September 14 – That Ribbon of Highway

We headed out of Tulsa early this morning with the promise of another gorgeous day.  That promise was indeed fulfilled and long before we reached Oklahoma City the top was down and the Beach Boys were pumping out California Girls on the radio.

As we rolled through the Oklahoma countryside I could not help but think of Woody Guthrie’s line: “As I was walking that ribbon of highway”.  We spent a lot of the day on some of the original Portland Concrete slabs that had been laid down when our Fathers were children.  The landscape was rolling hills and as you crested one hill you could see a the slender ribbon of brown highway undulating at least a mile ahead.

This country also belongs to Steinbeck and the Joad family of The Grapes of Wrath.  The Dustbowl Okies who migrated along this same road to the faux promised land of California.  In fact we saw two places today where parts of this 1940 movie were shot.  Today the land looks lush and rich and the farmlands prosperous, quite a change frim that tragic period in history.

We took an hour this afternoon to go through a corn maze.  Neither of us had ever done anything like that before.  I got to tell you Nancy cheated.  She took a map of the maze with her.  Of course I think we’d still be there if we did not have the map.  We talked a while with the farmer who owns the land and he said they usually have around 15,000 people go through the maze during the two months (September and October) that he has it opened.  At $6 bucks a pop he is doing alright.

We have been amazed at gas prices.  Before we left home this was one of our concerns.  However we actually filled up this morning for $2.19/Gallon and actually saw one location at $2.09.  Nice surprise.

Highlight of the day: Near Depew, OK along the route in the actual middle of nowhere is a tree filled with cast off shoes.  Evidently at some point in the past a traveler decided to tie his worn out shoes on a limb of a tree just off the road.  the idea caught on and now there must be a hundred pair of shoes hanging from the tree.

The concrete in the highway we rode on today was put down in sections so that there is a joint between each section.  As your tires hit each joint it makes a distinctive, rhythmic “thunk” sound.  I hadn’t heard that sound in a long time but it took me right back to my childhood and trips to Carolina Beach with Mama and Daddy, going to sleep in the backseat to that consistent thunk, thunk, thunk, knowing that they were there, all was fine

and

Life was Good