Thus in the name of intellectual honesty I am obligated to sheepishly disclose the hypocrisy that I was feeling rather, well, less than stimulated by the Sooner State.
Maybe I was rashly premature in my judgment. Maybe I was never going to give Oklahoma a fair shake after the veritable variety show we had been exposed to thus far, the bountiful agricultural vitality of the near Midwest, the multifaceted urbanity of St.
Louis, the lost-and-found Americana of Route 66, the distinctive charisma of Eureka Springs, and the congenital comeliness of the Ozarks. Maybe it was the instinctive burn of disappointment upon skimming over the confluence of the Canadian River and its North Branch, waterways that were once critical in guiding the intrepid successfully beyond the Great American Desert, now amounting to yet another blobby impoundment.
Maybe it was the knot deep in the pit of my stomach that tightened every time we flew past a billboard advertising a gambling den proffered by some particular tribal affiliation. Maybe it was all of these factors, rolled into the mileage that had already compounded into an endeavor the scope of which I had never so much as dreamed of tackling before, even as we had barely reached its midpoint.
I naively held out hope that the weather would finally turn, injecting some sorely needed zest into my session at the helm. Perhaps it would even force us from the infernal highway, under the guise of safety, and into some friendly shitkicker tavern where we could kick our feet up until conditions became less perilous.
