Manifest Destiny

I'm in Austin now, having rode west into that big Texas sky, over those dark and melancholy plains beneath that marvelous sunset... Into the west.

"...West is where we all plan to go someday. It is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered. It is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and see the blood on it. It is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the tide of empire. It is where you go when you hear that thar's gold in them-thar hills. It i where you go to grow up with the country. It is where you go to spend your old age. Or it is just where you go." -- Robert Penn Warren It's manifest destiny, isn't it?  That most American of principals.  To take the call and move across the continent and stare in sublime pleasure at that great obstacle of an ocean that finally prevents any additional westward expansion. I'm not there yet.  I'm in the middle ground, where the land is sad and flat and vast.  Between the ridges and the river.  Where the dark and the quiet permeate.  Where man is dwarfed by the immensity of all that surrounds him-- where men are men and people are people because in such an epic place there is nothing else to be.  There is nowhere to hide. What will I do here?  Doesn't matter.  I am on my way.