On the interstates, to avert Philippe from singing the one verse of the Dallas themesong he knows and repeats, I’ve taken to reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. But my voice faltering and southern accents becoming too typical in Texas, I took over the wheel and we decided to cross the Red River(bed) into Oklahoma for the night. The rain was pouring down so hard we had to pull over a few times, and it was getting late again.
Disclaimer: I write this in my defence – in Oklahoma, the Dustbowl State where natives were marched on the Trail of Tears and whose exodus west during the depression was well-recounted by Steinbeck once upon a time, the roads, as you can imagine, are wide, straight, and pass through endless fields into ghost towns - I mean, true-blue empty, boarded-windows, out-of-business, deserted crossroads. The laws make it so that when you approach these towns, within a mile, the speed limit drops from 70 to 65; to 55 within a kilometre; to 45 within 500 metres; to 35 at the first of three old silos; to 30 at what was once a schoolhouse - and then climbs again as you leave. Of course, I only really noticed this after we got pulled over.
So the black, boxy police car’s lights go on, and he friendly officer informs us he clocked me at 52 in a 35 zone. (“But, I didn’t really realize we were in a town, Sheriff… ahem.”) Now, a’fore y’all go ‘n’ translate that into km/hr, I will mention that he ran our plates and my driving record is CLEAN (-Windekind!)! My smiling charm (hah) must have won him over, since we got off with a warning – or maybe it was because Philippe lit a smoke, asked him about the best motels and if there was a rodeo in town. (I’m not even kidding you). It had to happen sometime, and we were still lucky enough to have a friendly Okie let us off easy.
We continued to Altus, determined not to spend a creepy night in Texas, and ended up at a Best Western where the bubbly receptionist gave us a military discount because Phi is Swiss. (It’s a landing base, apparently!) The creepy thing about that part of Oklahoma was the abundance of jittery cicadas this year – I mean almost ankle-deep in them! – which made you feel like one of the plagues had been brought down on the Baptists. There were even frogs hoping around the motel! To our dismay, the pool was closed this morning when we came down with our suits. But here we are, on the road where we belong, headed to Dallas, TX to meet up with more friends of Phi’s family. I know how to choose ‘em, eh?
Texas-sized love to everyone back home. xo
No comments:
Post a Comment