Yesterday’s drive was exhausting, I planned on driving about 160 miles, but ended up closer to 250 miles. That perhaps doesn’t seem like all that much, but it was on winding, 35 MPH roads most of the way. The extra miles were due to my mistake. I planned out a stopping place for the night that was going to be quick and easy. I reserved a room in Steinhatchee based upon those plans. However, once I started on the road I realized that my route was on a main interstate down the middle of the state where there were no towns, nothing to look at, and just blasting along with dense forests of both sides of the road. That is definitely not my approach for this trip.

I rerouted going directly south to the gulf instead of east. I got to the coast at Port Saint Joe and then took hwy 98 along the beach toward the east. This was a very pretty drive. It is known as Florida’s “lost coast” because the main highway bypassed it with the freeway that I had originally planned. It was pretty, but a lot longer and a lot slower – hence it is one of those routes less taken. The little towns reminded me a lot of California’s little beach front communities such as Mendocino, Bodega Bay and others. They had a lot of little, boutique stores bustling with tourists and vacationers. Lots of restaurants and things of interest. I didn’t stop to partake of these because I knew that I had made the mistake with my hotel reservations by then, I messed up my planning.

My route took me along the beach, then looped inland to avoid a road-less section, finally returning to the coast at Steinhatchee.

My room was in one of the little cabins facing the highway. It was very small, but kind of cute and a nice change from the cookie cutter rooms I have been in lately. The biggest problem was that there was no breakfast, or restaurants open for breakfast in the town. Steinhatchee is a vacation town with lots of marinas, vacation rentals, bait shops and restaurants. However, almost all of the restaurants are closed on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The only open on the weekend days, and not at all for breakfast. Not only are there lots of marinas, there are lots of commercial and sport fishermen. It is the first time I have seen a place that caters to fishermen, but doesn’t have wonderful little cafes to serve them breakfast. Oh well, luckily the grocery store was open so I could get an apple, yogurt and fruit drink for breakfast. It worked, but I had fantasized about sitting in a little dock-side cafe, watching the boats while having a nice breakfast and hot cup of coffee. So much for fantasies.

Last night I stopped in at a little bar and grill (without the grill part because it was Tuesday night). They were testing a new idea of having taco Tuesday, so I could have gotten a taco – they only offered oyster tacos which didn’t sound all that interesting to me. I got to talking to a couple of recently retired people. A couple of years ago they moved from the big city to this tiny town. Their report is that it is wonderful, they really enjoy it and claim to have made more good friends in the first year than they made in their entire life in the city. Their appearance fit the location, slightly rough, longish hair, beard, weathered complexion. Most of the locals that I have seen look a bit like that. I don’t know how to judge their politics based upon dress, in California they would be the “old hippy” crowd, or the motorcycle folks. I didn’t get a chance to figure that out, but everyone I have run into is friendly, open to talking, and comfortable feeling. That is certainly a welcome change!

There would be a lot to do here if you wanted to rent a boat, or charter a fishing trip. It looks like you can also rent scuba gear and swim with the manatees. I am going to press on.

Yesterday’s trip through south-eastern Alabama was the first time that I have felt uneasy, and perhaps not as safe as I normally do. My “danger” receptors were activated by several situations. The first is that the area that I traveled through is clearly in economic distress. That was evident from all of the closed stores, poorly maintained houses, older cars and just the sort of run-down nature of things. While this made me a little more cautious than normal, it wasn’t all that new to this trip. Beyond that, there is clearly a general disregard for highway safety evidenced by a LOT of speeding well in excess of 30 mph over the posted speed limit, as well as an almost purposeful disregard for the no-passing lanes created by blind corners and hills. It felt more like an intentional “I dare you to make me follow the law” approach because instead of passing on long straight sections with good visibility, they wait until the double yellow lines to make their move. I found it rather scary, and wonder how much the intentional flaunting of laws extends into the rest of their behavior. To top it off, on the few occasions where I encountered people out of my car I always felt, and saw, their dislike for my being “in their territory.” Those times were definitely uncomfortable. I was relieved when I finally crossed the border into Florida, although I am not so sure that I may have jump from the pan into the fire.

I decided to spend the night in a Microtel in Marianna, Florida. It is apply named, the Microtel has micro-rooms. They work, but certainly don’t give a feeling of spaciousness. This is in the panhandle of Florida, quite close to the Florida Caves. Perhaps I will check them out today, although I am a little anxious to get back on the road heading south toward the keys.

Last night I had a hard time finding a place to eat. There are many fast food places, and closed restaurants, in Marianna. I finally found a steak house very close to my hotel and settled for that. It was nothing special, apparently a rather “low end” place, but they had a small bar – just what I was looking for. There were three “good old boys” sitting together at one end of the bar, and a lady bartender. I sat a few seats away from them in the empty section of the bar. They eyed me suspiciously, but since I only felt slightly threatened I decided to stay and see what the evening might bring. I ordered a glass of wine and dinner. The wine came in a small wine glass, carefully filled to the half-way make – it was small but I have come to expect that.

