Stars in New Mexico

The sight I encounter when I drive over the New Mexican border, is breathtaking. It deserves a standing ovation... The Staked Plains were the territory of Comanche warriors, where they were hunting herds of buffalo...

You can see endlessly far, eternal red dusty plains with little orbed green bushes that seem to be drawn on this canvas with a pencil. The landscape is delineated with flattened red mountains, that smoothly flow into the plains.

I try to keep my eyes on the road but it's really hard not to get distracted by the landscape that overtakes you.

After putting up the tent, I lie in the grass, limbs stretched, while I watch the last of the fiery sun melt on the horizon. This spacious, widespread, extended feeling is undescribable. It gives me a freedom I never felt before, or maybe once, visiting California some years ago. *Magnificent*, in every sense of the word.

As the night falls gracious on flattened, wide mountains, I suddenly realise that I'm still sitting on the exact same spot, watching all this beauty.

Stars appear and it's really hard to put this into words... but it just blew me away. It was like a little box of sparkles that where disseminated carefully on this wonderful, bowing black surface. I even saw the milky way.....*

We arrive in Santa Fe and this town has a very mexican feeling, the contrast with Texas could not have been any bigger. After that follows an amazing mountain drive to Taos, finished with a very odd and scary feeling when we get back... We finished the day with a lightning-fest and showers that could wash your clothes away... Something happened in those mountains, and it scares the shit out of me. It left me speechless.

"For greatness of beauty

I have never experienced anything like New Mexico."

- D. H. Lawrence

Texas & Cowboys

"The country's so flat, you can see for two days" - and that's no lie - it IS flat. I've seen more cows here on one piece of land than I saw in my whole life, and even some buffalo's hiding in the shade.

The Route 66 in TX spans the Texas Panhandle like an endless airport runway. You see cars disapearing into infinity as you pull over to pour some gass. We're in the high plains, and although the road is pretty boring and straight on, we see the faces of some nice little towns along the way. The Panhandle is the land of giants, the haven of cowboys, oil-field roughnecks, and self-made millionaires.

In the mid- to late 1800s, trail riders pushed big herds of cows through the Panhandle, in search of the promised land their Mexican Compadres had told them about - a place with sweet water and high grass. The Palo Duro Canyon gave them this promised paradise, so cattle barons claimed the land, drove out the indians, killed off the buffalo, and raised enough beefsteak to feed the nation. Great.

In my mind this was the picture I had of Texas, and at first sight, it's pretty much right.

We meet cattlemen with big hats, high boots, and high jeans with their dusty shirts stuffed in. We see a lot of beef - both dead and alive - and the grasslands are huuuuuge.

The swampy Missouri heat is replaced by a more tolerable, dry heat.

After we saw the Cadillac Ranch in Armadillo, we got to meet some great people, who completely altered the vision I had in mind of Texan people. They ride a crazy double-high bike, have hairless skin-cats, smoke pot, make 'smores' by a camp fire and sing the most beautiful local songs, completed by high worn socks and twinkling eyes. It was an amazing night.

Oklahoma and the Tulsa Sound

We pass farms, fields and creeks. I roll down my window and feel a hot breeze fill the car. I thought St.Louis was hot, but here I feel like a bun in a big oven, left behind in a giant field of grass, without a tree to shadow me. I get some cover in Disney, near a lake.
It's hard to believe that in the 30s, this land was choking in dust storms, together with some parts of Kansas, Texas and New Mexico. The land was a desert of sand and pale dirt. Steinbeck described the 'Okies' trip to California, the land of milk and honey, in his book, The Grapes of Wrath. The Dust Bowl lasted for years...

Nowadays, Oklahoma is covered in big green plaines of tender grass, trees and lakes. I seek refreshment under some maple trees but can't resist to move to the sound of the guitar of Little Joe McLerran, a young man that is - according to musician Mike Peace - 'a 80-year old black man stuck in the body of a 26-year old white boy.'
Tulsa is the home of many great musicians, and we got a taste of the 'Tulsa Sound' - a very diverse musical blend that's so special because not one song is ever played the same.
The city has also been called 'The Buckle of the Bible Belt', as it is the start of a very conservative area that extends all the way to Texas. Although I must say times are changing, we met some very non-conservative people, almost in an European sort of way ;-)
I wonder if playing the harmonica encourages this new mentality...

"Many months have come and gone
Since I wandered from my home
In the Oklahoma Hills where I was born
Though a page of life has turned
And a lesson I have learned
Yet I feel like in those hills I still belong"
- Woody Guthrie