Composer Nico Muhly is filing dispatches on America as he transports the contents of his late grandmother’s house from Tuscon, AZ, to the East Coast.

At a rest stop outside of Cisco, Texas, a man and his son opened up the back of their truck to air out their pigs. I tried to feed this pig a kumquat skin from my grandmother’s tree, but it was disinterested.

I had lunch with my cousins in Weatherford, Texas. This is a bowl of queso, which is simply Velveeta microwaved with rotel, a spicy canned tomato. My 17-year-old cousin claimed that in this part of Texas you can buy a vat of the cheese “this big” (she gestured hugging an object the size of an oil drum). Her mother rolled her eyes.

This is my mother stealing ice from the Taco Bell in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. We ordered a meal that included too many tacos to count—it seems to have been invented for and by stoners—and then went back to the motel and ate it with a bottle of my grandmother’s Lillet, served over the pilfered ice cubes.

The author with the finished bottle of Lillet in evidence. Let it be known that Lillet Blanc and “Mexican pizza” pair up very well together indeed.

KEYWORDS: America, Nico Muhly, Travel