Turning for Home

I’m currently in a suburb northeast of Columbus, OH, whose name I’ve already forgotten. I’ve crossed the Mississippi River at St. Louis, with the sun in my eyes (again…) and traveled what seemed to be a straight line through two and a half states. Five recharges in 451 miles.

Except for those puffy cumulus clouds over the mesas a few days ago, I have not seen another cloud during the whole trip. Completely clear, sunny skies. This pleasant sun has warmed the car such that I have not turned the heat on at all, thus extending my range. I am apparently traveling east with a huge high-pressure system containing very cold air – the temperature has never been above the mid-40s and averages at about freezing. It’s been as low as 10 on the road, usually before dawn. I started seeing snow on the ground about when I crossed the Mississippi – it went from no snow to complete cover.

From Oklahoma City, which really isn’t in the Southwest as such, I traveled northeast on I-44, which runs from OKC to St. Louis, and stayed just short of St. Louis last night. Most of the route is through the Ozarks, which is famous for its lakes, of which I did not see any. The landscape is very much like upstate New York – rolling, forested hills, which are not quite as high as those around Oneonta. This section of the trip – which I’ve taken three or four times now – is, frankly, boring. Not much to see and what there is to see is too familiar. You want it to end, but it doesn’t, and then you realize that when it does end, you have to drive through St. Louis.

Many other cities that get in your way when you’re driving cross-country have ringroads: interstate highways that circle the city and allow you to get through in a reasonably logical fashion. Columbus, for instance, which I just drove into the west of and exited out the northeast, with no trouble at all. St. Louis, however, does not have a logical (at least to me) system of highways, but instead has a bewildering system of a large number of highways, and if you miss the lane at the junction you could end up in Minnesota. I saw the Arch on the way through, and the Mississippi, on the way over, but just briefly, because I was very busy staying in the correct lane. So that’s how the day started.

Again, while talking with Abbey, it occurred to me that I’d seen essentially no farmland between California’s Central Valley, and the Mississippi. Obviously, there is farming done west of the river, but, apparently, not along I-40 or I-44. As soon as I crossed the river into Illinois, it was nothing but farmland.

By the way, speaking of renewable energy (previous post), while traversing the Texas panhandle, west of Amarillo, I drove through a windfarm that was twenty miles long. Enormous turbines as far as the eye could see. Then on the other side of Amarillo and into Oklahoma, a half dozen more, smaller but still out of proportion to anything we see in the east. Thousands of turbines in a couple hours driving, and that’s only what I saw. It was a wonderful sight.

And finally: today, in Indiana, I passed up the chance to get off the highway and see the World’s Largest Pitchfork. Sorry. Maybe next time.