On Seeing America

Gerrie and I have just returned from a ten day adventure! Our travels took us to Los Angeles, through the southwest on board the Amtrak Southwest Chief and ending with a few days in Chicago. It is the longest vacation I’ve had in many years. In the weeks and months to come I will share bits and pieces of the adventure. Here is a beginning. 

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Among the back pages of my journal is a part of a paper napkin. It is the map that appears on the Southwest Airlines cocktail napkin. On it I marked the states that I have visited and made a list of the states I still needed to see. I kept the napkin and pasted it into the book. I discovered that there were still many places out there I wanted to see and determined that I would do what I could to visit these overlooked places. This past week I marked three of those states off of my list.

Though I was born in southeast Missouri, I have spent most of my life in Tennessee. I am used to the sights of farmland and rolling green hills. What I know of tall mountains comes from living a short while in Switzerland or from visiting Colorado a few years ago. I am familiar with oceans having lived near the Atlantic coast for a short while and with white sand beaches from years of family vacations to the Gulf Coast.

Waking up on Tuesday morning, I was greeted with a landscape that I have only known through photographs and films. A little past ten o’clock and we were in the lounge car looking north. We were somewhere between Gallup and Albuquerque. Flagstaff and Winslow were already behind us. This was my introduction to the Southwest!

The land there is barren. Stark. The soil has a red tint and is punctuated by gray-green shrub and sage brush. In the distance, say two to three miles away, stood hills. Perhaps these were mountains. They were a type of flat-top rock formation. Every so often there would be a small grouping of houses. These were trailers mostly and a stucco structure here and there. These were all on their own patch of ground with no grass and no trees for shade. Just the red dirt and the odd shrub. Some houses were abandoned and left to decay in the sun. I found myself looking for the bleached white skull of some long deceased animal. Like a Georgia O’Keeffe painting.

In time we’d begin to see rock formations more closely. These reminded me of the granite kopje formations we saw in Zimbabwe. Great piles of granite stacked atop each other or intricately pieced together like a giant stone puzzle.

As we continued east, the palette changes. The colors and texture of the land are different. The red soil gives way to the golden hue of the prairie. The landscape is dotted with scrub brush still, but more trees begin to appear. This scene stretches on for miles. Only an oasis of trees or a distant hill or mountain to keeps it from stretching  on forever.

This land fascinates me! It fascinates me the same way that the Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, or the Dartmoor National Park in Devon does. The land is stark and barren. It has the aura of still being untamed. I imagine these places can be brutal to humankind, just as I imagine the Southwest can be. Yet, it is beautiful and majestic in its own way! What may appear to be a land with so little can also appear to offer so much. One can imagine that there are endless possibilities in this land. 

I spent hours watching the countryside pass by. Looking out my window I thanked God! His creation is marvelous wherever you go and wherever you look. Whether it's a familiar scene in my neighborhood, a rolling hill in Tennessee or a stretch of white sand, He is present. Even in the harshest of places, He still causes life to happen and beauty to abound. For that, I am thankful! 

A few weeks ago I quoted Rich Mullins, “And there’s so much beauty around, for just two eyes to see. But everywhere I go, I’m looking.” As I watched the landscapes going by, I was reminded of another line from Rich, “Everywhere I go I see You.” God painted the marvelous pictures just outside my window in Arizona and New Mexico. His brush was still at work Colorado and even through Kansas as I slept. He is in and through it all. 

At the conclusion of this incredible ten day journey, I am left with this thought. If I live the remainder of my life without returning to the southwest, it will be a tragedy. 

A tragedy to me at least. 


Greg