We’re back in Oklahoma right now for the first time in a couple of years. That’s one of the reasons I have missed a couple of posts this week. Between the rush of trying to get things ready to go and getting up at 3:30 in the morning to catch a plane from Charlotte to Dallas (no planes going from Charlotte to Oklahoma City without substantial layovers) and then driving 3 ½ hours to Oklahoma City, I just didn’t have time to get everything in there.
I thought I’d forgotten what 50 mph winds are like in the springtime, but in reality it was only after being asked, “Does the wind always blow like this?” that I thought, “Oh, yeah, I guess the wind is blowing,” did it even cross my mind that sustained wind might be a new experience.
On top of that we have the potential for true “Tornado Alley” weather although it seems unlikely – just an early morning squall line that’ll be out by 9. Given that our hotel is in the flight path for Tinker Air Force Base I’ve also had to provide reassurance that noises are in fact an airplane and not a tornado.
Some people get a sense of peace and calm when they go to the ocean. The waves crashing against the sand, the sounds of the gulls, the smell of the salt in the air all serve to feed some inner part of their being in a way that their home environment may not.
That’s not me. The beach is fine, but it never has soothed me.
It’s the open prairie that you experience especially in Western Oklahoma brings my mind to a state of calm that I don’t realize is missing until I return to it.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no desire to return to Oklahoma to live. Aside from the potential for 112 degree heat in the summer, wind chills of 40 below zero in the winter and a state government that continually boggles the mind with some of the repressive laws they pass, it’s no longer my home.
North Carolina is a beautiful state with pleasant climate and is where we choose to live now.
There are, however, two things about North Carolina that have bothered me since the day I first arrived.
First, the horizon is much, much too close, so you can’t see what weather is sneaking up on you.
Second, none of the roads will stay put.
I can deal with the horizon part. Other than when I’m truly in the mountains, the claustrophobia abates a bit and I can start to breathe. Besides, with a very few exceptions, they don’t have the roller coaster storms of the plains that you need to think about and prepare for in advance.
It’s the roads that really drive me crazy.
In the big square states in the middle of the US, roads are very easy to deal with. They go in straight lines to the cardinal points of the compass for the most part. Having travelled them since birth, if I were to be dropped on just about any one of them, I could find my way back home in fairly short order.
After all, if you go 6 miles in one direction and don’t hit a blacktop road (many of these grid roads being unpaved), you can turn around and go the other way the same distance and likely you’ll find it. Go either direction on the blacktop and you will hit a town with either a water tower or a grain elevator with the name printed on the side of it.
No problem. Probably since I’ve travelled these back roads almost since birth, the name of that town or village will tell me where to go to get home.
Roads in North Carolina, though, leave me feeling like an Alzheimer’s patient. I follow them to a destination one day and, when attempting to repeat the trip a week later find that the road has been magically picked up and moved some other place so that I end up halfway across town (or the county) with little idea how I got there.
Whole towns seem to move, as if tectonic plates were swiftly shifting while I’m away to rotate parts of the world 180 degrees from its former location.
It’s frustrating, and the GPS (which we lovingly call the “Wayfinder”) is often of little help. I do find some comfort in the fact that the satellites that guide people around are only slightly less confused than I am.
So it’s nice to be back to my roots again, where the roads all go in straight lines the way God and the United States Bureau of the Interior originally intended. Every mile there’s a chance to alter your course by 90 degrees in at least three different directions, albeit frequently at some uncontrolled deathtrap of a blind intersection. Finding your way home may take some time, but for the directionally challenged it’s not nearly as frustrating as it is where the roads follow whatever game trail happened to run along a ridge line through the mountains.
So it’s calming to be back where I have my bearings and know where I’m going. It will feed my soul for a few more months, when I’ll come back and get recharged again.
Oh, and the specific reason we’re here? Mom and Dad hit a milestone -- 50 years of marriage. They actually hit the milestone back in December, but anyone who’s ever been here in the winter knows that the weather sucks and besides, everybody’s too packed up with holiday stuff to fit one more celebration in there. Accordingly, we’ve delayed the dinner until the spring.
As my brother said, “We wanted to make really sure it was gonna last before we sprung for a party.”
Happy Anniversary, Wayne and Nonnie.
1 comment:
Ralph adds: I remember driving through Kansas and some other states out there reading a book on the steering wheel - you could see for miles and miles> I thought it was kind of boring.
Hickory, NC, on the otherhand, is just outright ridiculous.
I really do believe that the roads here are just paved over cowpaths. No one could have planned these unless they were totally stoned.
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