The three guys were talking loud enough that I could easily overhear them talking about fishing, the weather, their jobs, just the normal chit-chat of friends enjoying each other’s company. I got a little bold and injected a comment or two when it seemed safe to do so. They accepted my comments, and pretty soon I was sort of drawn into the conversation. At this point the bartender offered me another glass wine, but it came about 3/4 full – I guessed that was some sort of indication that I was not being rejected. The conversation soon turned to them asking about where I am from, and then because a little political. I tried my best to tread carefully with that topic, but without backing away from pointed questions.

Somehow or another things changed at that point in time. The group of three changed as a couple left, being replaced by others. Soon I was sitting in the middle of the group, engaged in pretty fun conversations. The bartender lady brought me yet another glass of wine – this time filled right to the brim! I knew I was “in” at that point. (That also put me precariously close to my wine limit.) At about the time that my wine glass was filled, one of the old boys leaned over and whispered to me that he agrees with all that I am saying, but he can’t speak up like that because he has to live with the other guys.

One of new guys joining the conversation works for the nuclear power industry. That got us into talking about nuclear power, how safe the new systems are, and all that. Of course I could just let that be without expressing my opinions – we had a very enjoyable dialogue. The conversation finally turned to energy in general, then into economics, the prices of houses, gasoline and a little (very little) politics. I don’t know if I changed any minds, but I got a lot of thoughtful replies and considerations from the entire group. A lot of “hum… I never thought of it like that, maybe there are different ways to do things” responses.

It turned out to be a fun evening, talking to people with very different backgrounds and points of view, but certainly open to my other ideas and opinions. I kind of wonder if they all wanted to whisper the same thing to me, that they agree with my points of view but can’t express them because they have to live with the others.

This was the kind of evening I had hoped for when I started my trip. Something similar has happened four or five times over the last month. Perhaps that is much more than I should have hoped for, having a real conversation once a week isn’t all bad.

After leaving Jackson on Friday the 26th things got a little busy and I didn’t manage to add another page to my blog. I went from Jackson to Hatiesburg, traveling most of the way on a “normal” highway cutting a lot of time out of my usual approach of wandering around on whatever small roads looked promising. Before arriving at Hatiesburg my friend Lee told me that there was likely to be “a little” discussion about baseball in town. Hatiesburg is the home of University of Southern Mississippi and everyone I talked to had something to say about the baseball games going on at that time. I haven’t kept up with college baseball, but obviously this is an exciting year for those living near “Southern Miss.” My hotel was almost surrounded by the campus, so there was no missing the excitement. The little bar and grill that I stopped in before dinner had 40 televisions that I could see from my seat, there were undoubtedly more – all tuned to the same game!

The main thing that I noticed about the difference between Mississippi and the other states I had been traveling through is that it feels a lot more prosperous. The small towns are still vibrant, the houses in the country are more likely to be modern homes rather than small older homes or single-wide trailers. It just had a feel of “prosperous” instead of impending ghost-town.

The following morning I had some “homework” to take care of, leaving my room right at check-out time. I got to the home of my friend Lee and his wife Shirley’s by mid-morning. The trip was quite pretty, traveling the freeway down through lush forests, but with very few signs of civilization. Just forest, the people must have been all hidden by the forest. The Lees live about 30 miles north of Pascagoula on their 45 acre piece of the forest. They carved out an amazing place, beautiful in every sense of the word. Their house faces a five acre pond, which is surrounded by acres of well kept lawn. The bought the property about 25 years ago and slowly cleared the land and finally built a really nice home by the pond.

In the evening we went to a really neat old-timey seafood restaurant on the gulf called Bozo’s. Lee gave me a copy of a print by Dena KcKee showing the place about twenty years ago. It has expanded since that time, but looks pretty similar even today – but with a much larger restaurant located to the right of the building, behind the Christmas trees.

My travels through Mississippi was memorable for the large number of “Blacks” everywhere. As a Californian I am of course familiar with many races of people, or whatever the politically correct term is these days, but seldom find myself in places where I seldom see other white folks. At first it felt odd, but quickly it just became comfortable – and fun because they seem to like to be more creative and flamboyant with their attire. The only times that I felt uncomfortable were when aggressive white guys were there – not physically but standing in “fight” posture, glaring at me and others. They felt like the radical right folks in California, just angry and appearing ready to pick a fight. I found them to be quite scary, I can’t image having to live amongst them on a regular basis. I was told that that the theater in that part of town used to have two drinking fountains, and three bathrooms. One for white men, one for white women and everyone else could share.

One of the fun things about Lee’s place is that he has a lot of little “get-ways” scattered here and there. There is his shop where he tinkers on fixing up old John Deere tractors, sharing space with an outdoor kitchen set up to entertain his large numbers of family and friends. Upstairs is his official office space, I am envious about the size and beauty of it done up in natural wood for paneling and decorated with may interesting trinkets and momentos. There are a few other outbuildings housing more tractors, wood storage, blacksmith tools and more. On the far side of the pond he has an elevated structure that make perfect viewing of whatever wildlife might be enjoying the pond. Overall, it is a really neat place. I consider is an amazing work of art.

