Sure, there was a gas "crisis." Sure, it had been raining so much that there been had flash floods in much of the state over the last week. Sure, I had a headache and felt like crap on the day I had set to start my travels. But that didn't dissuade me. I had time off, and I took a road trip.
I set out, with my camera in hand, to document my travels through hunks of East Texas and Oklahoma. I was out to explore Small-Town USA! On a Thursday morning I filled up my car with gas at $1.43 a gallon, and I filled up my wallet with cash from a machine that wouldn't add a service charge. That was the cheapest gas, and the last free cash, I was to see for the next several days.
I was actually headed to see my parents' new house in northern Oklahoma, and planned to make the best of things, tourist-wise, along the way. Sadly, rain cut my road trip short - I had planned to spend at least two days of exploration on the road and ended up racing to higher ground on the second day, missing important cultural landmarks like the world's largest peanut in Durrant, Oklahoma. And sometimes I got to places I had planned to stop, and my headache was just too bad, and I'd think, "To hell with this." And I'd just drive on.
Another little problem was that the thing about Small-Town USA is that it's only interesting in small doses. You'd think I would have remembered that from growing up in Small-Town USA, but it must have slipped my mind.
When I returned home, however, I realized that I had plenty of stories to tell and some fairly interesting pictures to show off, in spite of the weather and my own whininess.
© 2000 E.V. Hobbs