My images keep appearing and disappearing from my blog posts. Thank-you, Jacquie for alerting me to this! This is a glitch on WordPress’s end, and I am not the only blogger it is happening to. I hope they straighten things out soon, as it is frustrating. For now, I am no longer going to post to my blog until they repair the glitches, or ?????

Happy Bunny Day.

in the middle and later twentieth century

it never gave the mountains and rivers,

trees and animals,

a vote.

all the people turned away from it

myths die; even continents are impermanent…”

Gary Snyder from his poem Tomorrow’s Song

“How can the head-heavy power-hungry politic scientist

Government two-world Capitalist-Imperialist

Third-World Communist paper-shuffling male

non-farmer jet-set bureaucrats

Speak for the green of the leaf?

Speak for the soil?”

Gary Snyder from poem Mother Earth: Her Whales

I noticed that semi-truck drivers now use the Wal-Mart parking lots as rest stops, parking their trucks in the netherworlds of the lot to sleep. I also noticed an odd phenomenon. There seem to be an extremely high number of dead/roadkill animals within close proximity to the entrances and exits of Wal-Mart. Not just your usual deer, raccoon and possum, although I witnessed many of these; but an unusually high number of dogs and cats, (feral or dumped) some chickens and a coyote.

“Wild Geese hatched out in Siberia

head South over basins of the Chiang, The Ho,

what we call China

On flyways they have used a million years.

Ah China, where are the tigers, the wild boars, the monkeys,

like snows of yesteryear

Gone in a mist, a flash, and the dry hard ground

Is parking space for fifty thousand trucks.”

Gary Snyder from Mother Earth: Her Whales

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I continued to steer and snap pictures through my open passenger side window and front windshield.

My thoughts became a sort of prayer: May Mitch arrive safely and live a good life in North Carolina. May my parents live well into their 90′s. May the war end. May the animals be protected.

Technorati tags: clouds, earth, travel, photography, death, interstate 40, America, Western US, life, time, immortality, forever young, on-the-road, suspended animation, love, sorrow, loss, beauty

As mentioned in an earlier post, numerous Indian Reservations align Interstate 40. The Havasupai, the Acoma, the Hopi, the Navajo to name a few. We passed many roadside souvenir shops with buildings straight out of the 1950′s and 1960′s rt. 66 era. some of these shops were shaped like teepees, some like arrows, and many roadside signs were teepee shaped or had arrows sticking through them. the ultimate in cheesy american campiness. I loved it and wanted to stop at each and every shop. not wanting to waste any time, mitch refused to stop at any. finally, he softened, and said we could stop at one. The place was filled with wonderfully tacky trinkets. Stuff like wolves painted on black velvet backgrounds in fluorescent pinks and greens. And most freaky of all was this lifelike indian fortune teller, who so much gave me the creeps. there was something very sinister about him.

Mitch and I each bought little wooden anteater bobble heads made in mexico. His was blue and mine was red. They were $2.00 each and the only souvenirs we bought during the entire trip. i did not have my fortune read.

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The American Dream.

Budget truck false promises…

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The sign below says ‘Cattle Country-exit now-Flying ‘C’ Ranch-Exxon. Even here in open range/ranch land, or ‘cattle country’ as the sign says, there are billboards advertising Exxon everywhere. Are even the cows equipped with gas tanks? Or is that methane?

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click on center arrow to hear and view video

THE WEST BEGAN TO SEEM ENDLESS…

THE CLOUDS AND ENDLESS HIGHWAY HAD A MESMERIZING EFFECT. I BEGAN TO HALLUCINATE THE PROVERBIAL PINK ELEPHANTS dANCING IN THE sky

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The Motel 6 icon becomes a welcoming beacon on the road. After a long, hard day of driving, it almost feels like home for a minute. The $35.00 sign draws you in until you read the fine print…for “one person”. But the Big 6 allows pets! No sneaking in and out with 2 cats, kitty litter trays, cat food,etc. No one cares. There is mold in the shower, pubic hair in the sheets, the smell of roach spray in the air. There are cigarette butts in the no smoking room, and there is no Gideon’s to be found. Mitch’s routine is to quickly strip the bedspreads off, and throw them on the floor. He saw a show on TV that said they never wash the spreads; only the sheets.To prove this, they held a black light over the motel bedspreads; making readily apparent the accumulation of bodily fluids. I wished he hadn’t shared this tidbit of information with me. Luckily, I brought my own pillow and teddy bear. The cats curl up with me, and I quickly fall asleep, too exhausted to even watch the 29 channels.

Technorati tags: Motel 6, on the road, travel with cats, white line fever, moving, cats