Albert, TX

 “F*** Luckenbach!” exclaimed Steve. Like all the other tourists in the Texas Hill Country who love Willie and Waylon and the boys, I wanted to go to Luckenbach. Steve was quick to let me know he didn’t approve. “We hate Luckenbach,” he said, swigging his bottle of Lone Star. “Tourist trap’s all it is.” By “we” I suppose he meant Texans at large. He seemed to think he spoke for the masses. “Us Texans are assholes,” he told me earlier. 

Well, I don’t know about all of you, but… I thought.

Steve was an asshole, but I liked him. He was a veteran with a large belly that shook when he laughed. He had a big, red beard, and he acted like he ran the place. He was quite vocal about how mediocre he thought my music was. “She’s alright, I reckon,” he said loudly to his drinking partner, a local rancher in a high-dollar Stetson. “I mean, she said she can’t play no Skynyrd...”

I’d gotten a gig in this bar in the middle of the Hill Country in a community called Albert, Texas. The joint was small and Donna the bartender was blonde and sassy. It was heated by an old wood stove and glowing with neon, in the middle of a field that was dotted with oak trees. The ten people in the place were locals who had nowhere else to go, as in you’d have to drive a ways to go anywhere else. 

“Would it be ok if I car-camped in your parking lot this evening?” I asked Donna. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “And you’ll be safe. Nothing ever goes on around here.”

About an hour into the show the crowd had dwindled down to Steve, his Stetson-wearing drinking partner, Chip, and a younger, skinnier fellow in a hoodie named Jessie.

Then the quiet was interrupted as a middle-aged couple in matching, bedazzled his and hers jackets walked through the door, bursting with loud, showy laughter. They’d been drinking on the porch and it showed. “Well, I’ll be, look at her!!!” shouted the woman, pointing at me. “Play Jolene, honey!!!” Her man, Bob, joined in the hollering. “Get Wanda up there with you she can sing like a damn bird!” 

That’s how I ended up playing Jolene with Wanda singing in unison. Of all the drunk people who had ever joined me on stage, she wasn’t the worst. She even had dance moves. What’s more, breaking from the stream of original songs that permeated my set allowed me to rise above mediocrity in Steve’s book. “HEEELLL YEAAAH,” he hollered. 

Afterwards, I took a set break, but the entertainment went on as Bob and Wanda drew commotion out of nothing. There were enough hoots and hollers to go around. We learned that they were from Dallas, just visiting the country for the weekend. Bob was a car salesman. Wanda didn’t mention what she did, but she made a lot of jokes about being the only black person in the honky-tonk.

 Then they got into the nitty gritty. “Now lemme tell you what the problem is,” said Bob to Steve and his buddies. “It’s them illegals gettin’ in. Thank goodness we got that wall bein’ built.” The others responded in rowdy agreement. “And lemme tell you what,” chortled Wanda, “They wanna take our guns? They're gonna hafta go through me first.” She flapped open her leather jacket to reveal a 22 resting in an inner pocket. “Alright,” said Steve in approval. Donna stood behind the bar, her eyebrows raised, and scuttled out the back door. Jessie gave me a look, as if to let me know that I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t sure of what just happened.

Bob and Wanda went to take a smoke break when the cops showed up on the porch. “Oh, heeeell no,” wailed Steve, along with a few other choice words. Chip shook his head disapprovingly. Reading my mind, Jessie asked them, “What’s going on?”

“Somebody called the cops ‘cuz that Wanda woman flashed her gun. It ain’t legal in the bar to reveal firearms.” Chip seemed about as bummed as Steve. “Great.”

“What’s so bad about calling the cops?” I asked. Steve looked at me with wide eyes, as if I’d just asked him, “What was so bad about Obama?” 

Chip cut in. “Honey, around here, we like to turn blind-eyes, and if something needs to get dealt with, we do it ourselves. We’ve got our own powder and lead.”

“And the cops ain’t had to come around here in ages,” said Steve, “But now we’re on their radar, on their route. Dammit to hell,” he sighed. “And that woman was bein’ stupid, but she wasn’t doing no harm.” Jessie just shrugged. They went on to complain about city people.

