Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Day Two: VA -- CA - May 17 2011

Tuesday. Mom artfully drove us out of Memphis. A bit dicey. And we continued our jouney across 40W.

There were warnings that 40W was closed at exit 216 Brinkley, Arkansas. I'd spoken with Dad the night before about taking a different route. He was worried that Mom and I would encounter major flooding from the Mississippi continuing down 40 through the first half of AR. Once the internet finally connected, I looked at the AR DOT website and discovered they had a detour to follow. The detour would only add an hour to our trip, whereas Dad's route would add at least two.

I decided (since Mom was "just along for the ride") to take our chances with the AR detour. Good decision. It was apparent driving past the Mississippi River area where the flooding had been, but the roads were perfectly fine and most of the waters had receded. The detour that began at exit 216 in Brinkley was well marked, and at each turn there was an officer directing detour traffic.

Driving through AR, I again chuckled to myself at some of the place names listed on the exit signs: Lotawatah Rd. followed by a bridge that crossed Euphala Lake.

Then we crossed into -- is everyone ready? With me now -- Oooooklahoma! Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains.

There weren't many winds. Didn't seem like anything above a breeze disturbed the beautiful Oklahoma country, however, many of the trees were bent right, which since we were travelling 40 west, I'll venture to say the trees were bent north. I wondered at this phenomenon.

We ate lunch/dinner at an Arbys outside Oklahoma City, and again I seemed to have a knack for hitting the major city, in this case OK City, during the 5 'o clock hour.

Around 8pm we arrived in Shamrock, Texas -- a truck stop town. All the major hotes were filled, but one front desk lady advised trying the Western Motel. She said it was clean. The Western Motel had a vacant room, was clean, and the man at the front desk was friendly enough. But I watch too much TV and thought the room looked like a nice place to be killed in. It was nothing like my experience at the Blue Sky Hostel where I stayed for one night in Glasgow, Scotland, but for about an hour, I was paranoid my car would be stolen. Just too much TV working on my imagination.

Riding through OK, I listened to the Caedmons Call album 40 Acres. Some of the songs seemed relevant to my life 10 years ago when I first came to CA for 4 years of college, but listening now, the whole album resonates with my life like teh soundtrack to a John Hughes movie.

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