came down from the snowy mountains and into the endless roswell plain, for a long trip to lubbock across the texas line. no snow in texas, though there were signs they'd had some, and the flat plain went forever and gave me a break from dodging deer and elk who just dart out in front of the car in the mountains.

lubbock is a hopping city - unike the mountains where people have been passing around the same twenty bucks for many years. in lubbock some guy just gave the university forty-four million; he'll get a building named for him i'm sure. at the same time amazon moved in and opened a warehouse so hundreds of poor people will now get jobs and add to the traffic and housing crunch. people drive nice new cars and trucks around. the streets are orderly and it's easy to figure out where to go.

it was a mental health trip, mostly for my son, who has come to hate cloudcroft as the kids have been very mean to him lately. i've already given away more than i'd like to but that's why i was there and that's why it was a little rough coming back too. it's just hard to be up here now trying to do online school which he detests and being so isolated. but what can we do for him? i have some ideas but none that have really come together.

in the middle of the night some kid on a bicycle, and a hoodie so he couldn't see to the sides, popped right in front of us on a wide street called avenue q. this kid realized his mistake pretty quickly and went back, but it was a sudden and very dangerous stop on my part and i was lucky i had my mountain reflexes ready, because it was like a deer or elk in many ways - random, sudden, unexplainable, very dangerous. we both shuddered. my son wants to move to town. this however won't be easy and i wouldn't want that to be him.

came back early this morning - a long ride up the plains through the roswell flats and the wide empty places. back in the mountains we got home just in time for it to start snowing. and now it's snowing some more....it was supposed to be rain, and maybe not so much, but it feels good to be home in spite of everything. my son though is very depressed, it just doesn't seem like a happy place at all. to him, lubbock is liberation, and he doesn't see what we do, that it's one of the most conservative, arrogant towns around, and on top of that, a city, with all everything that goes along with that.

we're happy in the mountains - back there in isolation, with the deer and elk, and all that go with them - but we can't speak for him. all we can do is do the best to put him in a place where he can succeed and make progress. pray for us.