Through the window I saw that the cop had summoned Bob and Wanda away. She’d have to pay a hefty fine. Donna had some words from Steve and Chip when she came back inside. She stared at the men, undaunted. “Boys,” she said, “I hate calling the cops as much as ya’ll do, but the gun was caught on the surveillance camera. I would’ve gotten fired if I hadn’t.” She glanced at me. “Of course, this happens after I tell you that nothing ever happens around here.” 

After my set was over, another large bearded man and a pierced-up, short-haired lady walked in the door. “Well look-a-there!” Everyone yelled as they entered the room. Their names were Brad and Sal. They were a renowned musical duo in the area. “This little lady’s from North Carolina, and she’s alright,” Steve introduced me. Sal raised her eyebrows. “You sure came a long way to get to the middle of nowhere.” We wound up jamming to some Red Dirt songs. After the first song Brad swung in and kissed me on the cheek, saying I was lucky I wasn’t older. I wasn’t sure what to do with that, but the two of them sounded sweet singing under the neon lights, and they felt like friends for the evening.

I was about to get settled in my car for the evening when Jessie tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, if you’re going to sleep in your car, please come park in my driveway.” I gave Donna the bartender a look. “Oh, yeah, Jessie’s a good one, that’s a good idea.” 

He lived about 5 minutes down the road in another field. He had a one-roomed house. “I mean, you’re welcome to stay inside, it’s not very big, though.”

“I’m alright. Thanks.” He handed me a Coors and laid out a quilt that his grandma made. We sat on the edge of his truck bed. I listened to him talk about East Texas wine and arrowhead hunting while he smoked a joint. “Well, I’m gonna head to bed. Let me know if you need anything.” 

“Thank you so much!”

He looked back before walking through the door. “You’ve gotta write a song about Albert, Texas, you know.”

I woke up with the sun the next morning. I left him a note under one of the arrowheads on his porch. I told him I’d write a song about Albert, Texas. 

I’m still working on it.

Not Buck-Wild

 “Hey, how sketchy is your Walmart parking lot?” I asked the barista. He raised his eyebrows as he wiped the counter. “Well, it’s not the worst,” he said, “But you can totally sleep in the parking lot here if you want. It’s quiet. We’ll give you a discount on coffee in the morning.” That sounded good, so that’s just what I did.

I’d just finished playing a show in the back of this cafe in San Marcos, TX. Other than the occasional individual who wondered back for a song or two, I was playing for the sound man. He listened, though, and in between songs he told me stories about his career filming reality television in LA. “I felt like I was contributing to the garbage of this world,” he said. “I had to stop. It was hard, I had connections and I made good money.” He sighed, probably reminiscing on whatever fancy car he drove or the bejeweled lady that might’ve sat in the passenger’s seat. “But sometimes the hard, crazy things that don’t make sense at the time are the best.”

 I believed him. He seemed happy turning dials and listening to the songs of nobodys like me. 

Afterwards, I was sitting by the counter scribbling some lyrics. This place closed earlier than most venues, and I wasn’t sure where to go. I guess the barista read my mind. “You can sit there till I have to count the money. Then I’m locking you out.”

“Ok.” I sat there for about 40 minutes, mostly in silence as he put everything away. “So where all have you been?” I summed up the past two weeks in Louisiana and east Texas. He listened and nodded his head.

“Ok. I’ve gotta lock you out now,” he said nonchalantly. Before closing the door, he raised his eyebrows. “So wait, how old are you?”

“20.” 

He smiled. “Ah. 20. Good for you. That’s a good age to go buck-wild.”

I thought that buck-wild was what Blu-Cantrel’s man got before she maxed out his credit card in the song “Hit ‘Em Up Style.” But maybe it’s also the state of being that rides the line of stupid and free. It’s a thin line. You don’t want to cross it into the realms of naivety, but you also don’t want to lose that freedom. It’s addictive. It’s an open door to the unexpected, a place to commune with God as you hear His whisper beneath the buzzing of your 4 wheels. I think it swallowed me whole. 

It was scary at first, though. 

 My mind wandered as I drove through seemingly endless cow fields, gray skies, and nothingness. What was I doing? 

I’d found this spot on FreeCamping.com. It said it was a magical place where you could park your car and camp on a beach in Galveston, TX. Apparently, there weren’t creepers, which was great, because that’s how I like my beaches.

