Random Thoughts 2 on the Road Trip

lorna no magazine Stopping at Rest Areas along the way, I see couples and friends traveling together.  The only solo drivers seem to be the truck drivers. I may get a twinge of loneliness now and then but think I am hitting my stride on this Road Trip. I am blessed in so many ways from CEO Lorna Taylor’s sponsorship through Premier Eye Care (I love the photo that I used of her with her employees in weird eye wear) to the warm, kind and fun hosts along the way and the passionate people that I interview, who are teaching me so much.

As I pass through towns, there are snatches of life that move me in different ways.

Driving along a Mississippi byway on my way to Denver, I noticed a thin man in cowboy hat and faded jeans walking along the grassy median picking up trash of some kind and putting it in his sack. After I passed him I saw a rusty pick-up truck parked on the side of the road and wondered if he had run out of gas and was searching for cans to help pay for it. I thought I should turn around and offer him money or a ride but, instead, I kept driving. I still regret it.

At the Mississippi Welcome Center, I spoke briefly with a white woman in her 40s that worked there. I asked her about the Civil Rights Museum being constructed in Mississippi and asked  how authentically she thought it would show the horrors of the 60s.  She spoke about visiting the home of Medgar Evers, the African American civil rights leader targeted by white supremacists, who was shot in the back when returning home from a meeting with NAACP attorneys.  Her eyes filled with tears when she described the bullet holes in the kitchen wall of his home.

She believed the museum would be an honest depiction and mentioned that Medgar Evers’ widow, Mylie Evers Williams had donated the Medgar and Mrylie Evers’ papers to its archives.

As I drove past the signs to Biloxi MS on Route 10, I remembered living on the Air Force Base there with my husband and three young daughters in 1965.  Memories drifted in and out of  five year old Allison proudly pushing her baby sister in the stroller with the red and white striped awning;  Andrea picking out her own clothes to “look pretty” for pre-school including wearing my rhinestone earrings; six months old Amy loudly playing with pots and pans on the kitchen floor; family outings to the carnival rides on the beach; and the trip to New Orleans that Andy and I took the weekend before Mardi Gras and were surprised to be in front row seats when Al Hirt arrived unexpectedly to play in his club.

In Texas as the tumbling tumble weeds blew across the road, I could almost hear Gene Autry, the cowboy crooner of very long ago, singing the song of the same name. Yeah, I know that my references in this blog range from very old to ancient but so be it. The blue, purple and yellow wild flowers were hanging out along the side of the road just waiting for a water colorist to capture their beauty.

Most of all, I was awed by the desolate, empty, long roads in Texas and just wished I could get to my destination by doing a Bewitched twitch of my nose. In a hurry to get to do just that, I stopped briefly for lunch. I had hopes that, being located in Texas, Taco Bell might make the burrito just a bit more authentic Tex Mex—no such luck.

Yikes, the wind in Kansas that blew Dorothy to the Land of Oz is very real.  I was so awed by the wind turbine farms that I stopped along the road to take a photo.  Although I braced myself against the wind to take the picture, a passing truck almost blew me over. I cannot imagine living with winds blowing that strongly for any length of time but I noticed that the folks at the gas station when I filled up seemed to take it all in stride.

Visiting the 9th Ward in New Orleans, I was struck by the purple, green, and other colorful, modern homes that intermingle among more distressed ones in the neighborhood.  I cannot even imagine the terror that existed there as the water rose. We stop to ask driving directions of a young man playing ball with his brothers or neighbors in his front yard. His earnest and patient effort to repeatedly explain the best way to go as I struggle to understand touches me.

red rockThe terrain keeps changing and all of it is interesting.  The mountains in Denver with snow on top; the wind turbine farms in Kansas, and the mesas in New Mexico as described by my friend, Sandy looked like bows of boats.  They do, in profile, look like large ships in dry dock. In Arizona, the red rocks are beautiful and huge.

And the Road Trip continues…..