As might be expected, Lee and I talked about many things – but perhaps mostly about our shared profession of System Safety Engineering. I don’t think we solved anything, but we commiserated on the problems.

The drive from Lake Village, AR to Jackson, MS was uneventful. Instead of taking the direct route I turned north as soon as I crossed the Mississippi River, going north along the river road (Hwy 1) for a few miles just to see what I could see. What I saw was a flat, very productive agricultural area. I assume this whole area is filled with silt from thousands of years of periodic flooding. There are lots of big fields, a few scattered homes, and once in awhile a small community. To me it looked like many of the small town areas in the Sacramento Valley. They look sleepy and slow, without much going on – but that is just the way it is in those kinds of little towns. At least they didn’t seem to be 75% on the way to being ghost towns, they are just small and slow.

I had hoped to turn around and go south on hwy 61 through old rural towns, but somehow missed most of that and ended up in Yazoo City, and then on a big interstate highway to Jackson. I gave up and decided to take the “normal” route. It was pretty, very green and lush with wide mowed strips of green “lawn” along the highway and dense forests beyond that.

After a hour or so of needing to take a “bio break” I finally come upon a rest stop, located in the center divide. It was a combination rest stop archeological l museum located at an ancient mound site. Apparently between about 1000 AD and 1300 AD the local inhabitants took up the process of building very large mounds, similar to those that I visited in Arkansas. They decided that this particular mound had a flat platform on top where a ceremonial building was located. A few people used that building (the priests?), while the community lived in the surrounding clearing. I suppose I should have been excited about the site, but it really just looked like a pile of dirt to me. According to the signs, there were many more mounds in this area until they were leveled during highway construction. They saved a couple of them by going around them with both directions of the freeway.

The best part of the site for me was a nice concrete footpath that went to the mounds, but then continued for a half mile or so into the wooded area beyond. Even though highway traffic was on both sides it was a nice stroll into a wooded area, a nice break from hours of sitting in the car.

My route took me right through the middle of the big city of Jackson. From my vantage point in the driver’s seat of my car, Jackson appears to be a vibrant, busy city. I went by the university, a very large hospital that was probably a teaching hospital associated with the university. My hotel room was located in a nearby town of Flowood. The only way I knew I was in a different town was the sign next to the road. Apparently the hotel is located near the airport since their promotional material promised that I would be able to hear the airport, but I didn’t.

Dinner was at a restaurant called The Iron Horse Grill, located on the far side of Jackson from my hotel. That gave me a chance to see a bit more of town and go through some very well-to-do looking parts of the city, with what I would call large mansions set well back from the street with broad lawns and fountains out front. The IHG is a restored Armour meat packing plant from the early 1900’s. From the many signs around it this is an apparently attempt to revitalize the old-town of Jackson, the part of Jackson that was instrumental in the creation of Jazz music. It was a fun venue, kind of funky old building. When I arrived their very large parking lot was packed and I feared that it would be difficult to find a seat for dinner, but the opposite was the case. The building is cut up into many smaller areas, some in separate rooms, some in balconies and a few on outside areas. All of the areas were being used, but none were crowded. Each had a very different “feel” about it because of the building and the decor.

As usual, I sat at the bar for dinner. A guy was playing a guitar and singing, but I got busy talking to the person sitting next to me and didn’t pay the musician much attention. My neighbor was a young man from India taking tech classes at the university. When I asked him how he liked it there, he said he was getting homesick, the city is fun and friendly – but WAY too hot and humid. We had a nice talk, just friendly chatting.

The humidity is starting to get to me. All of the things made of paper have become limp. My cloths never quite dry out. In the morning it is cool, so the humidity is barely noticeable but by mid-afternoon I find I feel drained. It is rather oppressive feeling, I am happy to get inside where there is air-conditioning. I am wondering what it will be like when I get further south, and the summer heat finally arrives. So far it has been mild spring weather and that is getting to me. It will undoubtedly become a challenge in a week or two (if not sooner).

I haven’t plotted my next path yet. My approach has settled down to measuring off about 150 miles on the map in the general direction of what I am headed. I am now headed for the gulf coast of Mississippi. Then I look around to see if anything looks appealing for that night’s stay. Once I get that settled in my mind, and perhaps make a reservation at a hotel I try to find the most interesting path, meaning the one that avoids big city’s when practical. It is daily process because I never know when I might deviate wildly from my intended path. Planning ahead just ends up with reservations that I can’t cancel and therefore pay for even though I don’t use the room. That is not an economical approach. I’ll stay someplace between here and the gulf tonight, and then go see my friend Lee on Saturday.

