The Southern Plains November 2025

This year was the time for another occasional visit to LA to visit family. We dislike flying so much that we decided to drive it again. We might have to rethink that before next time.

It’s a familiar route for us following old Route 66 from St. Louis to Los Angeles. For much of the trip the Mother Road was visible alongside the newer interstates 44 and 40. Stopping at night we were frequently right on the old road with its collection of motels and service stations crowding the pavement to compete for the attention of drivers in the 1950s and 1960s.

Traveling the Mother Road is never boring

It’s also a nostalgic journey for me every time. Just a week after my parents were married in August 1943 they climbed into a borrowed 1940 Plymouth sedan with two other GIs and drove the real Route 66 from St. Louis to Riverside, California. It took them most of a day to go from their home town of New Castle, Indiana to St. Louis where they crossed the Mississippi and turned southwest toward a future in California. That first day they only got as far as Rolla, Missouri where they stayed in a motel. Because of overly optimistic travel plans, they were unable to stop again for the night before reaching Riverside on the fourth day. Because my dad could make himself stay awake at night, he took over driving in the darkness and the other GIs drove during the day. It became an ordeal for my mother who told the story with stoic good humor many years later. They had alignment problems while still in Missouri and ran out of gas early one morning in the desert. The journey became a blur, a test of endurance for them all. They adapted well enough to arrive in California in time to report for duty on the assigned day.

Many times along the journey this time I looked over to the old Route 66 which is still there and in my mind’s eye I could see the black Plymouth rolling over the hills and down into the dales, silver moon hubcaps showy in contrast to the black paint on the body and wheels. Inside I could see the newlyweds leaning against each other as they crossed the southern Great Plains in Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. Then came the hostile desert they had only read about in books. They were hot and uncomfortable as they marked endless miles across an unfamiliar landscape, but it didn’t matter. They were young and they had each other. They’d get through it somehow, and they did. Their generation didn’t let things like economic depressions and world wars get in their way for very long.

Traveling the Mother Road is never boring. Growing up next to my paternal grandfather’s farm in Indiana, I learned at an early age to be aware of the activities of the farm year. Indiana and Illinois are Corn Belt states so we saw fields of corn and soybeans, hay and winter wheat all the way to the Mississippi River. Beyond the river Missouri became hilly and brushy for quite a ways before turning back to row crops and livestock toward Springfield. We spent the night near Springfield, Missouri.

Tucumcari, New Mexico, a Route 66 town famous for its many motels

The landscape spread out as we neared the Oklahoma line. We were coming into the southern Great Plains. Almost as soon as we crossed into Oklahoma we began to see more horses and beef cattle. There was a major cotton growing area before we reached Tulsa. Tan fields dotted with white ran along the interstate for miles. On the edge of the highway shoulder bits of snowy cotton fiber clung to weeds and grass beside the pavement, blown there by restless winds. A flatbed trailer loaded with enormous round rolls of cotton went by us. We could see other rolls waiting in the distant fields to be moved to a mill for cleaning. By the time we crossed the Texas line there was no more to be seen.

The combination of range cattle and herds of horses continued all the way across the Texas panhandle and New Mexico. One early morning in Texas we saw eight or more mounted riders heading out to the range for a day’s work. We still have cowboys and cowgirls in the Southern Plains, and they still wear hats! That sight brought a smile to my face and a lump in my throat.

The panhandle of Texas lies nearly flat and sometimes gently rolling, but it’s a big place. All across that part of Texas we saw row after row of giant windmills, some turning but most still. There were several ridiculously long extended trailers pulled behind diesel semi tractors, each carrying just one giant blade for a windmill. The craze for windmills might be cooling, but they’re still building them in Texas. The subsidy money they require is staggering, but it must still be flowing.

In Oklahoma and Texas the price of gas fell steadily. In Amarillo we filled the tank at $2.29 per gallon, the cheapest we found on the entire trip. That night we stayed in Tucumcari, New Mexico, a Route 66 town famous for its many motels.

The 100th Meridian runs north and south along the eastern side of the Panhandle of Texas, then north all the way to the Canadian border. It’s the traditional dividing line between eastern humid climate agriculture and the drier plains and desert to the west. The trees and shrubs tell the story along the road. Trees became scarcer in Texas and then almost rare in New Mexico. Sagebrush and then mesquite began to dominate the landscape west of Texas all the way into Arizona. As the quality of range deteriorated, the numbers of cattle declined. It takes many more acres of dry range to support cattle the further west we went.

The song tells us ‘it never rains in southern California, but girl let me warn ya, it pours, man it pours!’ And pour it did

It’s a big country we tell ourselves each time we go for a drive like this.

New Mexico is the fifth largest state with more than 121,000 square miles, about 500 miles east to west across it. For us that’s a good day’s drive. In the eastern half of the country the states can be biggish, but in the west they’re all very large. On this part of the trip we seem to be crawling.

The trip across Arizona (114,000 square miles) seems to move at glacial speed, too, but the northern route we’re on is more pleasant. It’s desert, too, but not the bleached bones and circling buzzards desert like in the cartoons. For one, the elevation is higher. In the summertime, coming out of Phoenix into Flagstaff the difference is like day and night. It’s high desert up north, coolish with pine trees and actual forests. Going west as we are in November the heat is all gone and Flagstaff is pleasant as it always is. It’s a college town, so students, apartments, and campus buildings abound. We stopped there for our daily exercise walking rapidly in a chain discount store, then kept going. By this time we are just enduring the drive like the folks did. They were in their early 20s when they did it. We are not.

