Part 1

"More volume!" The Photographer shouts from the back seat of the Jeep Wagoneer.

We've got his tape of the Talking Heads playing at 110 decibels and it's not loud enough for him. The Navigator deepens her study of page 339 of the Key Map, trying to find our route through eastern Harris County, the very edge of civilization as we know it. The Driver, thinking to distract The Photographer, points out that we are entering Huffman, Texas, a village at the intersection of FM 2100 and FM 1960.

Unashamedly revealing his obsession with all aspects of Houston from the most boringly trivial to the most serenely cosmic, The Driver says, "This is where the developed part of FM 1960 begins, you know." Hoping through light-hearted facts to further waken the One Lap Around Houston (1LAH) crew, he adds, "Here is anchored the longest strip of uninterrupted signage this side of Osaka." It is 8:27 A.M., and the Driver has noticed that neither of his fellow explorers has quite got all the cobwebs out.The Navigator mutters something about better signs on Sunset Boulevard and goes back to her perusal of the map. In addition to functioning as pathfinder on this outlandish trip around the edge of Houston, she fancies herself as something of an unofficial ambassador from the Imperial Kingdom of Los Angeles. It is her conceit, shared by The Driver, that Southern California thirty years ago went through what Houston is going through now (namely, the implantation of a Major Cultural Center on a not always geographically receptive area of North America)--and we better take whatever advice we can get because it's gonna be one rough road.

"More volume!" comes again from the back seat.

Clearly, The Photographer is not going to be ignored. He has been all over the car since we left at 5 A.M., pointing Nikons and SX-70s this way and that. While The Photographer's excitement about recording this first circumnavigation of all of Houston is admirable, The Driver wishes somehow to emend his taste in music.

Whizzing north on FM 2100, The Driver, having learned from previous journalistic experience the importance of keeping one's photographer happy, reaches over to boost the volume. The gesture is never to be completed, being interrupted by a blur of pink and blue neon off to the left.

On go the brakes. A quick U-turn brings the Jeep Wagoneer back to—here all three crew members do a simultaneous double-take as they eye the street sign which clearly says: Desirable Lane. A right turn, and The Driver, incredulous, lets the vehicle coast to a stop.

Some people decorate their houses for Christmas. The people at 1122 Desirable Lane in Huffman, Texas, have focused their creative energies on Easter.

Three diaphanously-clad, four-foot plastic angels are seen sporting about on the roof of the story-and-a-half house. Above each angel's head glows a tiny neon halo. In the center of the yard a large papier-maché Bible is open to a pink and blue neon verse ("I am the Way, the Truth, etc."). To the right of the Bible is a large plywood tomb, painted in a rock-like manner, with a plywood boulder rolled away showing the vacated, also diaphanous, shroud within. To the left one notices a family of Easter Bunnies who appear to suffer from genetic gigantism, pondering a basket of equally large, colorful eggs. In the far right corner of the yard are staked three eight-foot neon crosses. Affixed to the eave of the house is yet another bit of neon decor--a six-foot-long cursive wish for a "HAPPY EASTER DAY."

While The Driver and The Navigator, both slack-jawed, attempt to assimilate this East Texas celebration of the Christian Equinox, The Photographer bolts from the car and shoots off two rolls of film faster than you can say "Oral Roberts."

* * * *

The idea of circumnavigating Houston in one day had sprouted in The Driver's mind some time back. Sticks-in-the-mud we shall always have with us who, when presented with visionary ideas, immediately ask, "Why?" The best response is still the old mountaineer's question-begging answer, "Because it's there."

On a map Houston looks like the Amoeba That Ate the Gulf Coast of North America. But who knows what's really out there, at the far-flung edges of the city? What monstrous misdeeds of planning and design may developers have committed in the dark of night in the outback where they have no one to report to except the Waller County Commissioners?

Besides, like an old dog ceaselessly roaming--and marking--his territory, The Driver felt a powerful urge to go out and somehow define and mark the edge of the city. But which edge? If you're going to circle Houston, you first have to decide which Houston you're going to circle.

