The weather is making me absolutely delirious.

It is so gorgeous here. This is the time of year I live for ... autumn ... when the humidity is low, pushed way back out into the Gulf of Mexico by some nice thrust of arctic air sweeping downward across the nation, and the temperatures are 70s during the day, 50s at night.

Ahhhh, yes.

I stand with my face uplifted to the Sun at this time of year. He is not so close to me in the fall, his rays are not so intense. His power does not scorch me unmercifully. Now there is enough distance between us that we can be friends.

Kinda sounds like my relationship with Lightnin, doesn't it? Oh, well, this commo is *not* about Lightnin. Ha! So there.

I get White Line Fever something awful in the autumn. Gotta get out there and cruise in it, let the rubber meet the road, feel the cool breeze in my hair and against my skin. The Fever struck me doubly hard today. I mean it just about had me in a rave. I chomped at the bit all morning, a thoroughbred prancing and snorting in my stall.

The Dream and I roared out of Muthah's parking lot at 1052 hours on the nose. There was a need in my soul. A need erupting from so deep within that I could not even identify its foundation, its roots, from whence it sprang. My spirit cried out for the earth, for the blessed green and gold and brown of it. For the feel of it; the solidity of the trees, the dainty dance of the leaves. For the scent of forest and good earth wafting on the wind.

When I was a kid I used to search out secret hiding places in the woods. I loved to find little natural coves and stuff. They were like little rooms. Each one had its own ambiance, its own personality, its own purpose. Which one of them I visited depended on how I felt, what I needed at any particular moment in time. I can still recall how safe and secure I felt, hidden in the dense forest, an observer in a natural and untamed world.

There are not so many opportunities for that now. I cannot just drag out my .22 and go explore Caney Creek. I don't do guns any more, for one thing. And there are fences now, and laws (something about not carrying a rifle slung over your shoulder on city streets), and restrictions every way I turn. I hate restriction. I really do. It is the thing that has always pissed me off most about life on Earth. But I'm sure I'll finally get used to it. Or not.

I didn't really know where I wanted to go when I left Muthah's, but I knew I wanted to be deep in the woods, out in the country. I turned left on Clear Lake City Boulevard and headed out the back roads to Bay Area Boulevard. Hooked a left on Bay Area and cruised by the entrance to the park without slowing down; on past Armand Bayou, then south on Red Bluff.

Crossed the bridge near what used to be The Treehouse. For years you couldn't get through that spot when the rains came. The bridge was so low it always flooded immediately. Several years ago a new bridge was built which will supposedly accommodate the 1,000,000 year flood plain or something. It is concrete and steel. I kinda miss that old bridge with its uncertainty, its power and authority.

Remnants of The Treehouse still exist. What a cool bar. It was literally a treehouse built in two magnificent oak trees which stand side by side. I don't know how old those trees are, but they must have been there a long, long time to be that massive. I spent many a Sunday afternoon stretched out on the limbs of those huge oaks, way up high, listening to some great blues down below.

On the left is Bill and Marie's. Bill and Marie's is where all the construction workers go on rainouts. Spent many a rainy afternoon in there learning rigging from the ground up. *cough*

A little farther on is the spot where the Breaker 19 Club sat. That's where Alice and I found Jackie Jones, who introduced us to Lightnin and BR and a whole new way of life. The Breaker 19 is also where we found Mark Threadgill, an aspiring country singer who still performs in Pasadena to this day. Every now and then we look him up just to let him know we love him and think about him.

Then I cross the railroad track. Some kind of little joint used to sit right there, too, where the boys played many a Sunday afternoon. Hell, I don't even remember what it was called any more. So many beer joints, so few memory chips. It wasn't much more than a trailer, but the gig paid. The bikers loved it.

Now cross Highway 146, jag to the right on Old Highway 146 and pick up Red Bluff to the south again. Now we're really out in the country. I just want to go south, south, south. I'll take Red Bluff as far as it goes and then get on Todville and drive along the edge of the bay. I'll go all the way to one end, turn around and go to the other. I'll pass that spot where you come around a curve, leaving the forest behind, and suddenly you're at the water's edge. There is nothing to the left except water as far as the eye can see. Looking out across that expanse to the horizon, I can actually see the curvature of the earth. This big blue ball comes alive for me then.

Suddenly my thoughts are interrupted by ... autumn! My gosh, I look around and there is color everywhere! Reds, golds, yellows, oranges, crimsons. It is so beautiful I instantaneously flash back to South Carolina. One moment I'm driving along a country road headed for the bay; the next I am propelled backward in time into the Sesquicentennial State Park and a path through the woods, my Six walking point.

So *this* is where autumn has been hiding! I knew it was around here some place!

The colors aren't as vivid, of course. I *am* in Texas.

But they're close enough.