Roadtrip Reflections

"Out on these Texas plains

You can see for a million lives

And there's a thousand exits

Between here and the state line"

 - 40 Acres, by Caedmon's Call 

Over Thanksgiving, my boyfriend and I took a two-plus hour road trip to spend the day with good friends of his. The scenery followed a similar pattern throughout the drive; highways through cities, then tiny towns, then into the sprawling countryside, with acres of farmland spread far as the eye can see. We passed autumn-rolled bales of hay, herds of cattle, and farmhouses ranging from somewhat dilapidated wooden structures to sturdier stone buildings. I always find it fascinating to imagine the lives of other people, the lives of families who have grown up running a farm or ranch, their income based on livestock or crops or both. It seems like a hard and honest way to make a living. Something tangible to pass on down through the generations, as long as they are willing to put in the sweat and strain. In an age of technology, where the city I live in is becoming synonymous with large, progressive tech organizations and is a current hotbed of development, it's comforting to think of people whose lives and livelihoods are firmly rooted in the earth. Technology changes things for them as well, yet it's still the same crops they're harvesting, the same seasons and weather patterns they're tracking, with all of us consumers linked back to them in the most essential ways. 

It's easy to romanticize a way of life which is tied to the earth, though I have no delusions about the hardships of it as well. In Texas, long periods of drought are not uncommon, and when it does finally rain, a flash flood can be devastating. Even with our country's current love of food which is organic and farm-to-table, still, I can just imagine the continual hustle it must take to sell one's produce. There's the growing and harvesting, and then there's the partnering with the grocer, butcher, restaurant, or farmer's market. It's not a process which sounds enviable, though is, in my opinion, completely admirable. One's land, one's hard work, one's product sustaining others wholesomely, naturally. That's why driving through miles and miles of farms and ranches is something I find calming, inspiring, and encouraging. 

Our drive took us across just a small part of Texas. I've love to see a map of the ways I've criss-crossed the state during my lifetime so far. I've taken a number of trips to the coast,  many four-hour drives to see my sister in East Texas when she was in college, a few to another state, and smaller ones looping and zigzagging around my home base. Texas has a kind of honest simplicity to it. There are flat plains and rolling hill country, with all of it spread out across 167,624,960 acres (or some such rough number, according to a quick google search). Surrounding the diversity of Houston, the art of Dallas, the music and technology of Austin, and every other major city throughout are miles of land with a much smaller ratio of inhabitants. Texas boasts about how everything from the sky to the cowboy hats are bigger here. It's bravado in a hearty kind of way, the kind with a wink and a friendly slap on the back. Texas does have so much space, such bigness, yet it all comes down to the simplistic trueness of the land and the people who dwell here. 

Driving across Texas, some people say how you will see just a whole lot of nothing, or at least a whole lot of the very same thing, over and over. Every state has qualities which the inhabitants grow to know and love. Sometimes it takes a long drive to be reminded of those qualities. Scenery flashing past the car windows, mile after mile, rooted and grounded and home.