This country is massive! I haven’t driven across since 1989, and much of what I remember of Oklahoma and Texas isn’t accurate. I remembered flat, barren, brown. Once we were out of New Mexico, the panhandle of Texas ws flat and full of ranches, and considerably greener than my memory. No cactus, no brown, and pretty darn flat for miles. Amarillo wasn’t the dump I remembered – very modern and green, and no smell of cattle – my main memory of the city from 1976.

New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma have gorgeous rest areas. Arizona has closed all of hers. I actually took pictures of grass and dandelions in Oklahoma – been a long time since I’ve seen dandelions, especially as fuzz balls. I got to drive for a while – about two hours through Texas – figures that I would hit the road construction. I found have have virtually no vision in the left eye, so I have to be hyper-careful with turning around to check oncoming traffic. It felt very good to be driving again, although I don’t think I’m going to be doing much city driving.

We learned that when Oklahoma has a “turnpike,” there are no services or hotels until the end of it. And “exact change” means “exact coin.” There was a bit of scramble for coin….I wondered why at the end of OKCity there was this huge splash of hotels and then nothing….and we learned why. So we had to drive to Tulsa – and got caught in absolutely horrendous road construction and traffic – where the cops didn’t do any directing of traffic – and when I mentioned it to the desk clerk, he commented that “that’s Tulsa.” Hmmmm….

But Oklahoma is so green, the Arkansas River was huge, and loads of hills and green grass. It was a beautiful drive, even if we did have to go out of our way.