In 1974 we married in Utah and because Bill could not get full time work west of the Rockies, we trekked east. We had difficulty getting the '65 Buick to pull the little U-haul wagon up the pass on I-80 and had to do some serious re-working of our belongings. That done, we began our trek across the country. It was long and arduous. All I remember of Nebraska is seeing mile after mile of Corn plantings with the sign DeKalb prominent on the highway side of the field. Nebraska was flat and I-80 was at best intimidating. We stopped in Chicago to visit Roxy and Gordon (Bill's sister and brother in law). They were living in the ICA at that time.
We continued further east and visited Grandpa Markham in Connecticut and interviewed for jobs out there.
I decided that the trip east was difficult and laborious and that I did not want to spend my life trekking back and forth across the country. Well, we went back west 20 years later in 1994 and my view of Nebraska at that time was miles and miles of Corn fields with the same DeKalb signs on them and I wondered if DeKalb was the name of a fertilizer or something.
I can tell you what America looks like - all I saw on the 1994 trek to Arizona was the Yellow and Blue Hertz Penske truck that Bill was driving, and we lost sight of it on I-17 when Bill took an exit and Sara and I who were following in the Prizm were in the wrong lane of traffic and panic set in immediately. Phoenix is large and one Hertz truck is hard to find in that maze of streets etc. let alone find our way to Mesa and hope to meet up with him there. A miracle took place and we re-connected.
On this trip back east, yes one more trip across the nation, I have not seen one Hertz truck. Guess they have gone out of business or something. I have seen many many U-haul trucks so I guess America is still on the move and we are moving along with them. All our belongings for the next year are packed into our Altima.
Mobile advertising seems to be the mode of the day. On our trip today we saw a car that carried a sign "inkystincts" and I thought it was probably a company that sold re-filled ink containers for printers, but then I read down further, and find that it is a car that is connected with a Tattoo parlor. Looks can be deceiving. Following this vehicle was the pink Mary Kay Cadillac - talk about opposite ends of the spectrum.
I was admiring the buildings by the road as we cruised through the center of Denver and before us was a new looking building that was all glass. The most remarkable thing was that the walls slanted out from the building and seemed to be cantilever and it seemed to me how can they find a way to use such strange angles and would they only be able to put plants in the strange angled corners - it is obvious that they do not make desks to fit such strange angles. The bottom of the building was smaller than the top of the building and it really looked strange. More like unexpected than strange and top heavy into the bargain.
As we entered the state of Colorado, I was looking at the landscape and saw high desert plains with these flat topped mountains popping up here and there, protruding out of the plains.. In Australia, near my home town, there is also one of these flat topped mountains that we gave the remarkable name of "Table Top Mountain." On the road to Phoenix, there is a similar mountain that they call Table Mesa. It really seems that the mountains in Colorado were lopped off by someone wielding a massive trowel.....but what did they do with the tops that they cut off? Could see them nowhere.........not even a pile of rubble to indicate that it was the top of the mountain at one time.
Beside the road, there were men in special vests who were prisoners picking up trash. There was also a guard with a huge gun standing to see that they did not run away. Where could you run in the High Desert that you could hide let alone escape.
Amazing the things you can see when you look!
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