Surely it's not the city limits city. Although that includes 600 square miles, it still leaves out too much. Nor is it the extraterritorial limits, which is the city limits plus 5 miles—that still omits a lot of square miles that in some sense are part of the city.

How about the phone company's definition of Houston, the various Area Codes known to the telecomm computers as "Houston"? The problem here is that the outlines of the Area Codes have little to do with any geopolitical reality and are apparently based on no criterion more important than which way the telephone cables run.

Then there's the Census Bureau's definition, known as the Houston SMSA (Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area). This one is easy. It includes Harris and all contiguous counties (Galveston, Chambers, Liberty, Montgomery, Waller, Brazoria, and Fort Bend). The problem with the SMSA is that it includes too much. What information of burning urban significance could one possible find in, say, the villagette of Daisetta on the eastern rim of Liberty County?

Hours of preliminary map-study finally paid off when, like a medium at last in touch with a higher reality, The Driver found his hand picking up a yellow Marks-a-lot high-lighter and drawing an alarmingly squiggly line through places like, well, Huffman. The final criterion came to The Driver in a flash, and, like all great ideas, was beautiful in its simplicity. Draw the line so that everything on the inside of the line would be Houston. Everything on the outside would be Texas.

Our old friend, Stick-in-the-Mud, immediately chimes in with, "How do you tell one from the other?" To which The Driver with irrefutable logic replies, "If it looks like Texas, it's Texas. If it looks like Houston, it's Houston."

The next decision to be made was: which way do you go, clockwise or counterclockwise? Counterclockwise, of course. Because it feels right, O.K.?

And you need a place to start. That was easy: Morgan's Point, on Galveston Bay, the site of the oldest European settlement in the Houston area.

The final problem was: an appropriate vehicle. Somehow, a Camry seemed not to have quite the best image for this sort of epoch-making trip. Cinematic memories of Stewart Granger mucking about the African veldt in sturdy Land Rovers came to mind. Not to mention Magellan and his three sturdy (if ill-fated) ships)

A complex weave of events led The Driver to Kevin Coffee, owner of Crown Jeep Renault on the Katy Freeway. Apparently a good sport of long-standing--and of course not entirely adverse to a bit of free publicity, Mr. Coffee readily agreed to relinquish control of one of his vehicles to the 1LAH Circumnavigators for three days (one to get ready, one to do it, and one for de-briefing). It turned out, in fact, to be Mr. Coffee's personal car, a dark blue and wood, leather upholstered Jeep Wagoneer with four-wheel drive and, as Mr. Coffee put it, "all the bells and whistles" (by which he apparently meant such things as a 200-watt sound system and power outside mirrors).

The pieces were falling into place. One sensed that the gods were smiling on this mad venture. All that was left was to set a date. The Driver turned his attention to the calendar. What with deadlines and such, a certain Thursday looked good. The Driver checked his horoscope, which was of no help ("Neptune moving toward Mercury bodes ill for serious religious discussions with nephews of your third-cousin-twice-removed's stepchildren"). The Driver next plugged himself into his computer and contacted a database to check his biorhythms—which did not look good. The graph came out in red, filled with ominous asterisks and exclamation marks surrounding the chosen date.

No matter—a deadline is a deadline. The world's first circumnavigation of Houston—officially known as One Lap Around Houston or Bust!--would happen on March 21. That it would fall on the first day of spring was only chance. As was the fact that it was also Bach's birthday.

Following a Wednesday filled with spring showers (1.29 inches at Intercontinental), Thursday, March 21, dawned overcast and cool. First light found the 1LAH crew assembled on the last spit of land at Morgan's Point watching two tugs dock a giant freighter. The Driver consoled himself with thoughts of Coronado rising with the coyotes in his quest for Cordoba. After posing for the official expedition photo, we departed at precisely 6:30.

One Lap Around Houston Part 2 >>

Magellan's Log 13

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