Driving to West Texas from Austin was surreal and inspiring. The forecast for the drive out said heavy showers, which you have to take with a grain of salt in Texas. We pray for rain, but that doesn't mean it's coming. Thankfully, though, the rain did come and it poured pretty hard for the last three hours of our drive in the desert. After a long summer, you could feel a grateful sigh of relief from the downpour.

Driving back was a completely different experience, as suddenly we could clearly see the mountains and those huge Texas skies. For a 7-hour drive, we saw about 3-4 hours of this kind of magic out the window.