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Nomad Chronicles, Chapter Four - A Passage of Fire

 It was in the early morning, whilst I slept, my last morning in O'Fallon, Illinois. It wasn't as hot as my first morning there, and I was more comfortable than I had been in previous days. While at this house I went through the side effects of the Corona Vaccine and had some pretty nasty back pain from oversleeping. My Air BnB in Fayetteville, Arkansas a little over a week before I was set to leave and now I would be driving through Missouri, Oklahoma, and across the length of Texas in two days. I was a little peeved when I awoke that day.

 My soon to be previous hostess, who was a sweet old Austrian lady had met me at the door to bid me farewell after my alarm failed to go off. My plan was to leave as early as possible, roughly around six in the morning. I ended up leaving around eight. She and I spoke for a little about some of the difficulties of hosting an Air BnB and what my plans were moving forward. Having had my Fayetteville booking cancelled last minute really ruined things for me in the short-term.
 It felt as surreal getting on Highway Fifty to leave O'Fallon as it did to get on Interstate Ninety-Five to leave Florida. These places are becoming home for me sooner than they should, at least in my opinion. I don't think that it's a sign to settle, I don't want to think thoughts like that.
 It didn't take long to leave Illinois and the change was quite noticeable, it's not that the people were rude in Missouri, far from it, but there was something in the air that made me uncomfortable and eager to leave. It was hot in Missouri given that it was the middle of July, but not unbearably so. I should have taken this as a warning from mother nature that things were going to get ugly.
 Oklahoma finally came into the picture towards the end of the middle of the afternoon (why yes, I was speeding). I'd been to Oklahoma once before, but it was on the opposite end of the state, still, it didn't look that different, suburbs and rural country, stopping occasionally for gas. As I passed through Tulsa, I contemplated stopping and asking Drew and his wife if they were free or wanted to hang out, but I still had a good five hours of driving ahead of me, so I put it on hold. I did briefly get misdirected (lost) and had to drive around a farm to find my way back to the highway because I didn't listen to my GPS, but that was all Oklahoma had for me in July. 
 Finally I'd made it across the Texas boarder, I saw the typical green sign that said "Welcome to (insert state name). I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a little disappointed, being that it was Texas, I fully expected it to read (in capital letters) "WELCOME TO THE GREAT EMPIRE/REPUBLIC/STATE OF ALL-MIGHTY TEXAS!" and then in subtitles to say "home of the Dallas cowboys."
 I stopped for gas and continued to listen to my GPS, I very quickly found myself in the nicer side of Dallas in a gated community, which was a pleasant surprise for twenty dollars a night. The messages were brief enough on Air BnB to give me the creeps regarding the owner. Once I pulled up it didn't get any better, they told me to pull in behind the house in a hidden driveway, at which time I felt like an idiot in a horror movie. You know the guy, dumb, fat, and not really expecting a serial killer. That was me, or at least it felt that way. I followed the instructions to the letter and received a call from the owner.
 Their command of the English language wasn't all that great, or wasn't as good as they'd like for it to be, and I completely understood how they felt. I'm used to hearing people butcher the grammar, but this explained the brief messages and I was now at ease. I used the code given to enter the house, set my things down and finally take a shower.
 By this time I had a million missed messages, because I was driving and my arm looked how the inside of a steak should look if it's grilled correctly because I have no air conditioning and I was hanging it out of the window for the whole drive.
 Once I had my shower, I very foolishly decided to call my father, as his was one of the messages. Even more foolishly, I put him on speaker, not knowing if I had roommates or not.
 I love my father, truly I do, he taught me many of lifes difficult lessons, things we usually learn the hard way in our twenties or late teens, he either told me with a story from his own life, or showed me via his bad habits. My father also has no filter and takes glee in offending people, which had led him to many fist fights at work during my early childhood.
 During this particular call he decided to share some kind of scathing opinion which included no shortage of profanity, which I'd been trying to cut down on in my own use. I asked him to stop as I didn't know whether or not I'd had roommates, and I had to make it clear that I was making an effort to contact him before my long drive in the morning, at that point he cooled down.
 The next morning I'd made the executive decision to buy sunblock with the highest SPF which I could find and had breakfast at a café nearby. 
 The drive from the café to THE OTHER SIDE OF TEXAS, was long and arduous to say the least. The sun showed no mercy and never went under eighty the whole way there. I left Dallas at half past seven and arrived in the new city at around seven in the evening. 
 Clearly the heat had started to get to me, I called my host to let him know that I had arrived, but I couldn't get over how hot Texas is, eventually he was a little tired of my "enthusiasm" and said "yes, Texas is hot."
 I know that I'm going to have to drive through the interior of Texas again, and I'm not excited to do so, but I am excited to get out of the Lonestar state. I do like the people, but this temperature is brutal.

 Also, I have a card game to break the ice with Air BnB roommates, sadly there is no ice in Texas, because it all melted.


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