Park 30: George Washington Carver National Memorial and Oklahoma City National Memorial

George Washington Carver

8/13/13. Today was our longest planned day for driving. We left about 8:15 and headed west from Missouri. We stopped at the George Washington Carver National Memorial. This is where his boyhood home was and where he first spent time exploring the nature environment. The visitor’s center had fantastic exhibits that were clearly designed for school children to learn more about the history and science of George Washington Carver’s life and work. We watched a long film about his life which was helpful in learning more about his amazing contributions to science and social equity.  According to the National Parks Website, George Washington Carver dedicated 47 years of his life to teaching and working at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He chose a life of service to his fellow man and became a symbol of interracial cooperation.

The Moses Carver Farm

Simulated chemistry classroom at Tuskege Institute

"The Usefulness of All Things"

We left after about an hour and got back on I 44 West – our home for most of the day! We left Missouri and headed southwest into Oklahoma. The eastern part of the state was not what I expected – much greener and lush with trees and vegetation. It wasn't until the western part of the state that we saw the dark red earth and flat fields we expected. The 75 mile an hour speed limit really helped our progress, and we found a terrific convenience store called Quick Trip that had some many choices of quick foods and drinks we were in 7^th heaven.

View of countryside in Oklahoma

We finished listening to the audiobook, The Art Forger, which was 10 hours of listening. We've started on No Angel which is a longer saga. We've also been collecting plenty of states for our license plate game. Otherwise it’s been a LONG drive.

At 2:00 we reached Oklahoma City and stopped at the National Memorial. Similar to the Flight 93 memorial, it was a beautiful modernist design that conveyed sadness, respect, and quiet remembrance. Some of the views of the reflecting pool were stunning. The worst part was the section of a corner of the destroyed building that was left.

Oklahoma City National Memorial

We headed west again through the rest of Oklahoma, and enter Texas early evening, driving straight west across the panhandle. We stopped in Amarillo for dinner at Fazoli’s – a terrific Italian food counter service restaurant with all you can eat breadsticks that were to die for.

We continued through Texas and the landscape changed to be perfectly flat – lots of ranches for miles. Eventually, the terrain changed again to be more like a rocky Martian landscape with round trees dotting the hills. We saw our first mesa about 8:30 just as the sun was setting. There was a storm south of us, with lightening flashing. It was quite frightening because as far as we could see in 360 degrees there were no buildings of any kind. No shelter, no protection.

Western Oklahoma

Oklahoma - birds on a pond in a cattle ranch

Texas landscape - beginning of rainbow

Rainbow during storm

View looking west at sunset

I 40 heading toward New Mexico

 It made us appreciate those storm chaser videos! We hurried west as quickly as we could to avoid the storm, when all of a sudden, there was a magnificent, huge rainbow – the tallest one I’ve ever seen. I suppose that’s because of the open land. As we entered New Mexico it began to rain harder with strong winds and the clouds were like out of a horror movie. It was an awesome experience of nature. It’s hard to express how beautiful the raw countryside, the setting sun, and the huge cloud formations were. 

As night fell, there were no lights for as far as we could see on the horizon in every direction - something we never experience on the east coast. The stars started to come out and the temperature dropped almost 20 degrees. It was a humbling, terrifying, and awesome feeling of emptiness and desolation. Worth the whole trip!

Sunset as we entered New Mexico