A feeling of freedom

Original post 2/13/23

Fleshing out my old person in a car on a big road image, paper maps from AAA were imperative. White Ford Focus with Florida plates for a rental car? One can only hope. Here's the very roughly sketched itinerary: New Canaan CT, Pittsburgh PA, Louisville/Lexington KY, Paducah KY, Memphis TN, Bentonville AK, top of Oklahoma to see the prairies and mesa, Amarillo TX, Santa Fe NM, then it's all a bit vague - hearing mixed about Flagstaff, probably Four Corners, maybe Zion but by then, like Bill Bryson on his backpacking adventure when he got sick of carrying a heavy load and threw all his food and water away, I may​ be ready to park the car on the side of the road in Death Valley and walk.
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Thank you for joining me on my two week wander, it will be nice to have someone to talk at.

First night in New Canaan and a special treat from my dear sister of some foot reflexology, which somehow fixed my back pains. She followed up with a bruschetta bar for dinner and a little James Herriot before bed.
Off tomorrow early.

Pittsburgh is home to Heinz Ketchup

​Last week, when I was doing the dance with death on Storrow Drive (I won, natch), I got a pang of guilt thinking about the Oklahomans that were going to be exposed to my embarrassingly aggressive driving, and how unfair it was to these innocents. Yet again I vowed to do better and meant it. Today the roads were littered with New Jersey drivers, riding on whomever's tail until they got what they wanted (I moved out of the way). It seems that the left lane/passing lane theory has not yet made its way as far inland as Pennsylvania. Trucks, minivans, any old vehicle will drift from one lane to another for no apparent reason, going 40, going 70. oblivious to anyone else on the road. There must be some cultural meaning there. I kept my promise and drove respectfully, perhaps because there were cops everywhere….

New Jersey was rocky in a dramatic way. In PA, I saw chicken processing plants (Bell & Evans), Dollar General and Amazon distribution centers, a very long freight train, and lots of very tidy farms with washing hanging on the line. A man wearing an Amish hat and thick glasses driving a small car, which was confusing. The famed Deitrichts of Krumsville, best smoked meat anywhere, and Yocco's the Hot Dog King, since 1922.

The warmth of people, their genuine hellos will take a bit of time to get used to. A nice wander in the Strip District of Pittsburgh which is a few miles from my hotel which has slow Internet so no photos today :(

Columbus, Cincinnati and Louisville tomorrow, any refs?

A dead horse I've always enjoyed beating is that it's never about the destination, but the journey. First articulated many years ago after reading Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene, it had been a pillar of life's enjoyment for many years prior to that. So, today I was reminded of it and embraced my inner Pennsylvanian, enjoying the scenery while floating in the "fast" lane and having a look around. I know now that I'm more likely to let myself be diverted and curious if I don't have a reservation lined up. So from now on, I stop outside what's likely my destination and check Priceline. 

My commitment to roadside Hampton Inns and dinners out of the back of my car has hit a tricky snag. It seems the lure of a hotel in a historic building with a museum (it's work-related)! and eclectic chandeliers dispensed with the little commitment I had to financial discipline. Once the hotel was in the bag, it seemed that the right thing to do was order the flight of neighborhood bourbons and reflect on the day.

• West Virginia needs some love. I saw tiny houses that looked like they were plonked on neglected land the way you might put a house or hotel on Baltic Avenue. 
• There was a roadsign with a photograph of a miner in a hardhat with coal on his face with a note that said "Don't let black lung steal your time", an ad for a personal injury lawyer. 
• There were many billboards about Jesus, my sins, eternity, and one that was painted black and said in red "Hell is Real". with a Munch Scream face. Some were in the middle of what are probably cornfields, handmade and hand painted.
• Some of Ohio was beautiful and flat and reminded me of a Truman Capote movie I must have seen. Or of the Netherlands, only brown instead of green and no windmills.
• A work phone call necessitated I stop in Columbus, and the part I landed in (google: best coffee shop columbus) was adorable, reminiscent of Savannah with small, old, red brick buildings (see below).
• Louisville is cool. I arrived just before sunset and ran out to capture the silvery Ohio River,

​Thank you for the recommendations, I didn't stop in Cincinnati, but will know for next time. 

Gas station entertainment

​It's Memphis tonight and a work day tomorrow. So much more fun than being in Brookline!