I am still near the town of Lake Village, Arkansas.  I took an eight mile trip out to see the nearby state park that is located on the banks of Lake Chicot.  It is a very pretty little park, with perhaps 60 camp sites, most of which are set up for RV’s with water, power and sewer hookups – and free showers in the bath houses scattered around the camp site.  It is so attractive that I decided to stay for a couple of days, living outside instead of in those cramped, isolated cells they call hotel rooms.  The hotel rooms are convenient, but it sure feels better being outside with the trees, grass, lake, birds and raccoons.  The weather is near perfect except for the feeling that it might rain.  I decided to give it a try.

This was my first experiment with my new “bed invention” for the back of my Subaru Forester.  I prepared for this possibility by making a wooden bed frame that folds up flat(ish) when traveling so that the seats are in their normal configuration.  When the back seats of the back seats are folded down my bed unfolds to create a flat sleeping surface extending from the cargo hatch to the back of the front seat. The head end has no support from the car, so it is cantilevered about 18 inches. This creates a 24 inch wide, 79 inch long bed. Since I am only 77 inches long, I fit!  I purchased a self-inflating mattress that just fits this platform.  Perfect.  Getting in and out of bed in the tight space was a bit of a worry, but it turns out to be easy.  The cargo hatch operates from the key fob, so once inside I can push a button to close it, and another to open it in the morning.  In the morning it feels a bit like being in a space ship or something, with the motor whirring as the hatch slowly opens the “air lock” to the outside. I can open the moon roof to get a nice view of the sky while lying on my back in bed.  Nice.  

In addition to trying out the bed, this was the first trial of my new Biolite_tm stove that uses a handful of twigs as fuel.  The heat unit is vertical cylinder about 10 inches high five inches in diameter.  It is a crazily high tech device considering it just burns sticks to boil water or cook a meal. It has a lithium battery that runs a fan for the fire and can be used to charge a cell phone.  I charged my cell phone on it this morning.  You fill the burner compartment with small pencil sized sticks, light a fire in the burn basket and turn on the fan.  The fan has multiple settings so you can adjust the burning rate of the fire.  A pot sits on top, or a large grate can be used as a grill.  There is a thermocouple in the burn pot that creates electricity to charge the battery, run the fan, and change a cell phone or other device.  It comes with a light that plugs into the battery, providing lighting if desired. The battery runs the light, the fire doesn’t have to be burning.  It works, and is kind of fun to play with.  The only down side so far is that it takes more than one load of sticks to boil a pot of water, meaning I have to add sticks from time to time.  This is not a problem when just heating the pot because I can just lift the pot off of the stove, but I think it might be very difficult when using the grill attachment. 

I made a bit of a mistake on my second night. I thought I put all the food out of reach of critters, but about an hour after turning in I heard noises in camp. Peering out of my car with my flashlight there were lots of glowing eyes! Four raccoons were exploring the things I left out on the table, checking them out and then throwing them off onto the ground. In the morning I discovered that I hadn’t been so careful, they found my box of crackers. My dumb fault, of course something would come by to get them. I was lucky it was just a band of inquisitive raccoons.

Having driven across about 2/3 of the USA and finding many towns in economic collapse, I am really wondering what is going on.  A persistent question is; “Why are these towns no longer needed?” It appears that perhaps fifty years ago they were vibrant, thriving communities.  That would have been around the time of the Viet Nam war, the time when my generation thinks about when we consider “how things were.”  Yesterday I was talking to an old friend, even older than me, who was telling me about a trip that he took into America when he was a young sprout of 21 or so.  He talked about all of the fun towns, the fun bars filled with music, the wonderful restaurants with amazing local dishes, and the pretty girls.  He expressed surprise that I wasn’t reporting on those things.  Instead, I am describing towns that were like that when he took his trip, but now are derelict buildings with the roofs caved in and the walls falling down.  It was, but it no longer is.

The cause of the decline seems pretty clear in the town of Lake Village.  Lake Village is in the middle of a huge agricultural area created by silt deposited by periodic flooding of the Mississippi river. A hundred and fifty years ago the land was worked by slaves.  That changed after the Civil War, but the labor needs didn’t.  Share cropping became the new form of cheap labor because while the share croppers received part of the profits, they did so with little or no outlay of money for the landowners.  It was all income and very little outgo, perhaps less expensive than slaves in many ways. 

This form of labor-intensive farming, coupled with limited transportation, resulted in the need for small local communities.  As mechanization took hold in the fields, the need for a large labor force went away, with the concurrent abandonment of the towns. That might account for much of the decrease. However, it clearly is much more than merely the decreased need for agricultural labor – there was a decreased need for all types of local labor as the economy shifted to “off shoring” jobs by moving production of all types of goods to less expensive countries.  We became a service economy. Things that were made here were first moved to Japan, then to China and many other low income countries.  As an example, when I was in Viet Nam in 2006 I visited some garment factories making many of the name brand clothes sold throughout America.  They were being made by hand because labor was so inexpensive; a high-paid garment worker received $1 a day for 16 hour days, many of them standing at their looms the entire time.  They worked seven days a week, for $365 a year!  I won’t mention the brands that were being made, but they were all well-known brands what you wouldn’t think to associate with what I considered labor exploitation.  There was no possibility for workers in the USA to compete with these wages, therefore they get nothing instead of almost nothing.

