Chapter 13

Shamrock, Texas.

Just as lonely by daylight as the evening.

I woke about 7am, with some deeper sleep, only waking a couple of times. I rose and peeked out the window. The road was deserted in front of the motel and the parking lot mostly empty, just as it was around midnight.

Made some of the coffee in that pot they provided. Not the best, not the greatest, but it was hot and black.

I'd showered the night before, so there wasn't much to getting ready for the road. Pick out some clean clothes to wear, a shirt, the same jeans, some clean socks. Put on the jacket and hat.

TV sat there, tempting me, so I turned it on to see if I could get some local weather. Flicking though the many channels. I found one which briefly mentioned something like Texas weather. Looks like the storms were moving out and the rest of the day would be fine, partly cloudy and some chance - but they were painting a "nice" picture on it. No real account of how to travel through Oklahoma and into Missouri. Like usual, the ticker on the rental truck was turning slowly over, so I had to be on my way.

Checking around the room, I tidied up abit, put the towels away and pulled the covers up over the bed I had slept in, smoothing out the other one.

Turned the keys in at the front desk. Asked about the morning complementary buffet. She said most of her overnighter's had already been there, but there should be something left. Told me how to get there. Yes, there were a few muffins there and some juice, some real coffee. Ate a couple of muffins and dowsed it down with juice - slightly bitter, but this wasn't Florida. Took some coffee with a lid on it for later, as well as a couple of other muffins. Wasn't too hungry, but these would keep my costs down. What I had brought with me was going to run out today, somewhere across Oklahoma.

Got to the truck, unlocked it and put my bag, coffee and muffins inside. Started it up to warm the engine and get the cab heated up. Then I checked all around the truck, looked at the tires, checked to make sure that the back was still locked and all was well. Didn't check under the hood as it was running fine yesterday and no problems on the gauges.

So I settled in, shut the door, checked the mirrors and slowly backed out of my spot. Made my way back to the business highway section, then on to the "real" highway, which ceased to have tar patches on the cracks which thum-thumped the truck as it crossed them every few feet.

The road was smooth and broad, traffic light. It was a little after 7:30am, so I was mid the morning rush. Another nice thing about rural areas - no traffic to speak of.

The sky was cloudy, some slight wind pushing along, but nothing as bad as I had already gone through. Oklahoma was flat, this was the plains before me. It wasn't long before I was running in and out of rain storms.

Radio was nothing to speak of, but I was able to find some pop country tunes as I went along. Signals seems to go further here, so I could keep a station longer around here.

City names were more Anglo-European, though there were the Amerindian mix which surfaced here and there. This land was that settled by the Land Rush, so this wasn't any surprise. The people who settled this land named it after themselves or someone else and sometime those who had been there before them.

I was able to make it to Clinton for my next stop. Reminded me of DeWitt Clinton, who had something to do with steam engines - a subject I had studied as a fascinating hobby while a kid. Drew tons of them, never built one. 12.7 gallons at $1.495, getting 190 miles out of it.

Coming up was another metro mess of Oklahoma City. Looking it up on the map, I could see that it would be pretty smooth if I just kept to the main road, since my route didn't change through that town. I could have taken 44 up northeast heading into Joplin, but I didn't like tollroads. The map showed that I basically would take the same distance either way, so I took the due-east route and stayed on 40. Finished off the last of my protein shake yesterday, and so I was into whatever I could pick up at the gas stations I filled up at. But I was rested, and despite the rain, optimistic.

Back on the road. So many roads, so many times past. All the family trips I had taken seemed to roll into various scenes. Station wagons, campers, all these various ways of travel. Roada among roads. Grand Canyon, Kansas, Alaska, Canada, all these roads that went and came and people traveled along them to see the various sites Pilgrims and Tourists all. Went to Mexico City once and saw an actual bull fight. Not too impressive to someone who had been around cattle all of their lives. Why they had to stab swords into their back was beyond me. The stadium was more interesting, being built of both concrete and wood, baked in the sun and built to hold and had held the massed weight of peoples innumerable.

The Grand Canyon was impressive as to its size, as did Disneyland. While we only went to the edge of the scene and looked over into its depth, Disneyland you could get right up close to see all these various things. The Grand Canyon we were at for about a half-hour, Disneyland we were at for a day. So the man-made stuck in my mind more than the natural.

My farm, which I spent 18 years at, was even more real. I could tell you about bends in the creek and swinging from cut vines out to the center, dropping into the rain-swollen muddy waters and then swimming and climbing back up the muddy banks to swing out again. The vines were as thick as your arm. My oldest brother took the corn knife (machete) to cut it with. The rest of us tagged along and were watched out for, as well as nagged to keep up. Haying in summers, cutting wood in winters, waiting for the spring sun to warm the pond enough to swim in it, finding that it stayed cool down to its depths even though the August sun warmed the top half inch to lukewarm. Walking among the gravel with bare feet, toughening them up through constant use. Dreading school when the summer was over and I had to go back to closed classrooms in my new shirts and jeans. But the farm was more real than any tourist spot we went to, more memorable.

Through Oklahoma City without incident, my next fill-up stop became Checotah, OK. 14.043 gallons at $1.389 per, but again only getting 190.1 miles out of it. I had run through rains and some foothills through this route, which was cutting the mileage down. Looked like I would have about two, maybe three fill-ups to go before I arrived at home.

