Somewhere along the way in Oklahoma....
Oklahoma's endless horizons of gray fields and dull colors left me hungry for Alabama green. It seemed as if the vastness sucked the color from everything.
Stopping for a restroom break near local reservations.
We talked about tornado shelters and sod houses- how many sod houses were built into hillsides and banks, improvised pioneer tornado shelters.
In Aline, OK, the Sod House Museum stands as a tribute to the sod houses built by early Western pioneers. I doodled a worksheet/handout on sod houses for the little people to use as a reference. Having ink pens and paper is always handy on long road trips.
Building a little house on the prairie (Missouri Botanical Gardens)
Houses made of dirt and mud (Gregory LeFever)
Homesteaders (National Parks Service)
Without any trees or valleys to shield us from the wind, we learned to hold tight to papers and bags as we walked around the way stations of Oklahoma. Honestly, we tend to be limited in our thinking about resources. For instance, playing a few rounds of Settlers of Cataan would not have provided us with any insight into living in a state like Oklahoma.
Fortunately, our imaginations stepped in where the books and games left off. Without trees or timber as a natural resource, the wind itself was harnessed and put to use. The landscape was dotted with wind farms. Micah and Milla shrieked to see such large pieces of metal barely moving in the prairie winds. The King and I turned up the music and sang along. Oklahoma burned on forever- the surprising dry, warm air sustained small drifts of what may once have been called "snow".
We talked about the difference between "snow" and "slush". Then we talked about desolation- and what makes a place feel like home to us. We talked- and we didn't talk. Sometimes the little ones simply sang. Mostly, we waited for the long stretch of land known as "Oklahoma" to end. It seems I couldn't even muster a poem without invoking the word "empty".