The vast tree plantations tell a similar story of reduced need for labor.  It the old dayss, trees were cut, brushed and bucked by lumberjacks. Now the trees are all the same size and are harvested with huge machines that grab onto a tree, clip it off at the base, slide a delimber up the tree, buck it into lengths and load it all on a log truck. There is almost no labor involved.  A few specialized machines and trained operators can log these vast man-made forests – very little labor is required.

In addition to noticing what is not here, I have been noticing two interesting situations.  One is the ubiquitous Dollar General stores.  They seem to be everywhere.  If a town has any kind of store, at least one of them will be a Dollar General located in a parking lot near the cluster of hotels, but not in a mall – they are almost all identical looking stand-alone stores.  I see very few of those high priced, fancy stores such as Walmart, but I do see a lot of Dollar General stores. I am only seeing what is on my thin path across the nation, but if what I see is any indication I would have to say that America is on a race to the bottom.

The other thing that is interesting is huge number of utility trucks and workers every place I go.  They fill the hotels and there trucks are just about everywhere there is a “where.”  I have spoken to a few of them and the story is always the same, they are “stringing wires.”  It looks like perhaps America is in the process of being rewired. Our electrical and telecommunications networks are being changed in big ways.  I don’t know what this means, or what the consequences might be for the future, but it is clear that something BIG is up.

I am curious what I find as I work my way further south-east and then up the eastern seaboard, or whatever path I end up taking. Wherever it leads, it is time to do the laundry again. 

My couple of days in the park have been quite nice.  Just a peaceful time to read a little, write a little, watch the birds and take short hikes.  I chat with other campers now and then, but most of the time I am just being by myself.   I hope to get out my sketch book this afternoon to practice sketching.  There are not many interesting buildings here. Therefore I am going to have to move from mostly rectangular shapes to more natural, rounded ones.  I am a bit nervous about that.  However, I can always throw my failed sketched away – nobody needs to know.

The states are getting smaller out here, I drove all the way across Arkansas to a little town of Lake Village in about five hours. It has happened once again, the “business district” consisting of the usual hotels and service stations cluster around the off-ramp to the interstate highway. The historical town of Lake Village is located on the banks of Lake Chicot, a 22 miles (35 km) oxbow lake that was formerly the main channel of the Mississippi River.

Lake Chicot is a very beautiful lake with many opportunities for boating, fishing and just enjoying the great outdoors – except that it is almost completely cut-off from the public by hundreds of high-end houses facing, each having their own private dock and beach. There are no fences out here, but it is very clear that the actual beach frontage is private property. There is a small fishing spot immediately next to town, but the next biblically accessible beach is in the State Park located about ten miles north of town.

The town of Lake Village appears to have been almost entirely abandoned fifty or more years ago. The stores are crumbling, with roofs fallen in and walls collapsing. A few businesses remain open. I open ones included the telephone company, a medical appliance store, a fancy dress store, and a bait shop. The best kept up building in town is a large catholic church. There is no place to eat, no grocery store, no pharmacy, no service station – basically no town. By this time I was getting hungry, and having been told by the hotel that the restaurant next door was acceptable I went there looking for dinner. Unfortunately, it was closed as were all of the other eating opportunities except for a McDonalds. I went to the grocery store across the street and got a couple of things from their deli. Not good, but at least I got something to eat.

It is interesting to see how many towns seem to have been wiped out of existence by the introduction of high speed highways. The towns lose their economic value and just dry up and blow away – along with the community that they supported. I find them to be very sad, but wonder if my sadness is misplaced – if they are no longer economically and socially necessary perhaps it is just time for them to revert to nature. Whatever services they provide much be available elsewhere at a better price, and that is just the way it goes. Perhaps my sadness is just some sort of misplaced nostalgia for a time that never was. For example, the Wikipedia description of Lake Chicot says that it used to be highly polluted with mud from the runoff from the agricultural fields around the lake. That has been fixed and now the lake is better, but the towns are gone. Maybe the issue is that the slaves are no longer in the fields because of modern machinery and there just isn’t a need for a town.

I am finally getting really tired of living in motel rooms. I feel like a rat that is placed back in my cage at the of the day. The rooms are all nearly identical, all of them smelling like cleaning products, all with lovely views of parking lots and garbage cans. My plan this morning is to go to the State Park and see if I can get a camp site for a couple of nights. That means I will need to test out my new in-car bed and perhaps my little wood burning stove that makes electricity to charge my phone. It will undoubtedly be an adventure. It also means that it will be a couple of days before I can get back to writing these little stories. I will be forced to use a pencil and paper for a bit.

I am attracted to the name “Arkadelphia,” it makes me chuckle because it seems to be a take off on Philadelphia, which means brotherly love. Delphia means brother, I wonder what Arkadelphia is supposed to mean? Perhaps it was just a playful name.

