Davy Crockett was born nearly fifty years after Daniel Boone, but went on to become more famous than him, probably because he became the subject of a hugely popular Disney series in the 1950, starring Fess Parker.  He had his own theme song, which acknowledged him as the King of the Wild Frontier, and coonskin caps became all the rage.  I was a little too young for the series but had picked up a coonskin cap on a horse-riding trip in Colorado, and subsequently got to star as Davy in a school pageant during the bicentennial.  I wrestled a bear and fought two Mexicans, while the rest of the class stood behind me, dressed as trees and singing the chorus.

From the Carl Sandburg Home it was two hours north on the 26 to reach the David Crockett Birthplace State Park.  When I reached the town of Erwin, I headed west on the 107.  There was a nice campground there beside the Nolichucky River.  If it hadn’t been so early yet I would have set up camp. 

As with Daniel Boone, and almost every other legend of the American West, it is hard to know where the real-life story of Crockett ends, and the myth begins.  If anything, he was a storyteller.  Tall tales that sprang from his life include him killing a bear when he was three and being charismatic enough to smile a raccoon down from a tree.  He did serve as a scout and in Congress, where his oratory skills set him apart, and he did die at the Alamo, during the Texas Revolution.  That much is true.  Every other fact of his life has been stretched beyond recognition, and that’s what makes him fun.

The cabin and farm that make up the Crockett Homestead have been recreated.  A stone marker testifies that this is the spot where they once resided.  There were pictures of him in his buckskins and coonskin hat, loading the muzzle of a rifle.  Next to that is a picture of an Indian warrior, feathers in his mohawk, his own rifle laid across his knee.  I walked down to the river, taking the opportunity to call my mother and let her know I’d be back in a few weeks.  Had I already been on the road almost a month?  It appeared so, but time is elastic, we all know that.  It modifies itself to fit the occasion.

My plan was to make it to the Great Smoky Mountain Nation Park and camp there that night.  It was just a few hours away to Gatlinburg, the Gateway to the Smokies.  I got back on the 26 to the 40 west.  At one point I had to get over to the 321.  About five miles from the park entrance, it began to resemble an amusement park, sort of like the main drag of Branson.  There was a Space Needle and Sky Lift, lodges, museums, hotels, inns, old-time photos, gift shops, black bears, pumpkins and scarecrows for Halloween, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, mini-golf, waterparks, Ole Smoky Moonshine, Margaritaville.  In nearby Pigeon Forge, there was Dollywood and the Rain Forests Adventure Zoo.

Making it through all that, I was just glad that the park was open and that they accepted my National Park Pass.  I stopped at the visitor center, but there was a lethal combination of tourist mania and COVID paranoia going on.  A masked ranger stood at the door to it, letting visitors in two at a time, once two people had exited.  Meanwhile, back in Gatlinburg they’d been cramming them into the gift shops and restaurants like sardines. 

Where did the true danger lie?  With the virus?  With the black bears that everyone wanted to see?  With the other tourists?  With the government? With the society?  Maybe I was getting closer.  I decided to get away while I still could.

They call them the Great Smoky Mountains because of the perpetual fog that hangs above the ranges.  The Cherokee called them Chaconage, or place of the blue smoke, and considered the hills to be sacred.  Scientists believe the fog to be a mixture of water and hydrocarbons.  On this day there was no mystery behind the haze, as it was cloudy and raining.  Once I got past the visitor center, I tried to escape the horde of other tourists, and sped up the side of the mountain through the rain.  There was a great song by Ronnie Milsap that came out in 1980 called Smoky Mountain Rain.  Like the narrator of the song, I was looking for someone to make these big wheels burn.

I didn’t even get out of the car until I got to the other side of the park.  There was a campground called the Smokemont right by the exit.  I decided to see if they had anything available, even though the rain was coming down pretty hard by now.  There was an RV ahead of me with Canadian license plates.  They appeared to be holding a summit at the window.  It was taking forever.  There were spots available.  As soon as I drove in, the rain let up.  I found a site beneath some trees that was only semi-boggy.  As soon as I got my tent set up, I decided to drive into Cherokee and take a look around.

