How many negative associations toward Texas had I accumulated in a lifetime? Let me count the ways.

There was the time the Dallas Cowboys first began calling themselves “America’s team.” That would make the list.

There were the Texan oilfield workers who flooded Alaska in the 1970s to grab the best pipeline jobs, make a bundle and leave the state as soon as they could. That one too.

There was the 43rd president of the United States and his eight years in office … but straying into politics really isn’t fair.

Suffice it to say that if part of the purpose of my journey around the country this fall was to expand my consciousness and shed old biases, I had my work cut out for me in Texas. Just traversing the state from one side to the other deserves a medal.

When Harley and I crossed the Gulf Coast border from Louisiana into Texas on Highway 10 a week ago, a mileage marker there informed us: “Beaumont — 25 miles … El Paso — 857.”

In the six days it took us to cross that distance, I would be challenged even more by my own mental lapses, leaving Harley’s accessory lights on at a restaurant, draining his battery, running out of gas, getting caught in the worst windstorm of the trip.

I would learn that in Texas roosters and wild turkeys are not intimidated by motorcycles, but rather find them strangely appealing (see pictures below), at least when the bikes are motionless or undergoing repair.

I would leave my coffee thermos behind at a McDonalds restaurant — and have my glasses blow away in the dark near El Paso. In that same storm, with 50 mph crosswinds, I would watch a sprinting coyote fly across the highway just a few yards in front of us, a tailwind sending him airborne.

I would pitch my tent in the scrub oaks of the Davis Mountains, where the elderly woman who served as campsite host warned me about the local mountain lion and the mischeivous javelinas.

I would pass through four of the major cities of Texas — Houston, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso — and walk through the courtyard of the Alamo. But Harley and I would also ride 100 miles out of our way to see the dying town of Marfa, Texas, in the Chihuahuan Desert, where the classic movie Giant was filmed.

I would get drenched by a couple of rainstorms, but also enjoy some spectacular blue-sky days of t-shirt riding on the wide-open backroads of West Texas and have my memory seared by a few unforgettable sunsets.

Most of all, however, I would get to talk to a lot of Texans, most of whom just seemed like real nice folks — and some who went far out of their way to help.

(Which reminds me: Some of my personal heroes — like the late Molly Ivins, Bill Moyers and Willie Nelson — were Texans too.)

So consider me now more than a little bit co-opted. Like Willie says in the old Ernest Tubbs tune (in the link below the slideshow): … I’m lost in your charms/ I could waltz across Texas with you. 

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