I found the location of the hotel in Arkadelphia to be yet another boring cluster of hotels, fast food joints and service stations near a freeway off-ramp. However, a quick trip around the vicinity revealed a much different picture. I took a short loop into the country and found the area had many upper-middle class homes nestled in the woods. It is within a few miles of a nice lake with a State Park offering camping and fishing experiences. Arkadelphia is the home of a state university. In this case, while the traveler encounters more of the same “industrial” conditions of crowded cookie-cutter services, the residents likely experience beautiful and enriching environment not far from the big city of Little Rock.

The trip east across Arkansas surprised me because of how open and unpopulated the country side is. The first 120 miles were through vast conifer plantations, interspersed with what appeared to be woodlands of hardware trees. Logging trucks were common on the highway, carrying loads of logs all about twelve inches in diameter. Apparently they harvest the plantations when the trees reach a foot or so in diameter. I also encountered truckloads of 2×4 lumber. I suppose there must be stud mills (lumber mills turning logs into 2×4 studs for housing) in the area, but I didn’t encounter any. I also expect to have found pulp mills, or possibly electrical plants using the wood from the plantations for fuel. However, I didn’t see any signs of any of these types of processing plants on the road that I took.

The road across Arkansas traveled over a series of “hills,” that seemed more like undulations that hills. It was basically flat county with a bit of ripple to the surface. I encountered very few towns, it was mostly unpopulated country with small clearings in the forest for a few homes along the way. If the route I took was at all representative of the rest of the state, it looks to me like it is almost all forest land with a few small towns and a couple of large cities. I hadn’t envisioned Arkansas as a massive forest, but that is what I encountered.

The eastern sixty miles or so of my trip across Arkansas was through very large farms growing some hay, a lot of corn, and crops that were unfamiliar to me. It reminded me a lot of the farmland in the Sacramento Valley north of Sacramento because of the size of the fields, I guess that they are about a section (square mile) each.

The drive across Arkansas was singularly monotonous with very little of interest. It was all trees, farm land, house every few miles, interspersed with a tiny town every twenty or thirty miles. I settled down an drove just to get to something, anything, more interesting.

I seem to have stalled out in Magill, spending two nights here and considering a third. It is not that there is anything special about this town, it is just that I need a break from driving. It is time to do my laundry, catch up on some email traffic, attend a System Safety Meeting, practice drawing and just plain kicking back for a bit.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the trip for the past couple of days has been the changes to the environment. Shortly after leaving Hereford a couple of days ago I noticed that the colors had changed, grass became green instead of brown, and the ground was no longer visible through the foliage. It quickly changed from slightly greener grass to large green lawns being mowed by big riding lawnmowers and forests with trees that formed a wall next to the road with their leaves reaching to the ground, preventing a view into the forest. I was suddenly past the desert and the plains, I was now in a land of summer rain and high humidity.

I now see squashed armadillos on the road and turtles making their way across the highways – apparently drivers avoid turtles but not armadillos. The double yellow “no passing” markings are no longer taken as the law, or even sound advice> Cars pass me regardless of the road markings, or the obvious blind corners – I guess there usually aren’t head-on crashes so it is safe to do so. The radio stations have also changed with the airwaves being dominated by extremely conservative political commentary or fundamentalist religious instructions. There are no longer any sources of moderate opinion – it seems to be all about the government being corrupted by the liberals and the impending end-time as described in Revelations. I set my radio on “scan” in the hopes of finding some relief, but without much success – it is all extremely conservative talk shows except for an occasional music station that either plays western music or light rock.

My first night in Magill was at an upscale Best Western where I got one of the last rooms, a big suite. It was quite nice, cheery and relaxing. That was not available for my second night due to a wedding and graduation. I moved down the street to an American Inn that was slightly less expensive, but much less attractive. I find this hotel to be quite drab and depressing but am not sure why. Perhaps it is partly to do with being an “enclosed” hotel with doors that open to long dark hallways instead of motels that open to the parking lot. Perhaps it is the lack of an elevator, forcing me to lug my bags up the stairs. The rooms are alright – kind of small but not unusually so. I think it has to do with the color scheme of green walls, dark carpets and bare walls. It feels like every step possible to reduce cost while meeting some minimum acceptable standard has been taken. No artwork, no open spaces, no bright colors, chipped furniture and stained carpets set the tone. Not really bad, but not very good either. The $20 a night saving is not worth the feeling of depression that comes with it. My variations in hotel accommodations reminds me of the tour that Mary Jo and I took in China in 2006. Our tour included a range of accommodations that might be described as varying from 1 star or less up to an occasional 5 star. I think they added in the 5 star ones to give a little relief. That is a bit like what I am doing. I can tolerate some pretty basic situations as long as I once in awhile get something a little better.

