Last Wednesday I spent the afternoon in downtown Dallas, walking around on a typically hot September day. I was visiting the second floor of a building – more about that later – when sirens blared in the street below. The windows sported heavy drapes, but it wasn’t hard to pull them back for a peek. On the street below was the aftermath of a traffic accident without apparent injuries, but also a little hard to understand.

So how did that little car wedge itself under that large truck? Other witnesses marveled at it as well. It would be one thing if the car was at a diagonal to the truck, which would mean that it rammed itself underneath. But the car’s aligned so evenly with the truck. Did the truck somehow park itself on top of the car? How could that have happened?

Just another little mystery. I went to Texas on the 12th and came back on the 19th. It was a trip but not a vacation. I spent time with family and friends, but I also continued working – all I need for that is a laptop, phone, and Internet connection. I drove a fair amount, too, because I flew to Dallas, drove to San Antonio by way of Austin, and later returned to Dallas for the flight home.

For a few hours on a couple of days, I managed to see a few things. New things, in fact: a large, immaculate Austin cemetery that I’ve known about for years but never visited; a music venue I’d never heard of in a familiar part of San Antonio; some small to mid-sized museums in Dallas, a pleasant bar in the same city, and a large church there, too.