Cherokee, in North Carolina, is the capital for the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation.  Around fifteen thousand tribe members live on the land.  There are many things for tourists to see and do there.  I parked the car and took a footbridge over the Oconaluftee River to visit Chief Saunooke’s Trading Post.  There it was possible to see a gem mine and pan for gold in the pits.  I passed The Leather Place and saw a poster for a powwow that had happened over the summer.  Outside of one shop stood an old wooden Indian.  Outside of another sat a fat grizzly bear.  There were mechanical bull rides and Native Cloud CBD.

I walked across the street, past a painted black bear, and up to the Little Princess Restaurant.  There was a mini-golf across the street with a giant red chief extending his hand in greeting.  Getting back in the car, I drove a little further.  Two totem poles stood sentry outside a gift shop.  In the corner was another statue of a black bear, this one snarling, up on its hindlegs.  There was a mural of a medicine wheel, then the Smoky Mountain Gold and Ruby Mine.  One place offered Indian shows and face painting, and a free gift with the purchase of a pair of moccasins.  There was Bill the Buffalo.

Driving back, I came across many cars that were stopped beside the road, the tourists out with their cameras, as a herd of nearly fifty elk grazed in a nearby pasture.  I was exhausted when I got back.  Jenny had sent a Tupperware with some salmon in it, along with a few pieces of fruit.  I ate those and got into the tent, wet on the outside, mostly dry within.  There was still a group of Daddy Long Leg spiders from Lake Norman, scrambling towards the corners.  I didn’t wish them ill, but did there need to be so many of them? 

It rained pretty hard for a while, but then stopped around two.  I couldn’t sleep anyway, and decided to just break down my camp before it started pouring again.  The spiders all came scrambling out like sailors fleeing a sinking ship.  The ones that didn’t get out, got folded up in the tent and stashed back in the trunk.  It was nice and cool in the car.  I could’ve easily fallen asleep sitting there.  Instead, I tried to meditate.

I put the window down a little and could hear the constant rushing of the stream that ran through the camp.  There was also a breeze running through the trees, shaking raindrops loose that fell on the roof of the car with a ping.  A harder breeze came through and some soggy yellow leaves landed on the hood.  There was a bathroom with a light on, about fifty feet away.  The light it was casting seemed to be reflecting off the low-hanging clouds.  There were no visible stars.  A few times it started to sprinkle, but then stopped again.  It was still pitch-black but time to get moving.  Where I’d end up next, I could hardly wait to see.

When I’d left on my big road trip a month earlier, I’d had no idea which direction I might head or how long I would be out there.  I’d rented the car for six weeks, which meant I had two more left.  So far, I’d been all over the place, up the West coast, across the North, right down through the Middle, over to the East.  Why not all the way South?  Why not?  I decided to head for the Mississippi Delta. 

It was three in the morning when I left the Smokemont Campground.  The sun wouldn’t be rising for at least three more hours.  When you have that much adrenaline running through your veins you are either extremely excited or extremely manic.  I was a little of both.  I took the 74 to Chattanooga, and then flew down the 59 freeway to Birmingham.  From there, I got on the 20 west and had just passed Tuscaloosa, when I saw a sign that said Moundville.  Moundville?  I had never heard of it before.  I missed the exit and had to backtrack to get to it.  It was about ten miles south on the 69.

Moundville Archaeological Site was a ceremonial site of the ancient Mississippi culture and is located on the Black Warrior River.  The region of the Mound Building societies was largely in the south and middle of what is now the states.  Many people are probably not even aware the mounds exist.  For some reason they don’t get a lot of publicity.  When I entered the park, a sign pointed me toward the Chieftains Mound.  There were three or four large mounds rising from the green grass in front of me. 

I drove over to the Chieftains Mound, which stands sixty feet tall, and has a flat surface at the top.  Steps lead to a viewing platform and a sign explains that the chief might’ve claimed to have had relationships with supernatural beings, from which he derived his power and authority.  It reminded me of ruins I’ve visited in Mexico and Central America, but without any of the temples or structures.  Only the foundations, or the mounds, remain to testify to the ghost civilizations of the past.

