Quest of the Phoenix 2017 (9)

I didn’t sleep too well, thanks to a combination of lingering coffee (which, of course, I’d needed to get through my Vanishing Point-esque marathon) and whatever is the car equivalent of jet lag. But I figured it would be enough. Had a nice, big, fat continental breakfast with extra coffee; studied my route for the day; the usual. After checking out and loading my stuff into the car, I called my dad again, since he wanted to know that I was okay, etc., and also to vicariously relive his own various trips out West back when Route 66 was still Route 66.

I deliberately took the long scenic route out of Amarillo, for no particular reason other than being curious about the city. It was pretty nice for the most part. Apparently, it has a fair amount of crime and also a lot of WIND (up to and including tornadoes), but it seemed sunny and pleasant and full of STEAKHOUSES, so could be worse.

Driving through the remainder of the panhandle, now in bright sunshine, I listened to the remainder of the RadioLab episode dealing with the haunted farmhouse; not too surprisingly, most of the mysterious phenomena turned up mundane explanations. After that, I switched to the next episode, which dealt with a reporter who, after years of pestering, finally got to speak to the infamous Bernie Madoff in prison. The impression that emerged is that Madoff was indeed a sociopath, but also that he was simply acting according to the dictates of his environment (i.e. Wall Street).

The Texas Panhandle is, bar none, the most boring landscape I have ever driven through. It’s like the agricultural parts of the Saginaw Valley to the 9th power. UTTERLY flat yet without trees or streams or what not; basically a single gigantic wheat field covering an area about the size of a small moon. The only cool part was these weird little mini-canyons towards the eastern border that looked like the earth had just sort of cracked open a bit for no particular reason.

Then, I knew I’d crossed the state line into Oklahoma because suddenly I saw a sight I’d hope to delay as long as possible: A sign saying “SPEED LIMIT 70.” After this unpleasant news, further signs informed me of the name of the state, which evidently was of lesser importance than oppressing the downtrodden with such an absurdly low, almost Midwest-like speed limit. On the plus side, the land grew a bit more green and rolling, which, though not as cool as desert and mountains, at least was superior to what I’d seen earlier that morning.

Oh, and it turns out that Oklahoma is, in fact, part of The South (TM). Looking at a map, you’d assume it was just sort of an extension of the Great Plains states, but no. I stopped for gas near a small town whose name I can’t remember, and the display screen on my pump was so faded that I couldn’t punch in my info properly, therefore I could not pay at the pump and had to go into the store. Nobody was at the counter, but a twentysomething blonde woman appeared behind me as she moved to rectify this situation, asking “Help you?” in a thick Southern accent. She ended up telling me to swipe my debit card, to which I, at first, mumbled something about how I usually have to insert it (thanks to this “chip” nonsense) while looking at the machine.

“Just swipe it,” she said, clearly a bit irritated. I did so, it worked, and she handed my receipt while conspicuously looking off to the side somewhere. It must suck when you come from a region that gets cruelly shat upon by Hollywood with such pompous consistency that you automatically dislike anyone who doesn’t have the same accent as you.

Furthermore, the freeway seemed clogged with police, who on two consecutive occasions pulled out of their hiding places to pull someone else over just after I passed. Not sure what they pulled them over for; perhaps driving three mph over the speed limit? In the meantime, however, I passed some red-dirt hills that were pretty cool. Oklahoma was fairly pretty, actually; it was strange to think that it all looked like a normal agricultural region, but as soon as one broke the turf, bright reddish-orange dirt would emerge. Meanwhile, I was listening to a mix of old goth/deathrock songs for no other reason than the fact that I hadn’t done so in forever.

Near the western edge of Oklahoma City, I stopped at an amalgamated “travel center” to urinate and then try some chicken from yet another fast-food franchise I’d never patronized. In line at the counter, I was behind a black man who seemed to be mentally ill, as his attempt at ordering was almost totally incoherent, though the staff managed it somehow. There was also a white guy who came up beside me and started complaining about… something, also in a very, very Southern sort of way, ending with “I ain’t got no respect for her,” which was also baffling when heard out of context. When I put in my own order, the girl misinterpreted “Mountain Dew” as “barbecue” [sauce]. I let it go. Then the manager folded up my bag and handed it to me while again conspicuously not making eye contact. I thought I’d been being polite; was I doing something wrong? The chicken and biscuits were really good, though.

Oklahoma City’s traffic was not as bad as some cities, but it still took awhile to get off of I-40 East and onto I-35 North, with a few irregularly-marked signs that made me think I’d gone the wrong way once or twice. Meanwhile, the tallest building, whatever it is, was interesting to look at, with a sort of flared crown in a style I hadn’t seen before.

The northern part of Oklahoma was kinda boring, though pleasant enough; essentially more of what I’d already seen all day. The temperature was hovering right around 70 F. Curiously, all throughout the state were signs along the freeway advertising each town of note with a list of their “features” and part of me wouldn’t have minded stopping to do so if I didn’t have several hundred more miles to cross so I could eventually sleep. One day perhaps I’ll devote like six months or something to traveling across the entire country very gradually so that I can see everything.

Circa early-mid afternoon I crossed into Kansas, where the speed limit re-ascended to a more reasonable 75. Not long after this, however, 35 North became the Kansas Turnpike and I had to stop at one of those automatic-ticket booths with the expectation that I would “pay money” at a later point for the privilege of driving on their road. You know who ELSE does this? Ohio. Although the nice thing about turnpikes is that they have “service centers” attached to them which combine gas stations, restaurants, and rest areas into one admittedly-convenient package.

