We are in the middle of West Texas on Highway 289, our goal being Amarillo by midnight.  The roads are ice-free, the outside temperature cold, and the night sky filled with stars and a half moon. Ray is currently driving (obviously since I am writing), and we are entering the town of Childress.  I see a billboard for a Super 8 and we are slowly driving through this town with 8 stoplights while we listen to John Conlee singing “Rose-Colored Glasses” on XM’s Willie’s Roadhouse. 

There is a Roadway Inn and a Best Western, a Sonic, A Day’s Inn, a Hampton Suites and a Walmart.  And now we’re out on the western outskirts of town with Moe Bandy now singing “Two Lonely People.”  Back to the dark open road lighted only by the few cars and trucks coming the opposite direction.  Now we’re passing the prison.  Yes, the last outpost before open country.  Here comes Charley Pride with “I’m So afraid of Losing You Again.”

Here is Ray driving:

I love cross-country driving with nothing to do but relax, look outside and listen to the radio.  This is heaven after so much activity of late.  There is also such a sense of freedom connected to the open road.  It is an opportunity to be reminded that the world is much bigger than we are and that life proceeds with or without us.  I feel comforted by that somehow.  That message is reiterated in the massive night sky out here in West Texas.  It offers a clear perspective on our miniscule place in the Universe. Again, I find solace in that awareness.  Maybe given all that vastness, there is a sense the pressure is off…

On that note, I will close.  Now Glen Campbell is singing “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.”  How fitting.  Where is George Strait’s “Amarillo By Morning?”