Driving Into the Night

Driving at night is its own magical experience, especially when driving through the country…it is so dark, it feels like you are on a narrow strip of highway surrounded by a vast universe of possibility. Since I am heading east, I was literally driving into the night, losing time as I moved backwards through space. My clock kept resetting itself, making it seem as though I had been driving longer than I had.

Driving through the South in America always freaks me out a bit. My first disjointing experience is usually the radio dial. The section reserved for NPR in my usual world, in Texas and other rural southern places becomes a hotbed of Christian radio, augmented by the constant reaffirming billboards: “When you die, you will meet God.” “Jesus is the only way to God.” “Yahweh. God’s real name.” It is very disorienting and distressing to be around such confidence in statements unsupported by any objective evidence, not to mention the sense of having a monopoly on truth…as though, if there were a god, it would make sure that only a small middle eastern population met it. I think if there were a god, it would throw a party and invite everyone, but southern fundamentalist Christians are of another view. To be fair, I guess all religions think their way is the one their god wants practiced. Strange.

There was a call to pray for America on a talk radio show...apparently, America doesn't need an experienced public servant in office or a well educated populace of voters. America needs to turn to god. And politicians in Louisiana are now promoting this. Sigh.

The visual trip from Sonoran to the Chihuahuan desert is interesting, since the saguaros morph into yuccas as the landscape changes. The beauty of the various desert-scapes of open skies surrounded by glorious mountains, abruptly shifts into West Texas… a sad post industrial apocalyptic nightmare… metallic insects bob up and down as they suck oil from the ground. Tank farms blot the ground and the air smells of petrochemical pollution. Whereas Arizona has a clear atmosphere, allowing the glory of the skies to beam through, Texas is a hazy blur of clouds and sun. West Texas fortunately eventually leads to the society found in Dallas and Houston… more sophisticated, but socially still Texas.

I think it is very telling that as you drive through the small towns that line I10 and I20, the water tanks are still painted with paeans to high school football teams that won victories for these towns in the 80s and 90s… And high school football still rules here. Radio stations give tickets to these games as prizes. What does it say about a society’s values when the best you can achieve as a man is to have won a physical competition before turning 18? That is what these towns value, not a mature success won by intellectual pursuits and hard work over time. Streets and buildings are named after sports heroes here.

Now I have arrived back in the land of greenery...a desertless wasteland where the rolling hills and the tall bushy trees just block out the sky. Gone are the infinite horizons and vast open spaces and sky views. The bones of the Southwestern mountains are now padded with the fat of the land. 

I’ll submit my technical report on equipment separately. So… now I sit at the dinette in my travel trailer parked in the Walmart parking lot in Ruston, between Shreveport and Monroe, LA. I’m home. The “Beat It” - lent to me by my friend Andrea in case I needed to jump start my truck – powers my phone and computer. I have a battery powered lantern. It’s all good!

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