank you for caring so much about what happens to me. And thank you for hosting me to real Texas barbecue at your home tonight. As always, it was a pleasure. I sure will miss you when I am far away. But I will be back, as the governor of my home states once used to say.

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