Lola and I arrived in Tucson late Tuesday afternoon. It’s not exactly a hop, skip, and jump from our home to sunny Arizona, with stops along the way in Springfield, Elk City, and Albuquerque. Our trip covered three nights plus a full day’s drive.
***
I was thinking about our first trip here. This prompted me to revisit a piece, “Route 66,” which I posted here back in 2022 before our first venture west. In it, I tried to imagine the adventures that were awaiting Lola and me on the open road. My sense of things hasn’t changed much in the interim, unless it is that, each year, the drive gets more tedious.
Some people love to drive. Lee was like that.
Some people don’t. That’s me. I am not by nature a patient individual, a trait reflected in my driving style, and, to put things mildly, I have a heavy foot.
If only I could wriggle my nose like Samantha the witch did to magically transport herself in an instant from one scene to the next, but alas, I cannot. As a result, I am forced to navigate vast stretches of highway while Lola the pup snoozes peacefully in the rear seat.
Stretches of Missouri through the Ozarks are scenic enough, provided one ignores the countless kitschy billboards barking the next caves and fudge depots. Plus, it is almost always warmer here than back home, which is a good thing in January when we begin our travels. However, sometimes you can’t drive away from the cold, as I discovered one year when, after barely escaping from the snow and subzero temps back home to start our trip, flurries and brutal cold nipped at our heels all the way to Amarillo, Texas.
Oklahoma can feel bleak any time, I suppose, but especially on a dreary winter’s day when a steady wind kicks up swirling clouds of snow that dangerously reduce road visibility. This year, I spent an evening in charming Elk City, where a specialty at the local diner was Texas chicken-fried steak served with white gravy, a scoop of mashed potatoes, soggy green beans, and a dry biscuit that crumbled to flour dust as you raised it to take a bite. Mm, mmm, that’s good eatin’ after a 6-hour sprint from Missouri.
I’ll say this for Oklahoma. It knows it’s a way station for travelers. I therefore grudgingly must acknowledge its elaborate, lucrative tollway system.
As for Texas, the less said, the better. It is just too big and weird. Unfortunately, due to its bloated size, there is no easy way to avoid it.
The one feature Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas all appear to share is fleets of stern-faced cops who are on a mission to snare passing out-of-state motorists like me, who mean no harm but are merely anxious to reach the promised lands of New Mexico and beyond. (Come to think of it, the traffic cops in New Mexico are not much of an improvement.)
Over the years, I have struggled with Google Maps to reliably alert me to the numerous radar hazards one encounters on this long journey. This year, I tried a different GPS tracking system, which my younger, tech-savvy nephews assured me was more dependable. Yet, this new system betrayed my trusting nature. So, this trip, as I sped through Amarillo, I got snagged by a motorcycle cop, of all things, one with a radar-equipped bike, to boot.
In my defense, keep in mind, except for the rare Presidential motorcade from the airport into the central city, one does not encounter motorcycle cops where I live, certainly none that come equipped with state-of-the-art radar units.
Although I can’t be sure it was intentional, the Texas cop who pulled me over had this retro Starsky and Hutch look, and, if he had removed his helmet, it wouldn’t have surprised me one bit to see him sporting a mullet. I could also see there was no chance he would let me off with a stern warning. I thus considered admitting I had been speeding through Amarillo in haste merely to depart the Great State of Texas as quickly as humanly possible. However, using my mirrors to watch him as he strutted about my vehicle, I quickly concluded that being a complete smart-ass at this moment might not be the most prudent course of conduct.
With a shrug, I elected to let things go. $325 in fines later, Lola and I were once more on our way to Tucson.
