Our first defined destination was Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southern New Mexico. We headed that way after crossing the Mississippi River by traveling through Arkansas and then all the way across the great state of Oklahoma. One of the interesting formations at Carlsbad Caverns On our way to Carlsbad, we woke up one Sunday morning in mid-April in Seminole, Oklahoma, about 50 miles from Oklahoma City. I glanced at a calendar and realized it was April 19, the anniversary of the Oklahoma federal building bombing in 1995. It was a little strange to drive through Oklahoma City on that particular date. Past Oklahoma City, I-40 parallels old Route 66, which is celebrating a centennial this year. We drove along a few sections of the original Route 66 a couple of years ago, coming back from Thanksgiving in Oregon, so we’ve seen some of the sights along the Mother Road, as John Steinbeck called it. I think about Steinbeck’s writing from time to time as we wander around; his Travels...

 The furniture got moved! The van got its oil changed! All our appointments concluded with generally good news! And finally, in mid-April, we headed back out for more adventures. We started with a short trip to Letart Falls, Ohio, near Pomeroy, on the river, to visit our friends Frank and Anne. We hadn’t seen them for a couple of years, and Frank is grumpily recuperating from recent hip surgery, but that didn’t stop him from wandering around the yard showing us his seed starter mini-greenhouse, which is very cool. He was concerned about some Korean melons sprouting, but we had warm weather while we were there, so they should be sprouting soon. Frank ’ s little seed starter greenhouse We had a nice two-day visit with them, camping in their side yard and wandering around Gallipolis and some other nearby towns where Frank had lived when he was growing up. We also ate lunch at Remo’s Italian Hot Dogs in Gallipolis, and the hot dogs were delicious. Then we added yet another state to o...

 We arrived back in Cincinnati—College Hill to be specific—and Mike backed the Scamp into the driveway where we were staying with great aplomb. I was impressed. We had a lovely stay with Bob and Rhonda, although almost every day we had an appointment of some kind to keep; usually doctor’s appointments but also haircuts and what not. We shared the house with a lovely golden retriever named Frida, and a crochety little dog named Lucy, who was also a temporary boarder. Lucy didn’t like me, but Frida did. And I am told that Lucy doesn’t like anyone, so that made me feel a little better. We don’t like to outstay our welcome, so after a week we moved on to stay with our friends Ray and Donna. More doctor appointments, but mostly good reviews from all the medical types, so we’re pretty sure we’re going to get out of here in the time we’d planned and head back out on the open road. Which is great news. At Ray and Donna’s house, Frankie the dog rules the roost. He is a quite nice little...

The bootheel of Missouri is cotton country. We saw fields of stubble with bits of cotton bolls still sticking to them; they haven’t sowed new cotton plants yet this year. Cotton, I have learned, is botanically perennial when it grows naturally in the tropics, but it is almost always grown as an annual crop when cultivated in temperate climates. Interesting factoid. Cotton is the main crop in the bootheel of Missouri, the southernmost part of the state (Wikimedia) Beyond that, well, we crossed the Mississippi, wide and muddy down there below the confluence of the Ohio River, and spent a couple of hours in Tennessee, in the far northwestern corner. From there, we crossed into Kentucky and went north to Paducah, where there’s a lot of quilt stuff. I was trying to figure out a way to connect that with King Cotton in the Missouri bootheel, since many quilts are made of cotton material, but we’re two states away from Missouri now, so I don’t think that’s going to work. But I did have the o...

 The road through eastern Oklahoma/the Choctaw Nation is a long strip of kind of cheesy resort places for quite a distance. The town of Broken Bow is proud of the fact that their casino complex has the only Starbucks within 70 miles—a dubious honor. There were sketchy zoos and mini golf and other oddball roadside attractions for miles. Then we got into the Ouachita Mountains and some beautiful scenery. The Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas We stopped at a lot of overlooks, including one that had the Monument of Three Sticks. Not kidding, that’s what it was called. The plaque said the sticks represent the water, land, and trees of the area, and was put up by a group encouraging development, which seemed counterintuitive. But I do like an odd monument. The Monument of Three Sticks We stopped for gas and fried pies in a little wide spot in the road called Smithville—or Octavia, hard to say exactly—and the clerks admired our Scamp, as often happens. We are a novelty on the road and in cam...