Drive Day

Amarillo, Texas

5 July

Elevation: 3,605 feet

Weather: Nice evening breeze; cool

On the road . . .

Today was a drive day. We started from the banks of the Mississippi and ended up right dab in the middle of the Texas panhandle. Even drove through the small town of Panhandle. In the end we drove 715 miles/1,151 kilometers.

We passed over the rolling hills and lakes of Arkansas, just south of the Ozarks, made infamous in a recent Netflix show. We drove past Little Rock and I talked about the Little Rock Nine, Brown v. Board of Education, and the Clintons, especially how bright and quick Bill Clinton is/was. The kids listened, if passively. They were more enthralled by the news that Kanye West is making a run for the presidency.

After Arkansas, we rolled through Oklahoma the long way. We broke into the song from the eponymous musical when crossing the border. Funny how the song now screeches out as a song about invasion, conquering, and the glee of taking over a land from the Pawenee, Seneca, Cherokees, and other indigenous tribes:

“They couldn't pick a better time to start in life,
It ain't too early and it ain't too late.
Startin' as a farmer with a brand-new wife
Soon be livin' in a brand-new state!
Brand-new state
Gonna treat you great!
Gonna give you barley,
Carrots and pertaters
Pasture fer the cattle
Spinach and termayters!
Flowers on the prairie where the June bugs zoom
Plen'y of air and plen'y of room
Plen'y of room to swing a rope,
Plen'y of heart and plen'y of hope.
Oklahoma,
Where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain.”

The land was laid out bare for these happy, frolicking famers and their new wives. Now the indigenous peoples of Oklahoma ‘stay’ on ‘reservations’; such an odd American moniker, like they will someday get a seat at a good restaurant. I saw a few Trump signs but not as many as in Tennessee. Mostly, I just saw poverty and another broken American promise.

Wearing a mask against Covid.

These long drives bring out the family cocoon aspect of this journey. We sang and talked, listened to music and podcasts, snacked here and there. We pulled our mobile habitat beside a lake somewhere in Arkansas for lunch and then in the far reaches of Oklahoma, sitting over a broad empty field with a dancing evening sky for dinner. Lunch meats, mozzarella, fried chicken, and fair day-old bread. It was glorious.

Somewhere in Oklahoma . . .