Chicago, 29/5-2004
Hello again
Since I wrote you last I’ve joined up with some company and seen a lot of very different parts of America in a very short time.
Picking up Henrik and Marlene at Midway Airport in Chicago, we opted for a quick getaway out of the city, lest the steady flow of money out of my pocket should become even worse. Route 66, America’s highway, was the plan, but we quickly agreed to bypass the stretch going from Illinois through Missouri and in stead try to pick the famous highway up on the other side of Oklahoma City in the sunny south. This meant stopping only briefly underway to eat, and once to visit the fabled home of the Kansas City Chiefs, “Arrowhead Stadium”. All in all we covered 4 states in one day, seeing Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma between sunrise and sunset.
The most remarkable thing of this early part of the journey was the way the landscape changed dramatically in character. One moment you are driving through barren and dry plains, and the next you find yourself looking over lush farmland or even mountainous terrain. More of this later…
I had been warned that the actual Route 66 was about as easy to find as an American without a car, but we still felt that we were up to the task. The problem is that Route 66 is no longer an official US highway. That system was replaced during the 60s and 70s with the new interstate system, bypassing the many small towns along the way, and allowing for mass transportation, at the expense of the charm and uniqueness of the old road network. This means that while the old road still runs through its original route (and in many places parallel to the big interstate), the signs are not maintained and you often find yourself lost on small dirt roads going nowhere, slow…
Still we managed to find the Route by catching up with it at the small town of Clinton, Oklahoma, which is also the home of one of the better Route 66 museums (or so the rumor goes). The route actually ran straight through there, as it did back in the days, and the locals did much to point us in the right direction but once we left town, we were on our own.
Long story short: We found it, we lost it, and then got lost ourselves.
From Clinton until way further on in Arizona, we followed the Route sporadically, meaning that we drove parallel to it on the interstate, and caught up with it now and again, while visiting the towns along the way. We did not however, follow the original trail for more that 50 miles or so.
Crossing the state line from Oklahoma to Texas the change in the landscape was almost immediate. The endless plains were still there, but more and more the flatness was broken by the introduction of red cliff faces of western movie fame, and the ratio of cowboy boots and Stetson hats per square meter rose dramatically, reaching dangerous proportions.
We spend the night in Amarillo, Texas, where one notable sight was the local steak house, where the cook would challenge any and all comers to eat a 72 ounce steak (about 2 kilos) in less than an hour. If you fail, you pay the bill of about 55 dollars, but if you succeed you win everlasting fame and a free meal. Past winners included an old woman in her sixties (who could not have weighed more than about 60 kilos), a professional wrestler who ate two of the steaks in question within the hour, and a Bengal tiger of some 500 pounds, who ate it in 90 seconds flat. We all declined the challenge politely…
From Texas we drove on into New Mexico, where the landscape changed once again. Here the foothills of the distant Rocky Mountains begin to dot the landscape, and the color of the soil reddens markedly. This is also where we began to note a significant Indian population, which also meant a definite increase in casinos and souvenir shops. The Indians are at least as successful in screwing the Americans out of their money as the Americans were at screwing the Indians out of their lands. But, as far as I can tell, the differences between local “Indians” and “Americans” are not that many. Both enjoy driving large trucks and SUVs, both are extremely patriotic and diligent in honoring veterans of foreign wars, and both construct souvenir shops that are at LEAST three times the size of the landmark in question.
We went to a museum displaying the history and art of the pueblo Indian tribes, and we went to visit the capital of the Navajo Nation at Window Rock, but in my humble opinion, the most memorable aspect of driving through this, the southern part of the states is not the people living there, but the land itself. Allow me to elaborate…
From the flat plains of Oklahoma you get so accustomed to the endless expanse of arid and barren looking grassland that the smallest speck on the horizon is sure to capture your imagination. Thoughts go flying off left and right, particularly to how the white settlers of this region must have felt when they, in the days before interstate highways, came through this wasteland and would see nothing but scorched grass for days upon days as they made their way westwards. Then, at first unnoticeable, the land becomes more hilly. The change is very slight, and since the roads are so straight you do not realize the change until you clear a ridge and see that on the other side the wastelands of Oklahoma are replaced by the rich grasslands of Texas. The land is still dry, but cattle are everywhere grazing, and shade is not something quite unheard of. This continues for many miles, as the sudden changes give way to more gradual ones. The hills become higher, the grass greener, and the rocks that start to claw their way out of the earth here and there, are colored faintly red. Then, New Mexico. Experiencing this landscape you realize that you can never be sure what to find behind the next ridge. This side might be a dry, dusty plain while a mere mile further on, the road leads you over the crest of a hill and into a valley exploding in colors of green and red. Everything is changing, and even the greens are not the same from one valley to the next. Still the hills are still just that, hills. The mountain ranges of the west are still not to be seen until you cross into Arizona. Then, through the shimmering of the hot dessert air, the silhouettes of the snow tipped giants step out of the haze, looming over the small hills, that had seemed so large mere minutes ago, and for some reason you still feel like the flat plains of Oklahoma were in the rear view mirror an hour before that. This is, without a doubt, a beautiful landscape, and one that seems capable of a never ending variety and change.
Yesterday we visited the Petrified Forest National Park and today will be spend horseback riding in Grand Canyon, and the day after that in Zion National Park, so we should have plenty of opportunity to enjoy the landscapes even further before going to Las Vegas, the City of Sin, for two days of overexposure to neon lights and casino extravagance.
That’s all for now, hope you all remain well ;)
Martin