There are few dining opportunities in Magill. There are a couple of fast food places along the main highway, a home town cafe on 1st street and a pizza place. The home town cafe has low ceilings, dull lighting, large black and white photographs of people taken a hundred years ago, and a couple of huge stuffed bass fish. The menu tends toward catfish, grits, and other things that are not in my normal diet – obviously the local food is changing character as I travel into the south. The pizza parlor has more “normal” food. I ordered an 8″ pizza and a beer but got a 14 inch pizza at the same price, complements of the waitress I think. I could see that the six waitresses were noticing me as an outsider, they sort of huddled and glanced my way as they rather obviously talked about me. Every one of them found a reason to help me at my table, offering a little flirt as they departed. I asked one of them where I might find a bar. She responded with “Darlin’, you are now in the Bible Belt and bars don’t exist here due to local ordinances. They are an important part of a town.” I guess restaurants can serve alcohol, but there are no bars or saloons in this part of the world.

I am torn between staying here another day, perhaps going to see where those giant fish came from, or getting back on the road to see what adventures might come my way. I don’t expect many adventures in Magill but it seems that adventures come when least expected.

My daily activities have settled into a bit of a delayed writing schedule. For example, I arrived in Hereford on the afternoon of May 16, got signed in to a motel, took a little nap to rest after several hours of driving, went out to explore the town and have dinner, then read a bit about aliens (the book I purchased at the UFO store in Roswell), and sleep. There was no time to write. In the morning I got up, meditated, worked on my email traffic, wrote about what happened two days before at Boswell. This all took took so long that I missed the complementary breakfast, and I was back on the road arriving at Altus Oklahoma on the afternoon of the 17th. It is now the morning of the 18th and I am writing about Hereford on the 16th.

I suppose this is more information than you want, but I have gotten some comments questioning the difference between the dates in the title versus the posted dates. The reason is that I want to be out of a location before I write about my experiences there to make sure that nothing noteworthy is missed. My next opportunity to write about a location is two days after my arrival. And then of course there are those days that I just don’t get around to writing at all. By the way, it has been pointed out to me that there is no way to write to me, or make comments on the postings. Apparently that is correct, those options used to be available but I see that they disappeared – I have no idea when or how. I also don’t know how to fix the web site to allow for that, I created the site but have long ago forgotten how to fix it. You can always drop me a line at my email address of charles_hoes@hoes-eng.com if you have something to say or a question.

Today, May 18, is my birthday. I think I have now officially tipped into “old” at 76. I have close friends that are many years older than me that don’t act “old” – so I realize that for some lucky souls being “old” is a matter of opinion, I seem to be one of those lucky ones and don’t believe it. I do recognize however that for another groups of people their bodies might be starting to force a different opinion upon them, and they have to act old- or perhaps they actually die like my wife did so unexpectedly. Life’s a bitch as they say. In any case, at 76 I don’t think I can continue the fantasy that I have unlimited time to do things, and put off important tasks until later. Later just might not ever come. Of course that was always the case, and I knew it, but acted in many ways as if I am immortal. I find I am now spending some time trying to to figure out those things that seem most important to accomplish so I can put my time and attention there, rather than just twiddle away the days thinking that there will be plenty of time in the future. Of course, that doesn’t imply that there is anything wrong with twiddling away the days as long as that is an intentional activity – inaction, leisure, having fun and just doing nothing are all fine options. I just don’t want to accidentally use up my allotted time because of not paying attention.

The drive from Boswell to Hereford was an uneventful, 75 miles and hour trip across the high plains of northern Texas. Hour after hour of more of the same, until it changed. As I neared Hereford I began to notice large black blotches on the otherwise uniform light brown of the grasses and low bushes. The blotches were big BIG, apparently miles across. As I approached they stated to gain some definition and I could tell that they were cattle, my guess is that they were black angus – packed into the giant pens of several big feed lots. As I was driving next to the feed lots I could see some extra details. The cattle appeared to be able to have five or six feet of space between each other, standing on dark (almost black) ground covered in manure – not a green thing in sight. The large feed lot enclosures were crossed fenced, forming many smaller pens holding perhaps 500 animals each (I didn’t count, so that is just a wild guess). I couldn’t help but think about the plight of these animals confined for their entire life. Here and there were piles of manure with one or two steers standing on top getting a better view of their world. The smell was surprisingly mild, even when I finally got down wind of the enclosures. Not pleasant, but certainly tolerable.

I took a little time to drive around town (Hereford has a population of approximately 30,000 people) to see if I could find “the town.” I found that the two intersecting freeways turned into four lane, 30 mph roads with a scattering of businesses on each side. There was an old, dilapidated mall on one of the roads, and businesses similar to that found at my motel on the other. Most of the businesses were open and still doing business, it was clearly not a ghost town in the making. My impression was that it is a busy place that is treated more like a factory than a home. I had the uncomfortable feeling of being inside of some sort of giant, inhuman machine rather than being in a community. The spaces outside of the “business” areas were largely filled with nice, neat homes, schools and churches.

