Driving to SXSW.

10pm, Tuesday. We are on the road. The rental van is crammed to the gills with gear, but we fit everything in, with breathing room, and twenty minutes in it is a comfortable ride.

Portland saw us off in style, too — we were warned ahead of time that the local music spotlight on KINK would be playing our new record for the first time, and sure enough, as we polished of the packing, Beth Clyman's voice called out our name and The Burden made its radio debut. We just stood there behind the van listening to our hard work. When it was over, Beth Clyman spoke our name again. "That was Scotland Barr & The Slow Drags, who are in Austin for the SXSW Music Festival. We wish the boys lots of luck on their show there..." That made us all feel pretty warm inside, and we pulled away from Zach's in high spirits. We agreed that it was a great way to begin the trip.

10 hours in. It is closing in on 8am. We are driving south through Sacramento. We just stopped at my parents' house in Davis for bathroom, breakfast, and a few hugs. Definitely a step up from IHOP. The sun is up for the first time on our trip, and it's easy to forget that we still have 1800 miles to cover.

20 hours in. We are a half a mile into Arizona, making record time. I drove the leg from Bakersfield to here, and I'm finally fading, so Bryan has taken over. I don't know how much I've slept in the van, but I can only get it in mini increments. I hope that changes and I don't show up in Austin bleary-eyed and Zombie-like.

30 hours in. Ciudad Juarez sparkles to our right, sprawling along most of the southern horizon. To our left is comparatively black; I think El Paso ended a while ago. I can't say for sure, as I was asleep. I think we have all figured out, or grown accustomed to, the slight contortions needed to curl up comfortably in the back seat. It's almost 4am now, and I've been able to sleep on and off since 9pm when we left Phoenix, stomachs full of Mexican food.

The hostess spoke decent English, but the waitress spoke Spanish to us as a default, and we did our pitiful best to reply. Scot is just recently returned from a month in Ecuador, so he was pretty comfortable ordering. Bryan stuck to words on the menu — "uno burro pollo" — and Zach, in his unapologetically Zach style, didn't bother trying. "I'll have the three enchilada plate, please," he said. She understood fine.

I had barely decided. "Uno burro pollo... wait, no [head shake, hand waive] uno burro verde, um, et un taco pollo, por favor."

She repeated my order back to me, I think.

"Oui, merci." I said yes, thank you, in the foreign language I'm used to, and blushed as I realized. "Uh, si, gracias." She didn't give me any confused or dirty looks, but I felt like an ass.

38 hours in. We pull up to our host's house in north Austin. Texas is WIDE. Everything is flattened out – the geological features of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, or Idaho are much more pronounced. The vegetation is slightly different, with thicker chaparral in the most arid places – not much open sand – and low oaks and other deciduous trees elsewhere. Houses are spaced far apart, across wide lawns and streets. Many Texans speak like their geography.

We stumble out of the van, joints creaking. The music festival is already raging in downtown Austin, and despite my weariness, I can't wait to join the throng.