On the fourth day we went across the ever-so-desolate Mojave desert in California and turned south toward San Bernardino before heading west again into Los Angeles proper. We had heard the forecasts of an “atmospheric river” choosing the time of our visit to come ashore, but didn’t quite know what to expect. The song tells us ‘it never rains in southern California, but girl let me warn ya, it pours, man it pours!’ And pour it did. By the time we made the 5 Freeway it was actually pouring rain. Visibility was sketchy with the spray coming up off the highway. Nobody slowed down, of course. We were close to our destination so we kept up the pace, too. After a U-turn off the freeway and some curvy streets, we made it.

After driving that far, it’s always a happy sensation to stand on the ground and not see anything whizzing past. For the most part, that’s what we did the next three days, visiting nearby eateries and sights while others did the driving. I was ready. It rained all three days we were there, and that was interesting, too. We saw water rushing between the Los Angeles River’s concrete banks.

While in Malibu we could see where last year’s fires had burned houses and businesses from the water’s edge to the hilly ridges above

That first evening, however, we went out to dinner. I’m always a little tense in big urban areas so after finding a parking spot we walked about two blocks to our dining destination. Before we reached it I looked down at the sidewalk because something caught my eye. In a restless city where everyone is supposed to pay using their phones and various apps, I spotted a $20 bill folded up near the curb. When I picked it up I noticed there was another $20 bill inside it. It was the most money I ever found in my life. Maybe this trip wouldn’t be so bad!

With the guidance of an excellent tour guide and host who knew the city well, we relaxed enough to actually enjoy it. We watched It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World with our host. Set in the Los Angeles area in 1963, it’s a classic comedy with a remarkable cast (mostly comedians) and terrific humor, much of it physical. If you liked the Three Stooges, you’ll love this one. It’s also filled with classic early 1960s cars, adding something else to watch for. Next day we drove over to Santa Monica and then up the coast highway through Malibu and back. We saw the site of a memorable chase scene from the movie where numerous yellow taxis come roaring down a hill before careening onto the coast highway. It added much local interest to our comings and goings.

While in Malibu we could see where last year’s fires had burned houses and businesses from the water’s edge to the hilly ridges above. The blackened hillsides showed clearly the fire’s paths and also showed that although some clearing had taken place, very few sites had seen any start of rebuilding. We swallowed hard and vowed to appreciate our home east of the Mississippi River more than ever. We walked up to a little park overlooking the Pacific, but partway up we noticed the sign warning us that rattlesnakes sometimes choose to sun themselves on the paved walkway. We looked around, took a selfie, and went back to the car.

Another highlight of our stay was a morning visit to the Koreatown part of LA where we spent some time in a Korean supermarket. It was quite the cultural/culinary experience. From exotic seafood to dozens of varieties of rice to kimchee to tea we enjoyed a feast for the eyes. We also went to a French pastry shop. Upon entering there was the expected sight and smell of a bakery, but less expected was a table near us filled with a dozen LAPD officers enjoying their morning break. We enjoyed every moment of our time there in the comforting presence of law enforcement wearing the iconic large oval LAPD badges just like we remembered from Dragnet and dozens of cop shows.

A remarkable rainbow almost close enough to touch

There was also plenty of time to relax in a hilly but quiet home neighborhood and soak in the presence of family with tea, coffee, and some quiet comfort food. All too soon it was time to head back out on the highway to retrace our steps homeward.

The trip home was remarkable for its weather phenomena. Even in the LA suburbs and out toward San Bernardino the flat-bottomed clouds showed us where the condensation levels were in the mountains. It was the illustration of a rain-shadow desert in which moisture in the air rises up to cross mountains but drops most of it in the form of rain or snow before drier air descends on the other side, leaving desert conditions in the ‘shadow’ of the mountains. East of the mountains lies the vast expanse of the Mojave Desert, and on the day we crossed it we saw something few can boast. It rained steadily most of the way to the Arizona line beyond Needles. There were frequent patches of standing water in the desert! For once there was no dust and no burning sun and the humidity in the air was a welcome balm to the nose and to our skin.

Next morning we drove steadily east in Arizona. While we were still 75 miles out it began to rain again and as we climbed in elevation toward Flagstaff the rain gradually turned to snow. By the time we made it to the middle of Flagstaff it was hard to see, the roads were slushy and slippery, and the snow had accumulated to three or four inches. Just three or four miles further east the snow had stopped (it had never begun, actually), the roads were dry, and we almost questioned what we had driven through in the previous hour. In New Mexico again we had more showers and a remarkable rainbow almost close enough to touch.

Two days later we splashed through heavy rain again as we approached Tulsa. When we began to see the outer suburbs of the city, cooler air moving in plunged us into deep fog so thick that we had to slow down to feel our way. Just then the GPS failed and I had to plot a course from the atlas. An earlier than expected evening was just what we needed. A carry-out dinner in our hotel room helped prepare for the final leg. One more night on the road in Missouri put us in position to roll home the last day.

We always say we won’t drive it again but considering that we might see desert rain, snow in the mountains, and Route 66 in eight different golden hours, who knows? I could also find another $20 bill. That would make it all seem worthwhile if we can get rested again before it’s time to go.

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