We were only twenty minutes late getting started--I'd shot for 7am, 7:10 would have been fine, but then I decided to go back inside and make sure none of our four cats had gotten locked in the bedroom. You'd be suprised how long it takes to locate four cats in one tiny house. Finally I did the kitty-kitty call--like magic, they all appeared.
We had to stop at two rest areas on the three-hour drive to Oklahoma City, but, not being in a hurry, we didn't fight the urge. It was dripping rain when we dropped off the dogs, and by the time we got on I-35, it was drizzing--but not that you could tell. There were so many cars throwing up so much water I had to keep the wipers on constantly, sometimes on high. At one point we hit construction and the three lanes narrowed down to two and lucky for us the other people knew what they were doing, because if I'd been in the lane that ended, I'd have smashed into the barrier and caused a backup for fifty miles.
In the best of weather I-35 stinks, but this was exceptionally stinky. After three-quarters of an hour of torture, the rain ceased to fall and slowly, finally we came out of it. For the rest of the day, even though blue clouds loomed to the west and to the south, we hit no more rain. Oklahoma welcomed us with cats.
The National Cowboy and Western Museum isn't a huge museum, but it had a lot of stuff to look at. We went through the paintings pretty quickly, then circled back to see saddles, boots, clothes, barbed wire, soldiers, snuffboxes, tobacco tins, guns, guns and more guns. Eventually we ended up in an old west city--all indoors and all so dimly lit it's a wonder we didn't knock our brains out on the door frames. Yes, I understand "atmosphere", and I understand that if you see a figure in shadow it looks almost real, but some of the stuff needed a little light on the subject, if you know what I mean. A lot of the exhibits suffered the same lack of lighting--it was so dim I couldn't read the informative signs.
Then we hit a rodeo exhibit and finally a cool display that anyone our age would love--cowboys of the big and small screens. Could have spent a lot more time there, but time was a-wasting.
In a final western art gallery, we were cornered by a bored security guard who first complained about the traffic in Dallas and San Francisco, then chatted very interestingly about the paintings. He relayed an odd story about one of the huge paintings--when it was on loan at the museum but not open for the public viewing yet, an old guy in a wheelchair asked especially to see it. He turned out to be the grandson of the painting's creator. After sitting in front of it for over an hour, just gazing at it, he thanked them, left, and donated it to the museum.
I could see a person sitting for an hour in front of it. It was a huge, detailed portayal of wagons coming around a bend in a canyon. So much imagination, so little time.
Which was a-wasting, so we headed to downtown Oklahoma where there was supposed to be a big, new, trendy food truck park that everyone had raved about. I even had a list of some of the best trucks in it.
I can't describe it, though--it didn't exist. We went all around everywhere where it was supposed to be and even walked around the farmer's market it was supposed to be adjacent to. We should have asked someone, but it had become clear that it wasn't there, so we hit the road.
Ed drove and I played with my phone until I finally found out how to make it show me restaurants ahead of where we were, not where we were. (As you know, at Interstate Highway speeds, "right here" is too late.) I learned to put in "barbecue restaurants" on the map and scroll rapidly to the west. It soon located Swadley's Bar-B-Q--convenient, close to the highway, not too crowded and very good. Best fried okra Ed's ever had in a restaurant (but not as good as my mother's.) I had a bowl of spicy beans--very good and I wished it were twice as large; coleslaw--how I wish coleslaw was good for you, I love it so; and cowboy potatoes. Ed's barbecue was good but the sauce wasn't sufficient or very tasty--too bad. I'm not sure Oklahoma knows how to make BBQ sauce.
The trip to Dodge City took us off the interstate and down long, straight roads with almost no cars anywhere. Wind turbines in spotty masses turned listlessly. The road went through occasional small towns, but other than a stoplight or two, we weren't delayed. When we stopped for gas I resumed driving over some of the most abused and beautiful country I've ever seen.
Flat but never level, horizons that defy imagination, tumbleweeds and brushy weeds that spoke of a land which had once been plowed but never should have been. Copper-colored gullies where the thin prairie soil had washed out in the 1940s. Beautiful, sad, and lonesome as a moonscape--land of the lost--a garden of the native Americans, dug up and despoiled. And yet so beautiful.
If I'd known more of the plants were were speeding past, I might could have told you if the flat fields of sagebrush, cactus and thistle were once plowed up. Are they fields of the turkey red wheat that bloomed so beautifully for a couple of years, then failed and blew dry in the dust storms of the depression? Or are they simply overgrazed--run with so much cattle that they'd no longer support a good-sized jackrabbit?
How long--if ever--would it take a destroyed prairie to regenerate? Probably not ever--the thin soil was a loess deposit dropped by retreating glaciers, so only when the next ice age comes and goes would these lands have a hope of restoring their fertility. Of course man could do it--by careful rotation of alfalfa, buckwheat, and clover, with application of grazing animals to crop the leaves and fertilize the plains with their droppings. Would it take a lifetime? Two?
Maybe I'll find out someday.
We made it to Dodge City and paused while I reprogrammed the phone to take us to the Santa Fe Trail Tracks monument, about 10 miles west of Dodge City. There was a billboard, a parking area, a short trail, and lots of informative plaques--but no trail tracks. Wrong time of year, we decided. Although pictures at the site showed them clearly, those pictures were at least fifty years old.
This is now.
I wasn't all that disappointed. We were in the same place where once, not too long ago, covered wagons had traveled. I stepped on a clump of grass that was once watered by the pee of a trader's mule. And I heard Western Meadowlarks! Was that a first for me? I don't remember! My bird list is at home in an old field guide.
And then this one bird flew over and made such a twitter, I know it was something I'd listened to on the Cornell All About Birds site--a Bob-o-link! Here's their picture of it:
The prairie was rich out there. Not tall, but lush--flowers, prickle-bushes, lots and lots of grass that resembled the silver bluestem we have in occasional places back home. And there was the wind, gentle today, the glorious, singing prairie wind! Left to myself, I could sit on the ground for hours, just listening to crickets, birds, and that softly caressing wind.
Sigh.
We returned to town and, did I mention Dodge City stinks? It still stunk. We quickly dediced on Central Station Bar And Grill instead of my first choise, Prime on the Nine, because Ed pointed out that a golf course restaurant would probably require a collared shirt. Not something I would think of. Besides, I was tired. Central Station was just fine--a pleasant little place full of families and vacationers, with kids playing on pool tables in the back. Great service and decent food. House salad was iceberg lettuce covered with American cheese--note to self--stop wasting money on salads! In Hawaii, I never got a bad salad; outside Hawaii I've never gotten a good one. The fried catfish very good and sweet potato fries more than adequate. I had to quit with food on my plate and was sorry to leave it behind. But my stomach's plenty big enough already.
It was late. Bedtime.
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