We did a lot of driving one our first day out. We wanted to get as close to Fort Worth as possible. Our second day out included a short but sweet side trip into Fort Worth to see our cousin, Chuck, and his wife, Kathy, but especially to see Uncle “Mike”, our last standing uncle on the Wilcox side. We were treated to a little Texas style barbeque (the pulled pork was great, the sauce was ho-hum).
Uncle “Mike” is a wealth of family history and has been passing that knowledge down. Chuck printed a handful of old family photos for Terry and I and I can’t wait to return the favor with photos he requested that I might have.
The nicest La Quinta we stayed in was in Lawson, Oklahoma. I wandered down to see what was left of the breakfast (nothing). Fort Sill was hosting a graduation that day and all the young soldiers and their families had grazed through and cleaned out the area. A tiny woman in a La Quinta uniform was standing there, contemplating closing down the buffet. We struck up a conversation, mostly about young soldiers, young people, and the challenges they face today.
Miss Betty stood about four foot eight, had dark curly hair tinted with a shade of orange and bangs that curled over her forehead. She was thin, frail, spry, and sharp. She told me a story of how she once gave her last two dollars to an immigrant couple because they had a toddler with them that needed something to drink. She was so touched by their response and thankfulness. We held hands and prayed together, and the last I saw of her was her face peeking around the door to wave good-bye to me. Miss Betty.
That day we saw more wildlife. The heat index was dropping and creatures were stirring, particularly birds of prey. The country we drove across was the southern edge of The Great Dust Bowl and one could see how the dust and dry shaped the landscape. Scrubby trees were planted in an effort to hold the soil, but the land is flat, dry, and baked. We pulled off the road in Duke, OK, to look at some of the houses. A pair of locals started following us (who’d blame them: Florida plates, driving slow through a small town?) and we stopped to yak with one of them. He was a sweet old guy working for the public water system, but he didn’t have much knowledge on the older homes (except there was a rumor about a movie to be made in one of them).
Next stop was Memphis, Texas. The streets are paved in brick. Real brick, not cobblestones.
Picturesque and quiet, the county seat of Hall County. There was a bank on every corner, or at least some buildings that had been banks at one time. A quaint little spot that deserves more investigation!
Driving from Pueblo through Grand Junction was a long and difficult day for me. Memories. My husband and I drove that route one summer on our way to Colorado Springs to meet our first granddaughter. Our son took us along part of that route to see Royal Gorge. Levi haunts these places. He was just beginning to fall in love with Special Forces then and was stationed out of Fort Carson. He joined up with 10th Special Forces Group and was deployed to Iraq for a short time. He lived, loved, got divorced, remarried – all in Colorado Springs. I’m thankful we didn’t go into CS.
On to Provo and one of the worst Days Inns we stayed at. My brother booked it on a promo where it was advertised as a “new” motel. It was not new. It was not easy to locate. There were permanent residents who stared off into the distance and talked to themselves. One stayed busy rearranging rocks. Another paced the balcony after an apparent nightmare, muttering and casting out demons in the middle of the night. The bathroom was too small to turn around in and the water only heated to lukewarm. The coffee maker was missing pieces. The mattresses probably had bedbugs. We left as early as possible the next morning. Pretty certain my brother gave it a minus 5 rating.
It rained sometime during the night and the playa shimmered in mirages.
I am endlessly fascinated by mirages. There really is a mountain in the photo; there really is not a shimmering lake surrounding it. The playa is salt and alkali, alkali and salt. Emigrants to California passed to the north of these flats, camping near City of Rocks in Idaho before dropping down to the southern route through Nevada (which is alkali and brush, brush and alkali, but at least has the Humboldt River meandering across most of the state until it sinks into the ground and disappears altogether.
We decided to take a side trip out to Bonneville Flats where there really was water on the playa – and some racing even was happening. Or not – they were still deciding if there was too much water on the surface or if they could go further out and race.
Next stop was the old Wendover Army Air Base (Utah). I didn’t know this existed.
The museum was overpriced for what little it offered, but we paid anyway and wandered through the displays. I was most impressed with the history of the Enola Gay. I missed something in history classes or they simply did not teach this: the Enola Gay was housed at Wendover Army Base. Of course, we were never taught much about the history of Wendover, excepting that half of the town is locate in Utah (Mountain Time) and half of it is in Nevada (Pacific Time).
We paused in Elko, NV, to find the little house we lived in when our sister was born. It looks so tiny now: a standard white US Forest Service residence. There is a full basement underneath it: we kids had our bedroom down there. In Winnemucca, we paused to snap a photo of the haunted house we grew up in. It was an ungodly pink then, and all one residence. Now it is black (!?) and split into a duplex.
That green space between where I stood to take the photo and the house used to be an uncovered dry ditch full of milkweed and Monarch butterflies in the 1960’s. They buried it the year we moved away and I still hear the echoes of Joni Mitchell singing, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”. I have a rant on that strip of land and I may never forgive those who were in power who decided that Monarchs weren’t worth protecting. My 12 year old self looked into the future and knew. I’d like to subvert the city’s nice lawn and sow some milkweed seeds in that grass!
The last stop was Reno, of course. I met up with an online friend for a quick lunch on Monday, the 7th.I’ve met her before and we always seem to hit it off in person as well as online. I left the restaurant happy but tired – and decided spur of the moment to load up my car and drive home that afternoon. It was ten thirty at night when I arrived home, but I’m glad I went when I did: there was little to no traffic, even on I-5. And to top it off, when I pulled in to the gas station in Klamath Falls, I got an attendant who pumped my gas for me.
This moppet was so excited to see me that he barked and growled at me. “WHO are YOU?”
Gee, thanks, Ruger-puger. I’m your hooman mom and I missed you, too.
Jaci Dawn 