Called home to let them know when I was going to get in. Ma was in good spirits and was happy I was safe, as this was the first call I'd made since the day before I left. It was a payphone outside and I was glad it had stopped raining for the time I had there.

Went to a grocery store in the same lot and got some fruit and biscuits to snack on from here until the next fill up. I'd sleep at home tonight, having some good food tomorrow and for some time. As long as I stayed alert and awake, I'd be fine. So the snacks I got were protein and carbs, as few sugars as possible and no caffiene unless absolutely needed. Home was what drove me on.

Food at home was something. While Ma always kept her garden going along, we always had to get some things from town. But during the summer, it was fresh tomatoes, green beens, and even the salad was home grown, right down to the onion scallions. Fresh sweet corn and strawberries, blueberries or raspberries on top of cake and icecream. We had home-grown pork or corn-fed steak as well. Gave up on milking a cow when that Jersey got into the ground corn and overate, dying of indigestion, but we got used to "store-bought" milk easy enough.

You can't imagine how much better you feel when the food is all fresh from the garden. A lot more energy - though kids always have too much. I was looking forward to this diet again, even after all the "health food" we had on the west coast. Their steak was grass-fed and always chewed like leather, but with a little more flavor.

It was still some plains, some foothills and some rain as I crossed Oklahoma into Arkansas near Fort Smith. The sun was well behind me, but I changed this quickly, turning north onto 540 which sliced a small corner off the state so that I would wind up in Missouri in an hour or so. Now it was all foothills, though the road tried to smooth these out as much as it could.

Seemed that people would clump together in the foothills more than the prairies. I saw more towns in that 75 miles than in most of Oklahoma, not including metropolitan areas, but these were all small communities with their church and school and two-pump gas stations right next to the road. Trailer houses started appearing, all fit right next to the road that the rumbling of big trucks probably threw them out of bed some nights. On some corners, slipping off the pavement some wet night would probably wind you up in the middle of their living room, lights ablaze with a noisy, wet "howdy-do-y'all."

Finally peaked out at Anderson, Missouri, about 10 miles outside Arkansas. Gas was $1.399 and I filled up with 12.864 gallons. Made 194.9 miles with that mini-tank of gas, so this was somehow some of my best mileage driving, it seemed. I'd been traveling a two-way highway since leaving Sam Walton's Bentonville behind, but only had a handful of miles to drive before I hit a double lane again, heading still north into Joplin, where I'd start going northeast in a closer direction to home.

Joplin was dinner for me. Stopped to eat a meal at a regular fast-food joint near the highway. I was tired of cold cuts and snacks. The money I'd been given at the Center was holding out well, so I could afford to get a hot meal. Big double burger with fries, tea instead of soft drink, and a hot apple pie - the fast food version. Got a refill of tea before I left, happy again and able to sit in a seat where my feet didn't automatically touch the foot pedals or my head brush the ceiling. Doubted the tea would do much besides cause another rest-break, but It was more that I could enjoy some "civilized" comforts while I rode.

The next 190/200 miles would take me up through the hilly Ozarks of Missouri, continuing 44 through Springfield and jumping off at Rolla to take the two-lane 63 north to Jeferson City, then two-lane 54 up to my small home town north of I-70. The farm was outside of this, a few miles before I would get there. Lots of numbers to cover, so the map would be needed. Unfortunately, it would be dark in a couple of hours, so the map wouldn't be all that useful in the non-light. I'd probably need it most when I could use it least, in making the various switches between roads. Fortunately, most all of these were in larger cities, so I should be able to find street lights to make the change effectively.

Traveling through Missouri was bittersweet. I knew this land as a child and had left it to escape the claustrophobic straight-jacket of a large family and a small town, all enforcing my future on me. But then I wound up in a fast-paced, often changing, but again straight-jacketed existence with blindered eyes, muffed ears and a funnel down my throat to accept ideas. The more I struggled to find myself, the more these wrappings and restrictions loosened, falling away to show me that I could actually only be free within the confines of culture, not outside of it. Like a person needs a cage to know where freedom was and how it was important? More like that if you want to fish, you need to be able to recognize the difference between the pond bank and the pond. (Hint: one is wetter.)

Springfield flew by without problem. I noted only that it didn't go on and on and on like LA or KC. Somehow the names of these towns I passed were more Midwestern and homey: Conway, Phillipsburg, Hazelgreen, Laquey, Robert, Jerome - most of these towns were probably created within 25 years on one side or the other of Missouri's statehood. So they all had a sense of 1880's to them.

Rolla was my jumping off point for a two-way local highway and also a gas-up point, probably my last. But this was a first: the station attendant didn't make me pay in advance. I must be getting closer to a rural life. My parents still didn't take the keys out of their vehicles and the house was unlocked all day and night. Too far out in the boonies for anyone to care.
$1.399 was the cheapest I'd seen on this trip. 14.295 gallons topped me off from the 200.7 miles I'd traveled since Anderson.

It was night, just after 7pm, and I had some of the worst driving in front of me since those mountain roads at Flagstaff. But the rain that day had seemingly passed, leaving the parking lot of that gas station, as well as the neon signs to attract the college students all fresh and clean. Not like LA, where the signs were always dirty from the air-filtered rain. (The rain had to clean the ever-present smog out first, but deposited this dirty water on the signs and buildings below...) Took a deep, fresh breath of air and squeezed back into my truck again.

Home was only a few hours north, on roads I had once known well.