After getting settled into my small, but functional, motel room I went searching for a place to have a drink with locals, and a place for dinner. The big sign in the parking lot for the “Great Wall Buffet” gave a pretty good clue about that option – it was closed, boarded up, and falling apart. Just down the street I noticed a sign for a BBQ place. Being in Texas I thought I should at least try BBQ once on my trip. The door was open, but once inside it was clearly not operating. However, there was a lady sitting in a glassed in booth in the middle of the entrance to the restaurant – she was running a small business of cashing payroll checks inside of the larger business of the restaurant. Weird! She said that the restaurant was closed for a few days, but was still in business. When I asked her for a place with local food she suggested two steak houses, one that served alcohol and one that didn’t. I picked the one that did.

I found a nice steakhouse about a 1/2 mile down the main drag from my motel. It was pretty much like steak houses anywhere, a large room full of tables and a separate lounge area with a bar, some tables and a couple of booths. The bar had three people sitting at it and a couple of tables were filled with men talking and obviously enjoying some time at the end of their working day. I sat at the bar, between a young (20’s something) girl and a middle aged man (named “Frank” for the purposes of this story). One of the men at a nearby table caught my attention because he was wearing sparkling clean, ironed, worn, western wear. A crisply pressed shirt, ironed Levi’s, a clean (expensive) cowboy hat – and big spurs. The clean, pressed clothes and big hat marked him as “management” to me, but the spurs confused me. “Management” usually works in offices and rides around in pickups, and walks around – neither of which demand spurs.

Losing all control of my mind, I leaned over to the young lady and asked her what the deal with the spurs was (I should have known better)- I was curious about what sort of job the guy does that requires spurs, why does he wear them in the restaurant or are they just for show? Her response was to loudly holler to the guy with the spurs, saying something along the lines of, “Hey Jim, this fella wants to know why you are wearing spurs.” Holy cow, that was subtle! So now I was thrown into another really uncomfortable situation. Jim just looked at me quizzically, but didn’t say a word. Everyone in the bar heard that question and it became silent for a bit until Frank, sitting a couple of stools down from me said, “He is a cowboy.” That took the heat out of the moment and everyone went back to whatever they were doing.

I then said that I knew he was a cowboy, I could tell by his clothes, his hat, and his spurs – but my question was “why do they need cowboys here?”. I told him I saw the stock yards, but it didn’t look like they would need horses for that sort of operation. Frank then told me that it is still necessary to use horses to move the cattle around in the yard, it is still a very important job. That got us onto a very interesting conversation.

I quizzed Frank about whether or not he grew up there, which he didn’t. He grew up in California, went to school there and decided to move to Texas, landing in Hereford a few years ago. He said it was the best move of his life – Hereford is a very good place for business. It turned out that Frank is the owner of the restaurant, and of a very large, expensive hotel just behind the restaurant. The restaurant had been built by a well-to-do cattleman as a gift to his wife who just wanted to own such a place. She didn’t have a clue about how to manage it, so it quickly went broke and they had a bit of a “fire sale” to get out of it – which is where Frank came into the picture. He found it was an amazing deal, bought it and turned it into a success, soon taking over the hotel in similar fashion.

Frank explained that the county is very rich, with amazingly profitable businesses everywhere. He said there are something like 40,000 people in the county (30,000 in town and the rest scattered around),but did an annual business of 14 billion dollars! That is about $300,000 for each man, woman and child in the county. He said that almost everyone that was doing anything were multimillionaires, and some billionaires.

On hearing that I scrunched up my face, saying it sure didn’t look like that. He laughed and told me it is their little secret. They purposefully keep it like that. Their houses are nice, but not pretentious (which I had already observed) and all of wealth of the area in terms of agricultural production (with the exception of the feed lots) was far from the roads where it is not visible to the casual observer, such as myself. I asked about the crops, suggesting that perhaps it was for growing feed for the lots. He laughed and agreed, but then said they grow just about everything. He listed off a long list of crops (which I promptly forgot), and said that a big part of their business is growing seeds because they are so isolated that there are no other varieties to cross breed with the ones they are growing. The market for the seeds is global, my guess is that many of the seed companies near Davis California use this area to produce the seeds that they develop in the many greenhouses located near the University of California, Davis which is known worldwide for its expertise in crop development.

It turned out that my initial impression of it being a dull, dirty, kind of nasty place to live was totally wrong – in fact, perhaps that was a ruse to ensure that they are left alone, left to making their fortunes in their own way without much intervention. Franks said that as long as they have water and ground it is a gold mine. It reminded me a little bit of Coober Pedy in Australia. The main source of income in Coober Pedy is opal mining, highly prized valuable opals. All of the opal business is transacted with cash, with suitcases full of cash from Asian customers. Because of the high risk of getting robbed when carrying millions of dollars around in a suitcase, they hide in plain sight. They purchase expensive, fancy cars and strip the bodies off, replacing the bodies with beat up old ones – so they look just like “desert rat” vehicles, but run like new. All of the housing, their clothes, the way of life centers around being rich but looking poor. All except for their underground houses (literally underground) that few outsiders get to see. Hereford seems to be taking a similar approach.

This discussion really made me start to wonder just how much of what I having been seeing is real, and how much is a cover – a ruse to be allowed to do what they want because nobody really knows what that is. I wonder how deeply this ruse goes, if it exists at all.