Bedbugs, cockroaches, a damaged bathroom door, no bathtub plug,
evidently a relatively higher crime area -- much of this is not clear until this morning, so it is definitely time to hit the road again (we have been blessed with fine rooms this entire trip until now, and hope for the best in future).
Back
on
40,
westward
oh,
ho,
ho,
ho! --
the
greater
Ozarks
through
northwestern
Arkansas
(this southerly return has featured at least reasonable topographic relief every day),
eventually
over
the
border
to
Oklahoma,
with
its
rich /
tragic
Native
American
experiences --
tribes,
most
relocated
from
lands
as
distant from the local Canadian River (itself a nomenclatural outlier) as Pennsylvania (Lenape) and California (Modoc).
To
the
capitol
city
with its revisionist renaming of said stream through its municipal boundaries, and
beyond,
looking
for signs of the arid west /
Great American Desert,
approaching the 100th meridian,
at last,
the
Texas
frontier
(in
both
senses).
Nice
introductory
canyons
at
the
architectually
Welcome
Center,
doubling
ominously
as
an
tornado shelter.
Paradoxical
flatlands
so flat that one is
hard-pressed to criticize
the placement of
windmills,
even a burning one...
Amarillo, within reach of Palo Duro (almost, on our schedule).
More delicious / sober Mexican fare, and another enchanted evening, contitions somehow reflecting the 68th day of summer back home, high down 6 to 84...
Amarillo, 85
Oklahoma City, 84
Little Rock, 81
