I am typing this at around 2:15 am this morning, Thursday from my hotel room in Amarillo, Texas. Yesterday I crossed the mighty Mississippi River! Before steel bridges which came in the late 1800s, people had to literally cross the river by raft, ferry, or by just simply trying to swim themselves and their possessions across the rapidly flowing water! The courage of the early pioneers never ceases to amaze me.
Anyways, nothing important to report in Arkansas other than some nasty Chinese food (my szechuan beef was floating in a pool of fatty oil) and lots of farm fields. Crossing into Oklahoma was cool as the trees started to get shorter and shorter the further west we got. There is beauty in the flatland even though I fancy myself a mountain man. In Oklahoma we went through the Western Cherokee lands which became the main lands for the Cherokee tribe after the horrid Trail of Tears. I live about 30 minutes away from the Eastern Cherokee lands which was once their homeland. Very sad what happened. After we stopped in Oklahoma City for dinner it got too dark for pictures of the prairie lands but we still have prairie to go through tomorrow as well as the New Mexico Rockies, the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, and Flagstaff, AZ where we will stay tomorrow night so stay tuned for that!
Stay safe and travel well,
Steven Chavez
“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.” – B.B. King
