Today’s entry is brought to you by the handy tape recorder I speak into when I’m driving and something poignant arises. My missives are spattered throughout this traveler’s tale, delineated by quotations and the color red.
5:21am and thunder is rolling and shaking the Holiday Inn Express. This is Independence, Missouri. When it pours, it does so without relent. Big stinging drops affronted the windows. Lightning cracked and lit up the sky. Bolts as crisp as in cartoons depicting Zeus raced to the horizon and appeared to fall off the end of Earth. If it wasn’t so early, if I wasn’t aroused from slumber by those handclaps from above, I would have reached for my camera. Instead I closed my eyes and tried to get some rest.
At ten my phone rang and jolted me from a dream about Kirstie Alley trying to vomit on me in a golf cart. Naturally these kinds of visions are bound to enter my subconscious after a day of steady drinking. I raced to check out and was on the road by 11am. Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead appeared side by side. Driving through Missouri for 130 miles provided me with some interesting experiences and photo opportunities. It seemed like as I headed south, the farms became more dilapidated. Roofs collapsed, overbrush defeated exteriors, windows or wood panels missing … and then a sporadic, quintessentially beautiful farm. I passed by pleasant towns and abject ones–like the one with this dirtbike speedway. There was a beautiful stretch of sunflowers growing alongside me but I was trying to navigate through traffic. One thing that has remained constant throughout this excursion is construction. Pretty much every road I’ve been on has undergone massive amounts of construction, and it debilitates the drive when there’s only one lane open. The very few amount of cars on the road form a cluster. Delays are a sordid affair.
“I’ve seen horses and I’ve seen cows… but in Bates County, Missouri I spied my first outdoor sheep. Fuck knows how many indoor sheep I’ve missed lo these first thousand-plus miles. Is it any surprise that nobody dares swim in the Bates County Drain Ditch? The Bates County Drain Ditch is not meant for swimming. That’s what the sign says. The Bates County Drain Ditch is for draining waste. At least, I like to think it is…why else would they name it a drain ditch?”
Today was a relatively loose schedule, so I wanted to make some stops before Tulsa. The first was in Carthage, MO. This city boasts on its welcome sign that it is the birth place of astronaut… (I can tell you’re waiting on pins and needles for this one…) Dr. Janet Kavandi! I don’t know what kind of astronaut she was, or if she did anything remotely interesting, but I guess any astronaut is significant. I went to the Civil War Museum dedicated to the Battle of Carthage. I tried to walk out into the battlefield, but they were (surprise!) doing some kind of construction. Instead, I took some pictures of the old Union Pacific railroad cars that crossed through the outskirts of town.
“By the way, you can only see so many exits for Ozarkland on a highway before you actually want to stop at one. I must admit, peppering the sides of highways for hundreds of miles with their billboards really works. It totally works. [tape cuts out and resumes later] Well, I would have stopped at Ozarkland… if their exact location was better illustrated… I just couldn’t find it… I couldn’t find it. Sorry, Ozarkland. You just lost yourself a customer. [tape cuts out and resumes later] Tell me there’s another fucking Ozarkland. Wait… what’s this? OZARKLAND! WHAT THE F…. ‘COME BACK SOMETIME?’ BUT I SEE IT! I’M HERE! NOW! I JUST CAN’T GET TO IT! Ugh. I just saw Ozarkland–no joke– on the other side of the highway. Fuckin’ Ozarkland! So close, yet so far away. [audible sigh] Who were the Ozarks’ anyway? Are they dead? Are they resolved to just living in Missouri or are they in other places. Will there be an Ozarkland in Oklahoma? I guess we’ll never know, really.”
The last rest stop in Missouri before you cross into Oklahoma is actually quite modern as far as highway rest areas go. You go into the bathroom and you urinate. It’s nice and it’s tiled and it’s clean. When you step away the urinal flushes itself. This isn’t really that unusual, but what’s much cooler is how the sink and the hand drier are combined into one unit that’s also hands-free/automatic. So you can pee, wash your hands, dry your hands, all without touching anything. This is great if you’re anything like me and you hate touching any surface in a public bathroom. THEN, you turn around… and you have to pull the fucking doorknob to leave! And now there aren’t any paper towels to grab the doorknob. So the people who don’t wash their hands–most people– ruin it for the rest of us. Worst. Restroom. Ever.
“[Adopt southern accent] This is God’s country. Oklahoma is God’s country, my friend. That’s why we have billboards that read: ABORTION STOPS A BEATING HEART ……… FOUR THOUSAND TIMES A DAY! Ladies and gentlemen I am so far removed from any semblance of a blue state it scares me.”
I stopped in Miami, Oklahoma (the birthplace of Mickey Mantle) to play at one of the are Indian casinos called The Stables. No blackjack or poker or craps. Just electronic machines. I decided to take only $20 with me. After briefly winning $7 I managed to lose the rest and left with just a shred of dignity and 35-cents. Not even enough for the toll.
The other day I weighed myself and apparently I’ve lost 2.5 pounds since last week. I decided then I had to stop in Vinita, OK to eat at the world’s largest McDonald’s.
The sky was blue and it was beautiful. Then it rained very hard for a few minutes. Tulsa was close. Holiday Inn Express, here I come. I want to go swimming.
Drive through Oklahoma with Oneida.
music listened to:
Sunburned Hand of the Man – Rare Wood
90 Day Men – To Everybody
Bedhead – What Fun Life Was
Pelican – The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw
Bob Dylan – Blonde on Blonde
Blonde Redhead – Misery is a Butterfly
Sunny Day Real Estate – Diary
Mclusky – Do Dallas
Oneida – The Wedding
