A journey of 2,222.2 miles begins with a single step. This was a trip unlike any other we’ve taken together in the last 10 years or more. Usually, we head north, gaining altitude, seeking solitude. Miles up dirt roads, we steep in cool quiet. I’ll return from the usual trip with dozens of journal pages, hundreds of photos, and, in the best cases, a poem or two.

This trip was a different story. We headed east in a beeline adjacent the Mother Road, noting the symbolism of our literal descent, down towards the muggy metropolis of Memphis, almost as foreign as the ancient capital it was named for. (I grew up in another city named after a storied Egyptian town: Alexandria.) We drove through a wide swath of Flyover Country, past the northern hemisphere’s largest cross, which Merri thinks should also be a silo; past countless gospel billboards (religion being a product like any other).

We went to Merri’s birthplace to join her mother in celebrating her 80th birthday. (We expect her to outlive us both, easily making 100.) Although we’ve driven farther before, we’ve never driven so far in so few days — 640 miles on our longest day. (A typical meander up the Rockies might take us 200 miles by road but only advance us 40 miles in one direction.) We marveled at the grass growing everywhere from the Texas-Oklahoma border on — everywhere, lush, deep sod better than the finest golf courses in the West. (I swear I saw someone mowing his lawn twice in as many days!) And the trees: Though much of the land has been clearcut, where trees stand, they tower and crowd a forest into a few acres.

We arrived at the Mississippi at rush hour, clearly bad enough, but immediately after authorities closed one of two bridges across the river for miles north or south. Rerouted, compounded traffic was dumped unceremoniously into downtown Memphis with nary a sign suggesting what to do next. This was one of many occasions GPS gained favor with us.

We rarely spend more than two nights in one place and almost never in a hotel. This entire trip involved hotel-stays, four nights in a row in one which Merri had brilliantly picked between her mom’s (Irene) and her friend’s (Kathy), who put Lucky up a few hours at a time. Six nights with air conditioning were enough to last me years; AC is so noisy it stands out from the cacophony of a hotel.

Each day, we rose, ate, fed and walked Lucky, took him to Kathy, shopped and lunched with Irene, returned for Lucky and a visit with Kathy, back to Irene’s for dinner (sometimes with Lucky — they liked each other), back to the hotel. Somehow, that doesn’t fill pages.

Still, there were great moments, beyond the pleasure of the company and the celebration. When we returned to our hotel at night, we watched as a dozen or more nighthawks hunted 10 stories up in the bright lights of an adjacent building. We steered a tiny frog away from traffic; there were toads around our last hotel. I saw a cardinal and bluejays for the first time in a decade. There was all that green, all that grass!

And there was food: fillets, pastas, burgers, fried catfish, hushpuppies, and Merri’s infamous Triple+ Chocolate Cake (which her mother loved). No wonder I gained a pound.

We lingered our last morning with Irene, getting a late start to what would become the longest driving day. The bridge was reopened (hours after we first needed it) — don’t worry about that piling that sank 4 feet, there are others.

Of course, there were disappointments, like the numerous McDonald’s without coffee staffed by indifferent teens unaware of the claims that McD’s *always* has good coffee. Or the hotel where we were lectured late in the evening about using Orbitz instead of the chain’s 800 number; and the pathetic pastel fruit loops they served as breakfast. (In contrast, the Days Inn in OK City had a hot buffet for breakfast — that’s where I gained my pound.) Worst was the paucity of birds and other wildlife (exceptions already noted).

No, strike that: Worst was the unremarkable sky. Every 24 hours, the celestial canopy brightened noticeably, and darkened hours later. At times, one sensed some warping of the texture of the sky that hinted at rain undelivered. There was no huge blue expanse accented periodically by mountains of white underlain with gray-black, shot full of gold. Indeed, I did not notice the sun itself for 5 days, until it was in my face the longest day, a brilliant orange-red bulb outside of Hinton, OK, where we should have stopped, if only to see the Hinton Pentecostal Holiness Church’s marquee — but we had miles to go before that late lecture in Erick, not-so-OK.

That bloody sunset was followed by a golden dawn. It can’t just be an indication of my mood — the whole world was brightening anew. We started the shortest leg of the trip at the earliest time. Green fell away, replaced by blue — I’ll take blue! A few hours after we unloaded the car, we got the best “welcome home!” — it rained like hell. mjh

PS: We returned to learn that Justice Pam Minzner, Merri’s friend and mentor, died about the time we left Memphis. Pam epitomized graciousness. I’m reminded of a trip I returned from 14 years ago, determined to see an old friend, only to learn he’d died while I was gone. You never know when is the last time you’ll see someone, but that moment always comes.

PPS: One aspect of the trip was like every other: Lucky hasn’t stopped grinning since we got home.

Added 9/7/07: photos at
http://mjhinton.net/photos/main.php/show/memphis/