December 6: Santa Fe, NM to Shawnee, OK. Starting mileage: 40,219.

After seven weeks on the road, today we started two long days of driving East. We were heading home. First, we’d go from Santa Fe southeast to meet I-40, and then turn left on the road home to Nashville, some 1,200 miles away.

Leaving New Mexico

The wind was screaming–ushering in a change, a more biting cold, the turning of the seasons, and for us, the ending of the trip. Tumbleweeds blew across the road, reminding us of the day more than a month ago when we’d zoomed across Kansas and Colorado–dodging tumbleweeds–-to get an oil change before the Chevy dealer’s closing time.

At the junction of I-40, we tumbled into Clines Corners for a fill-up. In the 1930s, this pit-stop “town” was moved and moved, and moved again, by its tenacious owner, Roy Cline, to keep up with the rerouting of main travel roads and Route 66. Lucky for him, when the interstate system assumed a portion of Route 66, Clines Corners was finally in the perfect place.

Divination

It was still early, and I was already tired for the coming long days of driving. Our epic road trip was nearly over. I smiled in the Clines Corner bathroom mirror. What an odyssey life is. I wondered about my wandering, about the restlessness, about the future, the aging, the what’s-next worries so very close to the surface these days. And then, I put it all away–like Scarlett, with a “I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

I walked out of the bathroom, dodging a cowboy headed for the ladies bathroom, and came face-to-face with Zoltar and the Medicine Man. If I put a coin in these fortune-telling machines what would they tell me? Would I want to know? Or dear God, would I grow up (or grow old!) in a blink like Tom Hanks in Big? I photographed them both, tapped each with two fingers for peace, for luck, and for a show of respect, and walked back to the car. Time to go.

Progress

The Interstates may be great for moving quickly around the USA, but they are not ideal for scenery. “Progress” litters the view with houses, strip malls, industry, and warehouses. On this stretch, billboards were planted one after another, after another, for miles and miles and miles. We saw a tiny house with one giant cottonwood tree in the backyard and no other trees in sight, a reminder that nature once reigned. Massive flocks of birds flew over, melding and dividing, like moving designs of black clouds. Herds of birds!

Herds

We crossed into the Texas panhandle, land of Annie Proulx’s “That old Ace in the Hole”. I told Mama the story of the character researching locations for pig farms and instead finding happiness in the panhandle community. As is Annie’s specialty, the landscape and the old ways come alive in her writing, and I imagined Ace climbing high to fix one of these rickety windmills. We saw a few cows grouped around the base of one. They drank from the trough of water brought to the surface by the windmill. Maybe they were talking about the last night’s pretty moon at their water cooler.

Later, near Wildorado, we passed the biggest modern wind turbine farm we’d ever seen. These were for electricity, not pulling water from the earth. There were acres of cotton fields, and another cloud of black birds. Then, we saw cows–hundreds, maybe thousands of cows crammed into muddy pens close to the road. They were crowded, standing knee-deep in the mud, without enough room to even turn around. Sadder still, vast empty fields were visible for miles behind the pens. Fields that those cows must have stared at with longing when they were rounded up and herded onto cattle cars.

Cadillac Ranch

Near Amarillo, I saw cars parked and people walking into a field. “What’s that?” I pointed and asked Mama. But only a second later, I knew. “OMG! It’s CADILLAC RANCH!” I had not anticipated seeing this famous art installation–ten classic Cadillacs buried up to their steering wheels. We took the next exit and drove back on the frontage road and parked. It was a short walk out to the “sculptures” amid the smell of cow manure and fresh spray paint. The Cadillacs are graffiti covered and spray paint cans litter the bare ground all around.

Oklahoma!

The landscape didn’t change at the border. More windmills. More cows, with the occasional long-horned steer. And more billboard farms, with one sign cautioning: “hitchhikers may be escaping prisoners”.

We passed through the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation, then Oklahoma City, and arrived into Shawnee around 7:30 p.m. We were dead tired. It still felt like we were rolling, even when we fell into our beds that night.

December 7: Shawnee, OK to Nashville, TN. Starting mileage: 40,799.

It seemed as if we’d just laid down. And then I was awake in the almost quiet. I laid there listening to Mama Lucy breathing in her bed, to the constant sound of cars on a highway not too far away. One more load up. One more day of driving. And one more load out. And our amazing trip would be over. The trip would situate itself in our memories. I laid there for a few minutes–thanking the universe for my mother, for the time to do this together, for the trip itself.

It was a cold morning. Condensation covered the window at sunrise. We showered, packed up, and after a free breakfast at the hotel, we started the car, scraped a light frost from the window, and loaded up.

Another day on I-40

We drove past exits with names like Big Skin Bayou, followed by Little Skin Bayou. Mid-morning, we crossed into Arkansas. Around lunchtime, we stopped in Conway for gas and a big Cracker Barrel lunch. Mama told me that Conway Twitty got his name from this town. And hey, hadn’t we passed a Twitty in Texas yesterday? Yep, turns out country-music legend, Harold Lloyd Jenkins chose his stage name after studying a road map: Conway, AR and Twitty, TX.

We passed Toad Suck Park, AR. and saw more large flocks of birds. And naturally, there was more road. We listened to our favorite XM-Sirius stations and stopped for gas, coffee, stretches, and bathroom breaks.

Sometime in the mid-to-late afternoon, we passed over the Mississippi River into Memphis, Tennessee. We celebrated our home state with a DQ ice cream dinner and got back on the road. This was the same rough-road stretch of I-40 we’d traveled going to Memphis six weeks ago. Now, we drove this stretch heading home, through the sunset, twilight, and dark.

HOME! Ending mileage: 41,461.

At long last, we pulled into my mom’s driveway at 7:22 p.m.  Tired, relieved, and happy. We unloaded the car...like for bears…EVERYTHING OUT. We were home!

Some stats:

• Total miles driven: 11,511.
• 49 Days + 12 hours.
• 27 States + D.C.
• 30 different hotels.
• 2 Oil changes.
• 8 National Parks
• 16 pressed pennies each.
• And a million memories!

Lessons learned:

1. The Road is the trip too.
2. Look for luggage carts and give thanks for wheels.
3. Sit for a spell. Observe.
4. Life is short. Cram it in. Go!
5. Trust Siri.
6. Eat at local diners.
7. Always stop at the penny press.
8. Take care of your ride.
9. Changes happen. Don’t stress. Adjust and go.
10. Get a good playlist.
11. Pack snacks and water.
12. Cranky happens. Be nice to each other and pull over for good stretches.

Thanks for reading!

Select photos are available on Etsy.

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