I’m back. Great drive to Texas. Nothing like a road trip to clear the ol’ cob webs.

Here are a few things I learned and/or rediscovered along the way:

• Duke Ellington was a genius
• Cactus looks really strange covered in snow
• I can listen to Adrian Belew all day
• I can barely listen to Robert Fripp at all; on an intellectual level, I appreciate what he’s doing, but a little goes a long way
• Texas is large, flat, and cheap
• There is a town in Texas called Mingus
• There is a road in Casa Grande, Arizona, called Peart Rd.
• I don’t need to hear Boston’s "Don’t Look Back" again in this lifetime
• The White Sox and Diamondbacks train in Tucson; groundskeepers were combing the fields on my way back to San Diego
• If ever given the choice between walking to a place with a sign that says "Burgers and Beer" and driving into town after 13 hours on the road, just go to bed; if you insist on going to the place marked "Burgers and Beer," do yourself a favor and don’t order the burrito plate

I also made some metaphysical discoveries. I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say, their level of profoundness is directly proportional to one’s level of intoxication. But this does lead me to another important lesson:

• The road messes with your head

A lot of people thought it was weird that I chose to drive rather than fly to Dallas, but look at everything I learned. Now compare that to what I would’ve learned if I’d flown:

• I don’t like being in a rapidly moving metal box with hundreds of strangers eight miles above the planet’s surface

But I already knew that. No sense in beating the proverbial dead horse, is there?

Anyway, it was a great trip. If you’d like to see pictures, here’s a bunch of ‘em. Hope all has been well with you; we’ll get back to the baseball tomorrow…