As I’ve been going through these photos and preparing them for web publication, I realize that most of my stills weren’t taken until I hit the mountains. 

Falls Lake is a large man-made lake on the Neuse river north of Raleigh and Durham.  The photo here was taken from the bridge on I-85, which is between Oxford and Durham.  From here I proceeded west across the state via I-85 and then I-40, which carried me out of North Carolina “for good.” 

West out of North Carolina, I stayed on I-40 through Knoxville, TN to Nashville, where I cut northwest via I-24, and I was officially Where I’d Never Been.  Somewhere near Ledbetter in northern Kentucky just south of the Illinois state line, I pulled off and slept for maybe 90 minutes or an hour.  I was making fast time, but I didn’t know how far I was going because I’d never been that far in one trip before, so I was anxious to keep on rolling.

Much of this first half or so of the trip is documented mostly on video, because I had battery ;-)  Plus a lot of this first leg took place in the dark; I left at 6pm, and it was just coming dawn when I pulled over here.  In the summer that’s around 6am eastern, so I’d been going for twelve hours give or take.  AFter a short nap, a fillup, a visit to the local commode, and some eye-scratching, I continued “west” on I-24 into Illinois where, near Goreville, it ended at I-57.  57 continues north here past Marion, Johnson City, West Frankfort, and Benton before merging with I-64 for several miles near Mount Vernon.  Here I continued on I-64 west to St. Louis, MO.

In St. Louis I hit US-70, and more or less began the second “leg” of my trip.  Some of the pictures I took driving through the Ozark foothills in Missouri turned out to be the first showing this very strange optical illusion effect in my photos.  When taken out one of the side windows of the car and focused at a mid-distance, the blur of the foreground causes the mid-ground to appear very small, like the whole thing is the set of one of those 50’s-60’s Japanese monster movies. 

I hate that I was in such a hurry and on such a tight budget.  There were tons of places I would have liked to stop, take photos, visit landmarks, and so forth, but I just didn’t have the resources.  One day I’d like to re-take this trip, or one very much like it, with a few thousand dollars and a few weeks to blow.

Anyway, I’d continued on 70 across Missouri and through Kansas City before I finally had to crash “hard” – in this case meaning 6 hours or so – at a rest area west of KC. 

This is also where the terrain started appearing unfamiliar to me.  While I’ve been to Missouri before when I was a little kid, this was the first time in my memory I’d ever seen Kansas.  I wish again I’d had time to stop at several places here, for a couple of reasons.  Lawrence, Kansas was the setting of a mostly-forgotten nuclear war scare movie on TV with Jason Robards and Steve Guttenberg called The Day After that really had an impact on me – and a lot of people – in 1983.  They also had a pretty happenin’ music scene for a while, although I don’t know what it’s like now.

The dry-grass rolling hills gave way to wide-open prarie, and this is the big dull boring part of the ride – nothing but miles of flat in every direction as far as the eye can see.  No hills or even noticeable changes in elevation.  Very hypnotic and lulling, I can see why people fall asleep out here.

Another thing that struck me when I pulled off to sleep, and every time I got out of the car, was the strong, steady wind.  It looked like what should have been a hot, muggy spring day, but the wind kept things cool and nice.   This is where it felt like the “West” started for me, really.  Lots of grass plain and open space, more signs in the cities of a long heritage of beef and grain and six-shooters and horses.

And oil.

Somewhere mid-state, near the town of Ellis, is where I think I had pulled off and slept.  When I got back rolling, I stopped at a gas station and one of the most beautiful young women I’ve ever seen in my life was working there.  She was about 19, absolutely gorgeous, cheerful, smiling, and had a conversation with me for about ten minutes about my shoes.  I’ll remember her for the rest of my life as I regret not just stopping right there and begging her to marry me.  She so struck me that I took a picture of the next exit sign on the highway just so if I somehow managed to get back through here, I could stop and talk with her again…

And that about covers the ‘flatland’ pictures.  Coming up we’ll head for the mountains.