The journey ended where it began: at a lonely farm house just northeast of Belle Plaine, Iowa. We had covered nearly 3,600 mile to and back from California. Nine days in the car: four out and five back. In between, we spent near five weeks in Huntington Beach at the pool, at the beach, and wondering around the town and its parks.
Here are some observations of things noted on the return trip. They are random, but collectively they are my picture of (and maybe tribute to) a thin slice of America, and the ordinary and amazing place it is.
As dusk approached, the fireflies came out. The sky was purple-blue and over the intense green grass, the little lights flickered. The light appeared to come from a pendulous bulb at the back of the flying insect. I could discern neither pattern nor purpose to the flashes. They came irregularly and resulted in no movement of one or other firefly towards or away from another. I have set my eldest grandson the task of trying to find out how they make their light and why. It seems a reasonable question to ask a curious seven-year old who claims to be able “to read books and search the computer.”
Five columns tower up in front of the restrooms of a Rest Stop in Nebraska. The longest is inscribed with the date 1850, the shortest with the date 1995. The story they purport to tell is loss of topsoil from the earliest to the latest date: from 15 inches in the mid 1800s to 5 inches just before the turn of the 20th to 21st century. I wonder how they came by this number. If correct over a widespread area, it is a significant loss. Has the loss slowed in recent years, or does this rate continue? Is the beautiful countryside really slipping away at so great a rate?
A yellow convertible passed us somewhere along the infinite road. The top was down and a couple huddled in the sun and the wind. They were bundled up and looked intensely uncomfortable. I have driven my son’s convertible with delight down Pacific Coast Highway on balmy summer days, smelling the sea air. That is what convertibles are for. But on the highway? No. The wind, the sun, the noise, all make for a terrible drive. If you must display your wealth by ostentatious display of unusual car, then, when traversing the freeway, you need a “traveling” car: say a Lincoln Navigator, or Humvee, or one of those really large and sloping Mercedes. An open convertible on the highway is just silly showoff, without taste or discretion.
At a dusty gas station somewhere in the desert, I noticed a polished and shining black car. Its inhabitants, two men, a woman, and a child, were beautifully dressed in tasteful, appropriate clothes. They were good looking with darkish skin and gleaming hair. I could not make out their language. But I noted that their license plate was from Iowa, so with little else to do as the gas pumped into the car’s tank, I greeted them and asked which way they were going. This caused mass confusion: it seems only the woman understood me and she tried to translate to the men who looked more and more confused. By this time I noted that all their luggage was packed neatly in clear plastic bags. I gave up and probably never will solve the riddle of the origins or destination of those whose dress and car bespoke taste and money, but who could not afford suitcases.
The news was glimpsed fleetingly through the windows of newspaper dispensers outside McDonalds: an immigration bill trashed; the Supreme Court bars racial considerations in school admissions; a murder here; a death there. I will have to catch up with the details later.
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