The business part of the day yesterday started relatively early, an 8:15 appointment for a CT scan. This was a two-part scan; the head and the chest. The head scan was an annual precautionary check-up, intended to verify that there were no indications of cancer popping up in the brain. The chest scan was a quarterly routine. It, too, was meant more to verify the absence of a return of cancer than to seek it out. Both results were as I hoped and expected; no evidence of any cancer.
Despite starting early, the day did not speed by. Because the medical processes dragged on for a bit, we did not hit the road until about noon. We drove to Russellville, where we stopped for lunch at Feltner’s Whatta-Burger. I had heard positive things about the place; it did not disappoint. From Russellville, we headed west. We drove, stopping only briefly to pee, until we reached Yukon, Oklahoma, a suburb on the western edge of Oklahoma City, around 6 pm. After checking in to the Hampton Inn and unloading the car, we ate dinner at Primo’s Italian Restaurant, located in an outdoor shopping mall across the street. We had too much to eat; calamari and bread to start, followed by chicken piccata for her and shrimp diablo for me. Very tasty food, but far too much. And messy. I spilled a rather considerable amount of red sauce on my button-down shirt; daylight will tell whether the stains came out—I am not optimistic.
The open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself.
~ William Least Heat Moon ~
Today, we may try to have a meal in Albuquerque, which is about 8 hours west of us, but our destination for the day is Gallup, New Mexico, which is another two hours beyond. We’ll see. It depends, I think, on how we hold up. Neither of us slept well last night. I doubt I slept more than three hours, even including those odd combinations of sleep and wakefulness that incorporated recurring dreams that simply would not give in to either consciousness or unconsciousness. Ach!
It is almost 7, literally hours later than I normally would have finished writing. A slow start is not terrible, but I had hoped for a very early start so we might finish the day’s driving a little earlier. Oh, well. Such is life on the road.
I long for the “Blue Highways.”
I waved, Meg! That’s some incredible growth; 7 different elementary schools?!
Wave to Albuquerque for me. I lived there from age 4 to 13. Population was only 35,000 in 1941 and grew to 100,000 by 1950, due to war activities. I went to 7 different elementary schools – they had to keep building new ones to keep up.