June 22, 2006

• Boulder (Sort Of)

  Flying north out of Texas, a rain storm and a consistent tail wind. I got lost in Oklahoma City, because the I-35 exit ramp was closed. I had to bypass on US 44 or 77 or whatever it was.

  I made it to Blackwell, OK, where I decided to get a motel room, just a few miles from the mostly meaningless goal of making it over the Kansas border in a day’s travel.

  The guy in the motel office: “Do you have triple-A?” “No…” “Well, you do tonight.”

  He was early twenties, pierced lip, scruffy goatee. He asked me for my address, without asking for the city; zip code only. I told him, and he said, “Seattle or Wedgewood?” “Both. Wedgewood is in Seattle.” He then told me about a friend of his who had ‘escaped’ Oklahoma (his word), and how he had tried twice to get as far as Texas, only to be sucked back in by his family.

  I guess hospitality services isn’t as plum a job as one might think… But I have to say that any place in Oklahoma that would let a guy with a pierced lip have a customer service job has to be more progressive than one might think.

  Next day: Zooming forth through Kansas. Kansas is large and flat. The gentle rolling hills of the southeastern part of the state give way to a mind-numbing two-dimensional expanse the further west you go. You’re an ant crawling across a football field, fourth down and four hundred miles.

  And then, despite your apprehension of this moment, it’s still a sudden shock: You’re on the edge of the plains. Before you is a valley, draining down into eastern Colorado. The sunset is pink and gold, and the storm to the south (National Weather Service warning: Golf-ball-sized hail) is a wall of purple. The hills disappear below into haze and faraway rain.

  A watertower on a distant hilltop, lit golden against a salmon sky. A flock of birds, a hawk surfing the hills. Even the semi-trucks passing me like I was standing still seem somehow poetic.

  I pull into the last rest area before Denver. There are bands of teenagers coming and going; I have to wonder what’s going on behind the scenes here. I catch a short, fitful nap. I’ve developed heartburn. Must have eaten too much McDonald’s. Every burp, and in fact, every exhalation, feels as though it could be fatal. A guy in a pickup truck parked next to my van eyes me with a strange mixture of longing and trepidation. Teenagers laugh and get in their cars to escape the beginnings of the rain…

  Moving on, I get to the E-470 tollway, which is quite possibly the most convenient tollway ever to exist, ever, if you’re trying to get from I-70 by the Denver airport to parts north, such as Lafayette. However, in the stretch I drove, there are four toll plazas, $2 apiece. Zooming at 70mph around metro Denver is nice, but $8? I guess it was worth it.

  • 2:56 pm
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