There was a museum, the Jones Archaeological Museum, I went into next, not expecting much.  Four carved birds sat on pillars leading to the entrance.  Inside was an exhibit called Lost Realm of the Black Warrior, which featured ancient artifacts and recreated scenes, with very life-like figures, that were almost futuristic.  They were a mix of Native American and Egyptian, with a little bit of Mad Max thrown in. 

The first was four warriors, wearing loincloths, bare-chested, only necklaces, top-knots, painted faces, carrying a queen on a palanquin.  She had shells around her neck and head, and a tray of sunflowers in her hand.  A medicine man, with plumes in his hair, follows the procession, blowing on a flute.  Another, crouches to the side, feathers under his arms, black crow wings painted on his eyes, holding a rattle and a stone axe.

Another scene showed four figures, three men and a woman, with painted faces, piled high with animal skins.  They seem to be trading or carrying out a business transaction.  With their antenna headdresses and elaborate jewelry, they belong as much to the future as they do the past.

Driving down to the river afterwards, I came upon four huts that housed more primitive exhibits.  Here were figures with less adornment, acting out a day in the life of a villager back in that time.  In one hut two women were weaving while a man was carving a bow.  In the next they were grinding corn and wheat and making fish-traps our of sticks.  In the third they were creating art, stretching, and painting skins, and making pottery.  In the last hut they were burying the dead, sitting around a shallow grave, the corpse surrounded by food and gourds full of provisions for the afterlife.

After leaving Moundville, it was another hour and a half to get to Meridian, Mississippi.  It is the home of Jimmie Rodgers, the singing brakeman, and I’d visited his grave before.  Now I wanted to find it again, but ended up at a museum that was closed.  The sign of the door said it was open, but it wasn’t. 

There were pictures of Rodgers out front, wearing an engineer’s cap and giving two thumbs up, another in a cowboy suit, playing his guitar.  He was famous for his blue yodel and the first musician inducted into the Country Hall of Fame.  One of his greatest hits is called Waiting for a Train.  I could’ve looked harder for his grave but wasn’t waiting for anything.  It was two more hours to Vicksburg and then on to Highway 61.

Highway 61, the Blues Highway, runs from New Orleans all the way to Minnesota, and is one of the most fabled stretches of road in the land.  I’d driven through it a few times before, but wanted to see it again.  Although it was only two hours to Vicksburg, I’d already been driving since three in the morning.  I figured I’d probably look for a campground and start driving up Highway 61 in the morning. 

When I got to Vicksburg, it was hot and still too early to stop, however, so after visiting a Civil War Memorial with a view of the Mississippi River, now a sprawling old granddaddy of a river, lazily putzing on a few more miles before giving it up in the Gulf of Mexico, I backtracked five miles and got on the 61 heading north.

The day was clear and bright, with a few scattered clouds in the sky.  The trees on both sides of the road were wreathed in Spanish Moss, interesting by day, potentially spooky by night.  A few of the homes and trailers I passed were decorated for Halloween.  Around one tree someone had placed a circle of black witches.  I didn’t believe it to be related to any hoodoo rituals, but still pulled over to take a look.

My first stop was in Rolling Fork, the home of the great bluesman, Muddy Waters.  Blues is a vital ingredient in my song mix, and that is largely from the shuffle rhythm I learned playing Good Morning Little Schoolgirl off Muddy’s Folk Singer album, at least ten thousand times in my early twenties.  I stood by rivers, waded out into fields and oceans, rode on buses and trains, climbed to the top of the world, playing that rhythm.  I played the same rhythm for over thirty years and in all that time have never written a single straight-up twelve-bar blues.  I rely on the blues for propulsion and feeling, rather than form.  The greats did it their way.  I try to do it mine.