Travelling days have moods. If I had to pick a color to describe today's, it would be grey. It was getting on stuffy - mid to high seventies with a low sky and humidity. Downtown Louisville, like every other American city I've been in over the last three years, was deserted. Most storefronts closed, homeless people and very little else. Urban Flight all over again, I suppose.

In place of this graceful city are collections of big box chains announced on the highway with signs that can be seen from far away, like the one for Ikea on Route 24. Is this where people are spending time? 

I went to Churchill Downs and couldn't get enthused about spending a few hours at the museum. Before going, I imagined it surrounded by grass, but instead, it's surrounded by, well, sprawl.

The roads south of there are not pretty for a while, but eventually that beautiful bright green grass that I pictured as Kentucky came into view, lovely rolling hills with daffodils, blooming fruit trees, scenic tobacco shacks and livestock peppering them, as pretty as you'd imagine. 

Funny and interesting things I saw today:

• Not so many billboards, instead three crosses together, bigger one in the middle
• A parking lot called the Happy Birthday Lot
• Lots of statues of men 
• So many UPS airplanes
• Lions Den Adult Superstores
• A place called Flea Land across from Camping World
• A sign that said "Bridge closed at Piney Creek and Hurricane Alley"
• A town called Dancyville
• Celebrity museums - Mohammed Ali, Loretta Lynn, Tina Turner, Elvis Presley
• From my sat nav: "turn left onto North Danny Thomas Boulevard (there's probably a museum for him, as well)

Lest you be jealous, I'm having popcorn for dinner and my room smells like, well, we don't need to go there...

Love this sign on Beale St.

​There's always something on my mind while I'm driving. It's a good time to sort things out, though I confess that today, my goal was to figure out a structure to each day that includes roaming aimlessly, driving, exercising and working, and I've still not figured out the right rhythm. There are things I love about arriving somewhere new around 5. It's a time of expectation and often nice light. There's an opportunity to have a poke around without committing to a full tour. The issue, though, is that it means I'm driving during the day which continues to feel wasteful. So, still working on that. Because I'm not in a rhythm, I've not been paying enough attention to work and have not been as diligent as I could, which then rankles me for the rest of the day.

The hotel in Memphis was a 3.5 star, so on a downward trend. As mentioned, the room smelled awful and then, the lock on the gym broke and I was locked in there, first alone, and then again, when the hotel worker came inside to show me what I was doing wrong, and locked both of us in. Had I been more virtuous, I would have jumped back on the treadmill and run until the key man came and busted us out, but it didn't seem sociable. These southerners really are warm and friendly. I was called honey and darlin' at dinner tonight.

Beale Street is fun, charming, has a nice history that is taken seriously with the many historic signs. But it's a couple of blocks long and the rest of the Memphis I saw was both deserted and full of blight. When trips to Mud Island (which is exactly that visually), are one of the top 5 suggestions of ways to be entertained in Memphis, it's a sign that all is concentrated on music. The starting price to get inside Graceland is $79.50, and goes up from there, if you want to see his airplane fleet! When I google imaged the interior, it looked like my aunt and uncle's house when I was growing up, which I got to see for free (well, sometimes I was forced to eat dried out timpana, which was no party). So I passed on that.

One of a variety of Severe Weather Alerts

​During COVID, there was a French photographer who traveled the midwest US and Canada photographing abandoned and decaying places. He also had an obsession with diners that I didn't share, but that's beside the point, I do love old with a story. He awoke such a desire to visit some of these places because they were so different than anything in the Northeast, which was getting a little suffocating. And while the last few days have been great, today was the day I had imagined, wandering back roads and coming upon things that would open my eyes and mind. By virtue of being in Hot Springs, I had to take back roads and decided to head for Hugo, Oklahoma. The UPS driver I chatted with in Broken Bow, a town I happened upon, said "Now why, honey, would you want to go to Hugo? There ain't nothin' goin' on there. I should know, I live there!!" And she was right, but I'm glad I went. 

I saw things that helped me understand attitudes different than mine. After crossing over from Arkansas into southeastern Oklahoma, I entered the Choctaw Nation, which is owned by Native Americans, but it appears others reside there as well. The level of subsistence living is extreme. Their houses are tiny, often not more than the size of a tool shed. There was one that had a gaping hole in the roof and I could see that the roof was made of something no thicker than linoleum. It seems that many essentially live outside and perhaps only sleep inside, similar to the early people, native and European; one or two sheep or cows (actually didn't see any chickens) and maybe a mangy looking horse. It was clear that some of them lived off the land,  harsh lives that are likely regularly negatively impacted by severe weather (there was a severe weather warning for flooding this morning), along with all the other things they face. It made me understand why they might support the second amendment, (using guns to get food), as well as harbor anti-immigrant sentiment (who needs more people who might make life more complicated?), and even Blue Lives Matter (they're our neighbors). Not to say that everyone looked miserable, but yes, it's a hard, hard life.

