On the Road Again

🎶Amarillo by morning, up from San Antone…. When that sun is high in that Texas sky….Amarillo by morning, Amarillo, I’ll be there.🎶. Terry Stafford, George Strait

 That’s right, Granny Hat is back on the road again!. Two days after a sparkling white Montana Christmas, her better, cold-blooded half declared it was time to chase some warmer weather. But no matter which state line they crossed, Granny and Dad seemed to be taking the blustery ice and snow with them. They were 🎶stuck in colder weather🎶 with Zac Brown. 

Arctic air poured over the plains as Granny Hat drove into Wall, South Dakota to visit Ted and Dorothy Hustead’s famous drug store. Seems the Hustead’s moved from Nebraska to the Dakotas in 1931 in search of a small town with a Catholic Church. Wall was a town of 231 citizens and, as Ted put it, was perfectly “in the middle of nowhere”. He bought a humble, little drug store, called it Wall Drug and settled down to make a living. Business was slow for about 10 years until Dorothy suggested they offer free ice water to hot, thirsty, summer travelers on their way to the newly opened Mt Rushmore. The water did the trick and the rest is history. With the help of some iconic billboards along Highway 90 which travels from Minnesota to Billings, MT, travelers still pour in to shop, eat and reminisce at this American treasure.

Granny sampled the free ice water and the 5 cent coffee, did a little shopping and sampled some cherry pie. Dad is a cherry pie snob and he said Granny’s pies are better. She isn’t going to argue.

The polar vortex chased them right into Nebraska where they enjoyed time with their son and family, snug indoors playing Risk and doing jigsaw puzzles as 2022 dawned. Temps were below zero with the wind chill but Granny was sure the road to Tennessee promised warmer climes.

But as they crossed over the Wide Missouri and passed the Gateway to the West in St Louis, they were warned about impending snow in middle Tennessee. So, they decided to beat the storm and kept driving into the night, getting a little lost in the Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky Mississippi River doldrums. In the maze of bridges and swampy country roads they kept happening upon Cairo, Illinois a well-weathered, ill -favored, tired little hamlet cradled by the mighty Mississippi on the west and the Ohio River to the east, not the best place to be on a cold, dark night. Granny kept thinking it might be faster to take the river, Huckleberry Finn style. 

“The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at last it was over the banks….the water was three or four feet deep on the island in low places and on the Illinois bottom.  The Missouri shore was just a wall of high bluffs. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still River, laying on our backs looking up at the stars and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud and it warn’t often that we laughed, only a little kind of a low chuckle……When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water in shore, sure enough, and outside was the old regular Muddy! So it was all up with Cairo.” Mark Twain

Thank goodness, it was finally “up with Cairo” for Granny Hat and Dad as they managed to break free and cruise into Tennessee, getting to the Nashville area at midnight. The next morning they woke up to snow, six inches of it fell lightly and steadily all day! Dad treated the grand daughters to tail gate snow slushees made with cran/grape juice. They were declared delicious. For two days, temperatures were lower in Tennessee than back home in Montana!

Granny is heading back west now, stopping in Texas to meander down Route 66. All through Tennessee and Arkansas, Granny was reminded of the ways a traveler knows she is in “the south” or at least within spitting distance. Here is her abbreviated list, all based on her own fresh and unbiased experience:

Not just the tea is sweet!  The hospitality is sweet, the granola at the breakfast bar is extra coated in sugary goodness, the pecan pie is way too sweet, the “salsa” at the “Mexican” cantina is syrupy, the BBQ sauce is hot and sweet, the country roads up the hill and over dale are sweetly relaxing, no hurry, no worry. Oh, and the banana pudding is extra sweet!

“Is there anything on this menu that isn’t swimming in gravy?” Biscuits and gravy are served for breakfast everywhere. Some form of gravy is drizzled on all entrees, even at the “Mexican” cantina where cheese sauce and gravy meet.  Fried food abounds and then you dip it in gravy, or sweet sauce! Try fried okra, fried green tomatoes, fried catfish, fried shrimp & grits, the list is endless.

Waffle House, Cracker Barrel, What-a-Burger, Steak n’ Shake, Blue Bell Ice Cream – just a few of the southern standbys you can count on when traveling south of the Mason Dixon line. Blue Bell ice cream is something to write home about!

Smoking, hard liquor, swearing and Jesus are all best buddies. The southern folks seem to Granny Hat to be God-fearing along with their vices, not in spite of them. In fact, down in the south, vices aren’t considered vices. It’s a puzzler for Granny but she has to admit that her observations are largely taken from the passenger seat as the hills rolled by and billboards were read.  At church Granny heard one southern preacher whip himself up into such a frenzy she was worried about his health while the front pew erupted into dancing and loud amens! Preacher man kept apologizing for his hoarse voice, would calm down a bit, then ramp right back up again in a roller coaster of emotion. Granny Hat still isn’t sure what the topic of his sermon was but she felt good and preached at. 

Southern folks are often salt of the earth and don’t claim to know it all. Granny and dad get a kick out of chatting up the locals wherever they are and they hear some funny things. One friendly Arky working at a County Park struck up a conversation with Dad about the lodge pole pines they were culling from the preserve because of disease. Dad asked too many specific questions about the life cycle of the pest beetles and how the weather affected the spread of the blight. The southern gentleman chuckled and said, “Wall, ah know WHEN to cut ’em down and HOW to cut ’em down but, Lor, ah know nuthin’ about the biologicals.”

Granny Hat’s suggestion for road trips: Spend more time talking to local folks, less time in resorts and chain restaurants. Be sure to add extra time to your plans, small town porch sitters can bend your ear for a long while. It’s worth it, Granny learns something every time.

Next: Get Your Kicks on Route 66!