I knew I would end up doing this car-camping business. It’s what made this rambling so feasible, where the dollars I would be spending on hotels went straight to the gas tank. However, this was my first time, and unfortunate hypotheticals swam in my head. What if there was no reception? What if I got lost? What if the website was lying about the lack of creepers, what if all of the reviews were actually made by the creepers, like some mass-creeper-internet scheme?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to over-dramatize my situation. I am a privileged girl who gets to go on road trips, and I just happen to go it alone. It’s not like I’m taking valiant risks for huge, noble causes, with bullets in the air and my soul at stake. I just like rambling, and I accept the risks that come with it.

But as a young woman on the road by myself, I am constantly reminded of what could go wrong; not so much by the things that actually go wrong, but by the worried looks and lectures that come from well-meaning souls.

“Oh, I heard a story of a young woman who disappeared in this gas-station…”

“You know, sex-traffickers look for girls like you…”

“Oh, so you’re alone? Oh…” 

Lovely anecdotes, right?

Initially, it was sometimes difficult to talk to some of my loved ones on the road. All they wanted to tell me about was how careful I needed to be with an unnerving panic in their voices. Again, I know they meant well, but the smart ass in me wanted to be like, “Ya know, thanks for reminding me to be careful, I was actually thinking about being really careless, maybe leaving my doors unlocked and picking up that hitchhiker dude with a knife.”

Of course solo women on the road need to be careful. It’s a funky old world. There are dangers I must consider as a woman that male solo travelers don’t have to think about. I take cautions, like making sure my tank is filled so I’m not alone at a gas station at night, or asking the bartender at the venue I’m playing at to walk me to my car, or making sure that my Alaskan grizzly spray is secure in my purse.

But even though these sentiments I described are well meaning, they have also been conduits of panic, opening endless doors of “what-ifs” and igniting the fear of a bad guy behind every corner. This mindset does not bring about healthy caution and level headedness, but rather, a fevered worry and mirages of worst-case scenarios. 

I have gradually learned to take these sentiments with grains of salt, to take the love and care within them while leaving the worry. But on the way to that beach, they brought about floods of anxiety. 

Then the cow fields broke into the ocean shore. The grey waves crashed. I drove up the gravel towards the beach, and I felt this unexpected assurance from a still, small voice within.

I parked on the beach. I had reception, and there were three or four vans scattered around. 

Anyone can be a creep. But these people were couples and families starting campfires and cooking dinner on Coleman stoves. It seemed as though they were all just wanting to enjoy the magical free parking spot, too. 

I felt this joy, so I ran out of my car and frolicked down the shore, as you do. I got some weird looks from my neighbors, but God’s goodness is overwhelming sometimes. From the time He carved out the island’s shore and summoned the golden light over the water, He knew anxious, lonely, and tired little ol’ me would find refuge there.  

I got out my banjo and played some tunes while the sun went down over the waves. I was putting it up when an older man and woman sitting outside an airstream nearby summoned me over. “Hey, do you wanna come sit with us?” asked the woman. She had dark hair, a sweet smile, and her leather jacket matched her man’s. He was a white-haired fellow in a trucker’s cap. He stoked the fire they sat around, drinking from their solo cups. “Sure,” I told them.

Janet and Danny were from Shreveport, Louisiana. They saw me running around like a loony and playing banjo to the waves. That was enough for them to invite me to their campfire. “What are ya’ll doing here?”

“We’re on our way to a biker’s rally,” said Danny. “Can you sing us some Skynyrd?” They were only slightly disappointed when I admitted that I’d never learned to play any Skynyrd.

“Here ya go, hun,” said Janet, handing me most of a bottle of wine. “Please take this, it tastes like ass and I’m not gonna drink it.” 

“Thanks!” 

They told me about how Danny had remodeled the airstream, and they’d gone all over with it. Colorado was their favorite. They looked at one another like each was the other’s treasure. “God just really blessed us,” said Danny. “We were older when we met. We didn’t think we’d fall in love again.” 

I spent the night sitting with them, watching the lights of the ships sparkle across the water, drinking bad wine and listening to their road stories. Janet gave me her number, told me to text her when I got to Austin. They said they’d pray for me. It meant the world.

I’m not sure that I went buck-wild there, though. If I saw the barista in San Marcos again, I think I’d tell him that I wasn’t going buck-wild. I was just trusting in the pursuit of beauty. 

And like the sound man said, the seemingly crazy things that don’t make sense can also be the right things.