• In western Arkansas, it was so damp that there was bright green moss on the sides of houses and cars 
• There is a road that is named for the Choctaw Code Talkers in World War I, pretty clever as I'm sure no one could intercept them
• In the more affluent part of Oklahoma, where there were ranches, there was a covered wagon with two car seats inside it, where the bench would have been
• Personal Injury Lawyer ads seem to be a common theme among the southern states billboards. No religious billboards today, but plenty of churches. I did get to wondering about the bevvy of Christian billboards next to adult super stores and wondered if words flew.
• Gas is $2.85 a gallon in Arkansas and $3.85 in Oklahoma
• I passed Coffee Creek and couldn't help wondering if it was so because people used to have their morning coffee there, or because the water is the color of coffee. I'm guessing the latter...
• There was a funeral home across the road from a storage facility with nothing else much around...

Good night from my cushy Museum Hotel in Oklahoma City

The Sonic at night, downtown OKC

I have a friend from Oklahoma. She grew up in a shooting family, hunting with her daddy and not surprisingly if you knew her, she was (I'm sure still is) a good shot. Although she's been in Massachusetts forever, she still sounds like she's from Oklahoma, and she's got a lot of it in her as well. Those of us who know her regularly bring up the advice she once gave us in passing, which illustrates her pragmatism: If you shoot someone, you want to drag them over your threshold so that you can claim self-defense, which apparently works in Oklahoma. 

When I asked this friend about good places to stop on my way through the state, she said there weren't any. I pushed her a little and she gave me a few crumbs, but it was clear there was no conviction in her recommendations. Well, I pulled in to the West Village of Oklahoma City last evening right before dark, an area that had been warehouses and is currently being renovated into a hip residential area. My hotel (confession time, another Museum/Hotel, which I felt I had earned after my $63/night affair in Hot Springs) had been a Ford factory and then an office building. I wandered the streets to see graphic design and architecture firms that had moved in, there is a lot of style, waaay more than Boston (low bar, yes). So, nice surprise, and of course I let my friend know. Like every other city, except for a few restaurants that looked full, there was not a soul around on a Friday night.

This friend from Oklahoma also texted me to say that I should be taking portrait photographs as well as photographs of buildings and landscape. I have always thought about it because I spend about 78% of my time watching people, but am much more comfortable with invisibility and no interaction, having been told by someone that it's cheating if you sneak photographs without asking. So when I arrived at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and began a chat with Trista the cashier (oh dear, I think we called them Museum Associates or something at the Gardner), who was excited that I lived in Boston because she wants to visit Salem to get in touch with her witch lineage, I asked her if I could take her photograph which was weird and awkward, but there, Oklahoma Lady, I did it. The museum was incredible. Having once been stuck in Denver for a day, I fell in love with all the western paintings at the museum there, and was happy to visit others at this museum. But there were so many other things: great photographs of native people, mostly identified, Annie Oakley's guns, beaded shoes, wedding dresses, saddles, a wagon, a rifle and pistol collection and most impressively, a miniature western town within the museum. 

Love this city
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A couple of years back, Nat and I took a trip to west Texas, visiting Big Bend in late August or early September. There were many many warnings about bringing enough water, sunscreen, etc. It was such overkill that we knew they were serious and it did affect the length we ventured as I'm sure we didn't' have hats, probably no sunscreen and maybe one small bottle of water between us. Later, when my friend from Texas came to visit me in Brookline, she brought me a copy of Death in Big Bend, stories about people who died in different and gory ways (happy to loan it out). One guy died hanging from a rope, he had been trying to rappel down into a canyon but didn't have quite enough rope and froze to death, and then a family in their minivan ran out of gas and baked to death.

