The Middle

Arkansas and Oklahoma were pretty dull.  I made no diversions of which to speak.  For the most part, I just drove straight through. 
Arkansas seemed like it could be nice but I started so late yesterday I had to just press on through.  Oklahoma too, seemed okay but I crossed the border just around sunset so I missed the  better part of the transition from forest and pines to the scrub brush. 


This morning though I did stop off in Texola, Ok.  This now mostly abandoned town sits right at the Texas-Oklahoma border.  My guess is the place dried up as route 66 traffic left it. 
So I stood at the 100th meridian which divides the two states and that was about it. 

Oklahoma flattens out into the Texas panhandle and the landscape us completely foreign to me.  I've never been in this part of country before and it is very interesting to see. 



I made a dumb assumption a couple of days ago and now I am posting for it so to speak.  I saw some "horse tail" clouds back over Tennessee and figured I should have clear skies for the next day or so until I left. That would have been true if I had stated in I've place but of course I've been driving west and right into the storm.  I'm in Amarillo now and it is snowing. Hopefully it won't amount to much.

Leaving Memphis

I made it to Memphis, TN and got to see my buddy last night.  It was great seeing my friend, and reconnecting after so long apart.  It was like no time had passed.

My friend and I talked a lot about the problems of the world or specifically America.  He seemed to feel that the country and Memphis in particular had a burdensome problem with freeloaders.  More specifically, he felt there was a culture of people who don't try to do anything other than collect from the dole.
I disagreed, because I hold that Americans want to work and succeed, but presently there are not enough opportunities for them.  The lack of middle class jobs.

We didn't solve any problems but I did think it was god hearing his point of view. 
In any case Memphis had some serious post-industrial great recession problems that most US cities have coupled with a history of racism that might be the worst in the country.  Dr King was assassinated there and that mark is still and always be on that city. 

Across the Mighty Mississippi today and into Arkansas and the middle of the country begins in earnest.

Where's Breakfast

Hitting the road before dawn was a good idea, but hitting the road before breakfast wasn't.  I made it about an hour and a half down the road before I decided to stop. 
Harrisonburg, VA the home of James Madison University and the Little Grill Collective.  I like the idea of a collective and it was number one in Yelp. 


A crowded cafe with late breakfasters on a Wednesday, mostly older women and students returning from the holiday break.  I witnessed one joyful reunion.
They had toad-in-the-hole on the menu with veggie chile, hippies cause like I said it's a collective.  The food  was good and heavy, and the coffee was strong.   I filed up and I ready for more highway driving. 

A Purposeful Journey

In about an hour I will start a trip driving across the country.  Leaving Washington DC and ending in Santa Fe, NM, I'm delivering a work vehicle to a hotel where the end user will pick it up. 
The eighteen hundred mile trek needs to be completed in three days.  My flight out of Santa Fe is  scheduled for 7am Saturday so there is not much room for sight seeing, but that won't stop me.  I figure you have to take time to make time and the bice thing about driving is you can do it whenever you want.
Along this first leg I'm looking at a breakfast stop in western VA and lunch in Bristol, TN.  I plan on getting to Memphis, TN tonight and catching up with an old friend.  I definitely want to see the Wax Records studios in Memphis even if I don't get to actually tour them. 
So with my trip planned and the open road before me I set out with a happy heart. 
More to come