It’s the middle of Lent. Lent is a 40-day, solemn Christian season of fasting, prayer, and repentance that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends before Easter. It honors Jesus’s 40 days in the wilderness. Common practices include giving up luxuries. I grew up as a Presbyterian and knew about Lent, but didn’t practice the rituals.

These days, I still don’t practice Lent, except to give a couple of hours each morning and respond to Lenten writing prompts. I recently returned from a long drive through the Longhorn State and didn’t forego eating beef.

Jeremiah writes that those who trust in flesh are like shrubs in the desert, unable to see relief when it comes.

Desert language is appropriate for Lent.

What gives me relief is a change of scenery.

A few hundred miles between my real world in Boulder and wherever I happen to be, life continues in Colorado without me. The inbox fills. The deadlines creep closer.

When I leave town, I get to step into someone else’s ordinary life.

I’m in Texas on my way to Galveston to shoot footage for a documentary. The first night, Amarillo was a seven-hour drive. I had to stop at the Big Texan Steak Ranch, which also has a motel where I stayed, and is also home to the 72-ounce steak challenge. Finish it in an hour, and it’s free. Fail, and you pay $72.

I didn’t attempt it. The steak would have eaten me.

Instead, I listened to five men and a woman next to me, who talked in thick drawls about their trade show. Diners are seated family style at long tables. I asked the server how many challengers down the steak with all the fixings. Oddly, she didn’t know. Curious, I found out 100,000 determined eaters try, and 10,000 get a free steak.

The next morning and seven hours later, I pulled into Fredericksburg, with its German storefronts and tidy sidewalks. There were vineyards around the area, and I ended up at the Wine Country Inn. No wine tasting, though. I like to watch the local TV news. The lead story was the Senate “Democrat” primary. Mild-mannered James Talarico defeated sound-bite firebrand, Jasmine Crockett. Meanwhile, Senator John Cornyn eked out a plurality over ultra-right challenger Ken Paxton.

Same country as Colorado. Different political weather systems. Speaking of weather systems, it’s rained nonstop since I’ve been in Texas, compared to Boulder’s drought. I’m on the Watch Duty app that sends me notices about natural disasters and notified me about a fire near Heil Ranch, a few miles north of Boulder.

Last night I ate hockbraten at Altdorf Biergarten, bacon-wrapped meatloaf smothered under mushroom gravy. My server was from Germany, with an accent thick enough to make me feel like I was in Frankfurt. I’m not a devotee of German food, but it was pretty good, very earthy.

This morning, I’ll be back on the highway, dodging flatbeds carrying wind turbine blades, wide oil field equipment parts, and enormous John Deere discs creeping down the road with occasional passing lanes.

I’ve been catching up on my audiobooks. I listened to “First Frost” by Craig Johnson, which has a Japanese incarceration camp as a backdrop. Now I’m listening to one called “White Trash” about the origins of the white and gender class systems in America that dates back to indentured servitude in England in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Travel slows down my life. Audiobooks fill the void I would otherwise fill with thoughts about whatever might be happening back home.

When Jeremiah warns about trusting in flesh, I wonder whether my leaving town is a pilgrimage or an anesthetic escape with different scenery?

Distance reminds me that the world is larger than my preoccupations. It places me inside other people’s lives and places.

No matter how many miles I add between Boulder and Galveston, I still bring myself along for the ride.

No matter where I go, there I am.

On Saturday, I turn around and head back to Boulder.

This time I’m taking a different route home.

Maybe that’s the point. Lent asks for reorientation. The inbox will be filled with the usual Spams and Scams. I still have to finish a grant application, but I will have arrived changed. How that looks, I don’t know yet.

Time does slow down. That extra space gives me a place to learn how to return.