When another friend and I did a roadie, oh, well, let's just say quite a few years ago, one of the places we stopped was at a canyon outside of Amarillo. We had a little picnic and the clouds were cotton balls and there was that beautiful green sagey stuff. Wanting to go back, I found my way to Palo Duro Canyon this morning. Because of the Big Bend book, I set off for the Lighthouse Trail, uncharacteristically with a backpack full of water, trail mix and layers. I admit to getting a bit bored of these severe weather alerts of one sort or another, I don't know how the locals put up with it, but had in mind that the severe wind being talked about may be a factor. And yes, many warnings about things at every entrance. After I got to the summit, it started to get pretty gusty, so I hightailed it down, and didn finish all my water. This canyon is just so beautiful, taking photographs of it is like taking them of a sunset, doesn't work, can't convey. The two "lighthouses" have such sharp lines, they look like they're man made from afar. I was remembering car ads when I was a kid, the cars were always placed on columns of rock like that. How weird.

I was so excited to see an actual tumbleweed on the way out, when the wind started picking up! So cool, I thought. Little did I know that the wind would continue to pick up and that my car would be attacked by them and that by the end of the day, I'd see enough tumbleweeds to last me a lifetime. A dust storm followed in Hereford, Texas, beef capital of the world and my car was attacked by rocks so that it now looks like it was the victim of a drive by shooting. Long day.

But then, the mesas of New Mexico and a beautiful sunset that lasted for 45 minutes. And then, my friend's sister, so nice, so interesting, and such a cozy bed. Ahhh, staying still for a day.


Things:

• Amarillo smells like horses, even downtown
• What does it mean about a hotel if "room darkening curtains" are one of the selling points?
• In Oklahoma, the signs on Route 40 say "Do not impede the left lane", love that
• Love's is the place to stop on 40
• Garth Brooks Boulevard
• My room darkening hotel offers three free cocktails to each adult guest

View to the west from just north of Santa Fe

While the multi-colored 45 minute sunset behind the wall of mountains was beautiful last night, what really took my breath away was seeing lentil soup at Whole Foods. A heart-healthy option and a place that serves something other than meat cooked in one way or another. Such relief, but disappointment at the familiar as well, knowing where everything would be, doing the self checkout. While there was no joy in taking a walk on the Route 40 Frontage Road in Amarillo past Volcano Korean Barbecue, Lin's Grand Buffet, Chuy's Mexican, Logan's Roadhouse, Saltgrass Steakhouse, Longhorn Steakhouse (I'm not making this up), Kabuki Romanza, Jimmy John's and Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews, it was unfamiliar and like so much of what I've experienced, it shook me out of my world, providing me with appreciation for that. So Beemers in the parking lot, chiseled faces of people who work out too much, impatience - so much impatience, and there had been such politeness before, all made me feel like the party was winding down and it was almost time to go home to bed.

My friend's sister, who has a pretty little house in a quiet neighborhood south of Santa Fe downtown, as mentioned previously, is an Intimacy Coordinator. Turns out she didn't look into my eyes and call me a failure, but told me about her very interesting job which is advocating for actors when they are pressured by producers to, well, produce goods that aren't in their contract. A result of #metoo, she is hoping that people in her position will become part of SAG, but of course the producers are fighting this. She is also supposed to choreograph sex scenes so that there's no awkwardness, but the directors are unlikely to allow anyone else input. She's lovely and has given me the sweetest little room. It's been so nice to be here that I've decided to stay another night.

I went to the laundromat this morning, had been a while, but sadly, the technology is little changed though the prices have gone up. It was clean and shiny and required all kinds of ministrations with changing big bills into small bills and then small bills into a laundry card and a patient woman who worked there essentially holding my hand and talking loudly to me because I was just not getting it. It was a humbling exercise that I don't hope to repeat soon.

It's cold here, it was 20 when I was at the laundromat, and there's good downhill skiing right near by, the mountain has been dumped this winter, and within the last few days. Had I known, I MAY have rented as it was a bluebird day. But instead I went to visit Camel Rock and what was the Big Tesuque Campground, where we camped 30 something years ago. It has become Native American property and exists no longer as a campground. A casino grew nearby in the meantime.

7900 feet in altitude? Totally forgot about the old breathing thang. Yeesh.

Santa Fe is the most "crowded" of any downtown I've visited. It was even a quasi-challenge to find a parking space. The most special thing was going into San Miguel Chapel, which is apparently the oldest church in the US. Having recently re-read Death Comes to the Archbishop, I was able to imagine the French Archbishop and his sidekick doing their converting thing, and actually, there were some images that looked like European royalty, which seems absurd in a place like this. The outside bell had a lovely tinny sound that was so genuine and let you know it was small, and inside, there was a bell with many silver amulets on it.
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