Via the turnpike, I passed through Wichita, which looked nice enough from what little I could see of it. Apparently, it is the hometown of the fast-food franchise where I’d gotten the Chicago Dog in Maricopa, and they have SIX locations there. It occurred to me that I should probably stop at another one before the end of the trip since I also wanted to try their burgers. But not yet.

After Wichita, I stopped at a service center around 5 PM. I’d noticed the sky turning a smoky yellowish-grey color, which disturbed me since driving into a tornado would be even worse than driving into Las Vegas. Walking into the amalgamated services-building after getting gas, I used the bathroom and then opted to get food from one of the two restaurants present: A burger-and-fries place and a donuts-and-coffee joint. Initially, I opted for the former, but a bunch of people were in line there whereas the latter was bereft of customers, so I changed my mind. Besides, they would have coffee. I ordered a cup of that plus a turkey-sausage, egg, and cheese flatbread.

The girl at the counter quickly fetched my coffee and then disappeared for a couple minutes as I stirred creamer into my beverage. Another employee returned from break, at which point the girl asked him how to make a turkey-sausage, egg, and cheese flatbread. He, speaking in a lispy falsetto while looking a bit like Milton from Office Space, told her that she should fetch the manager, who was out “smoking her cancer sticks.” Perhaps the two of them were having difficulty figuring out what sorts of ingredients went on a turkey-sausage, egg, and cheese flatbread? In any event, after approximately ten minutes, during which Milton kept talking about “cancer sticks”, I finally received my turkey-sausage, egg, and cheese flatbread, which contained all the ingredients you would expect and was edible but probably the least-good fast-food item I had on the trip. I probably should have gotten a DONUT instead, since those seemed to be the franchise’s main focus.

Emerging from the service center I texted a coworker to thank her for working for me and to sadistically humble-brag about the fact that it was warm here while still being like 46 degrees and rainy back in Michigan. I then returned to the freeway and drove deeper into the weird smoky haze.

As it turns out, the smoky haze was the result of actual smoke (which I’ll take over a burgeoning tornado). Several of the fields I passed had large blackened patches on them. My immediate suspicion was that this was the work of Ohioans, but in fact, I passed a sign saying “RANGE BURNING AREA — DO NOT DRIVE INTO HEAVY SMOKE” (fortunately, the smoke was “moderate” at worst). So presumably it’s some agricultural thing the farmers do to clear or re-energize the fields or some such thing that I don’t understand. The result, in any event, was that the landscape through which I now proceeded was even more Mordor-esque than the area around the Hoover Dam. One usually doesn’t discover air pollution heavy enough to discolor the sky out in the countryside. I also passed some flooded-field type swamps with trees sticking up out of the water, adding to the slightly eerie atmosphere created by the smoke.

I emerged from the haze around the time I also left the turnpike (the toll ended up being $7.50, which I suppose I can tolerate), and stopped at a rest area before approaching the outskirts of Kansas City. Which is actually in Missouri, though much of its metropolitan area bleeds across the state line into Kansas-Kansas. My hotel room was in Overland Park, an upscale suburb on the KS side.

Traffic here wasn’t too terrible by urban standards, but there was a lot of obnoxious construction everywhere that closed off several lanes. I found my exit without difficulty, but after that, I had difficulty finding where the hell the hotel itself was despite apparently being right off the freeway. I couldn’t find the side-street I was looking for and ended up detoured briefly into a ritzy-as-heck neighborhood of shady mini-mansions. Turning around I was back on the crowded highway and ended up making two probably-illegal U-turns in backtracking further. It turned out that the street I was looking for branched off the lot of a convenience store but was not directly connected to any other “road”, and furthermore that the hotel I sought was located in a conglomerated area where three other major hotel chains all operated adjacent offices. The sign of one of the others had blocked the sign for mine. There was only one office, so presumably, the proprietors here operated four franchises simultaneously.

At the front desk was a South Asian man who unfortunately had to answer a phone call about where the hotel was located (the very subject I’d just tackled myself, with difficulty), a call which ended quickly once the man was forced to attempt to describe how to find this weirdly-designed place in a thick Indian accent over the phone. He then returned to getting me checked in. My room was located on the second floor, which made it a bit of a hassle. It was also a tad small and dilapidated, but it would do. The bed was unusually comfortable, in any event, with a nice firm mattress. I can’t sleep as well on either mattresses or pillows that are too soft and squishy. Irritatingly, the smell of marijuana smoke lingered in the bathroom. This only bothered me because it was a non-smoking room with the usual enormous cleaning-fee if a guest was caught smoking here. If housekeeping noticed, they would be unlikely to believe my (true) claim that it was the work of the previous guest. So I turned on the bathroom fan for a couple hours and sprayed air-freshener everywhere. That seemed to do the trick.

Shortly after I settled into the room a couple guys started having an extended conversation in another language right outside my door. At first, I thought it was the staff speaking Hindi or something but then I recognized it as Spanish, though I never got fluent enough to understand much of what a native speaker says quickly and in an accent and with dialect, etc. On the off chance that they were standing right outside my door for some specific “reason”, I pushed a nice heavy desk in front of said door and placed a small table to act as a stumbling-hazard between the window and the bed. The two gentlemen went away after a little while and after eating a sparse dinner, checking Internet-crap on my phone for awhile, and reading a bit, I laid down and finally acquired eight hours of sleep.