Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll has traveled THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD that leads to her door. She writes:

I love America and Americans – even the white ones who smell like wet dog and have bad teeth — and I especially love The Heartland. Still, there are only so many times – maybe 50? — you can go from I-35S in the Twin Cities to I-10W without feeling a profound sense of deja vu. Mr. AG favors turning west at OKCity on the I-40 to go to Flagstaff and then south to our Dusty Little Village. That route was spoiled for me when I drove it in my previous car, a 2002 Saturn filled to bursting with everything we needed for 5 months of wintering. The Saturn, never known for zippiness, complained bitterly in the Rockies, especially stuck behind an actual house! Yes, there’s a practice evidently common in the region, of people taking their pre-fab homes out for a little spin. Maybe just trying to air them out from the wet dog smell.

So I was definitely in the market for a new route. Many regular Commenters had suggestions. And though I always let Mr. AG tell me how to vote, like all the married white women who caused Hillary to lose, I am stubbornly resistant to his routes. How to get from Alexandria, MN to Prescott, AZ while meeting my two non-negotiable demands for the route — no big cities and no rush hour traffic? This time, my whole trip would be on weekdays. I much prefer to start any road trip at 0 Dark 30 on a Saturday morning, but that was not how it worked out.

Even though I am severely dys-mapic (or map-lexic, if you prefer), I bought a beautiful new Road Atlas and studied it for days. My first thought was to go 100 miles north to Fargo and then continue on 94W to Billings, before turning south, possibly even catching sight of Commenter Par Excellence, Deborah. She lives SOMEWHERE in the great and also large state of Montana. I was not confident that I could find her. If, indeed, she even lived there – SOME people are not entirely truthful on the Internet, though I’m pretty sure Deb is.

Anyway, every male person I consulted, opened with the totally non-judgmental “What’s the matter with you? Are you *&%$ crazy? Why would you go 100 miles NORTH to get south?”

Eventually, I consulted with my best friend’s husband, Wayne the Wonder Planner, who claimed to have a route that could get me back to AZ in 1400 miles. He did revise that irrationally exuberant estimate upon reflection, but he also recommended an excellent opening leg of the trip. I was unaware that there was a two-lane highway – 29 – that went through many small towns in Minnesota along the spine of the state and eventually meandered into South Dakota, where I had one heart-stopping moment at a sign that said, “Toronto.” How the hell did I get to Canada? Not that it would be beyond my ability to get that far off course. But, no, it was just a sweet little South Dakota town. Whew!

I LOVED 29South! Once you get used to an oncoming pickup or farm implement every 20 minutes, it was extremely relaxing, almost Zen-like with lakes, prosperous-looking farms (one with a yuge TRUMP banner on the barn), creeks, trees and many crops. Many. What crops? I have no idea. The only “crops” I know about are ladies’ pants that are meant to hit just below calf-length, but which always fit me just fine as full-length pants.

But I am going to take a page from the “gun experts” who write or speak in favor of gun control. They don’t know enough about guns to stick in a thimble, or wherever one might stick things, and I know a similar amount about farming. So I’m going to just go ahead and bloviate in a confident and arrogant manner, like they do, OK?

There was corn, of course, because who can’t recognize corn? Then there was what I am pretty sure were soybeans. After that came field after field of stuff that might have been either carrots, or tobacco and something that looked like pineapple. Yeah, that surprised me, too. Is sorghum a thing? It sounds like a disease made up by dentists. And Alfalfa, which looked nothing like that kid in Our Gang short films. Maybe just stick with the generic, “crops.”

In South Dakota, I passed by my people’s old stompin’ grounds in Hamlin County. At SDSU in Brookings, the claim shack, with which my ancestors staked their land claim, resides in a nice little museum there. It is smaller than my garage. How they managed to have FIVE children in such cramped quarters is surely a testament to the human sex drive. And I waved to Watertown, from whence our Power Line host, John H, was launched to the Ivy League, Law School, fame, and fortune, despite his humble beginnings in Flyover Land.

Daddy’s delayed sendoff from Rehab altered my plans a bit, and put me right square in the middle of evening rush hour in Omaha, which turned out to be much worse than I would have guessed due to blinding rain. I hydroplaned on to Lincoln, Nebraska, stopped for a restless night, and awoke to four hours of dense fog all the way to North Platte. Surreal! If there were more crops – Beets? Wheat? Cilantro? — I couldn’t see them.

And here was where I had mapped out the most cunning part of my route – a little Farm to Market road, 83S, which ran from North Platte, 350 miles to the unpleasantly named Liberal, Kansas. From there I picked up the 54West all the way to Tucumcari, New Mexico. On this route, you cross parts of Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, including the hometown of the Paranoid Texan next door, a town I thought he was making up. Along this route, you find feed lots with tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of cattle. Cattle as far as the eye could see and the nose could smell. Which at least tamped down the wet dog smell from the white people that Sarah Jeong, Forensic Nasal Detective and brain-dead racist NYT Editorial Board Member, discussed on Twitter.

When I asked the desk clerk – Hispanic, not white, with no obvious damp canine odor — at my hotel in Tucumcari whether rush hour would cause any problem getting on the I-40W early in the morning, she tried gamely to be polite. But she could not contain her smirk. ”Ma’am, there are 4700 people in Tucumcari, many of whom don’t have cars. You’ll be fine.” Okie-dokie. Where was my rabbi who always said, “There are no stupid questions”? Evidently that’s just a comforting thing one says to a moron who asks stupid questions.

The 40 is a major major truck route. I believe I have the only regular passenger car left in America. It was just me, 500,000 eighteen-wheelers leapfrogging each other across America at random, annoying intervals, and a steady stream of pickups all the way to Flagstaff. To be continued next week. Until then, be kind, and for God’s sake, white people, don’t forget to put in your bridgework and shower more often so you don’t continue to embarrass our race.

It’s the only race you can insult, root for its members to be killed, and still keep your job. It’s nice there’s still one.