When it comes to American music, Muddy Waters is one of the kings.  When I reached the town of Rolling Fork, it was curious to see that Teddy Roosevelt’s Bear Hunt of 1902, seemed to be as important to the town as Muddy himself.  Apparently, Teddy was in Mississippi to hunt black bears, and refused to shoot a bear that had been clubbed and was unable to defend itself.  A toy shop owner got wind of the story and began producing Teddy Bears.  That’s how those got started.

As far as Muddy, he was a tractor driver who ran a juke joint and was first recorded playing and singing by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress.  Later, he migrated to Chicago and helped to invent the electric blues.  From that the seeds of early rock and roll were formed.  Muddy, along with other blues heroes, like Howling Wolf and Sonny Boy Williams, were revered by the musicians who made up the British Invasion of the 60s, acts like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.  Even Pink Floyd, the living definition of prog rock, got their start as a blues cover band.

In the town square I came across a shrine to Muddy, made up of photos, records, art work inspired by him, and tributes.  Across the street was the City Barber Shop and Aces Lounge.  Outside the Sharkey County Library there was a mural featuring, Muddy Waters, Roosevelt, an American Indian, a few black bears, an ear of corn, deer, a mallard duck, a catfish, and a sign for Highway 61. 

In Leland, the home of Kermit the Frog, I came up the Highway 61 Blues Museum, which was temporarily closed.  I read about James “Son” Thomas, a famous musician and sculptor who’d once worked at the hotel that was now the museum.  There was a painting of two men on a farm playing guitars.  A nearby mural depicted local musicians who’d gone on attain some renown.  On one corner there was a sign commemorating Johnny Winter.  I drove further and found one celebrating Bobbie Gentry.

From Leland, it was an hour east to get to the grave of Robert Johnson outside of Greenwood.  I took the 82 to get there.  Although he recorded just twenty-nine songs in his brief career, Johnson is a seminal character in blues mythology, being the one who sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in order to be able to play the blues.  He achieved such proficiency in such a short span of time, the story seemed almost plausible to some.

Johnson is believed to be buried in the cemetery of the Little Zion Church.  Rather he resides there or not, his headstone has certainly been turned into a shrine.  It says he was born in 1911 and passed away in 1938, allegedly poisoned by a rival for the affections of a woman.  The grave is covered with flowers, candles, bottles of alcohol, and smaller stones.  The back of the headstone quotes the lyrics to one of his songs, something about going away and coming back with a great story. 

On a whim, I Googled Robert Johnson’s Crossroads, and was given a location, about fifty miles away.  Karen, the voice of Google Maps, had been the trustiest guide an explorer could wish for, outside of the times when my phone signal had dropped out.  Now she directed me to the Crossroads, the Mountain Bluebird obeying every turn of the wheel.  I took the 518 north to the 8 west, then the 49 to Johnson-Claremont Road.  The sun was low in the sky, illuminating a veil of clouds and the fields of cotton I was passing by.

How can Google know where Robert Johnson made his deal with the devil?  I didn’t care.  The place I got taken to was perfect, two trees growing beside some train tracks, near the intersection of two country roads.  It was where the red road meets the black road.  I knew I was standing on holy ground.  I got out and took a picture of the Mountain Bluebird parked right at the intersection, the lights of it glowing as orange as the sun that was setting down behind it. 

The city of Clarksdale is the blues music capital of the world.  From the crossroads, it was only a ten-minute drive into town.  Once again, I’d put off looking for a campsite until the very last minute and was incredibly relieved to find an Expo Center with an RV Park that was unattended.  There were only a few RVs on site.  I pulled into an empty space and threw up my tent, then stumbled over to a Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen and choked down a sandwich, before hurrying back to hide out until the dawn.  My track record for finding camp spots had been remarkable so far, largely due to Google Maps, and I was on the downhill portion of my journey by now, only two weeks to go.

Right at dawn, I headed back out to the Crossroads.  The only thing I hadn’t sold for my music is my soul.  That was OK these days.  I was just lucky to be alive.  Driving back through the cotton fields, I was still in a daze, almost the meditative state I rarely seemed to achieve.  There was Sunflower River Road, the same intersection, railroad tracks, and trees.  I got out of the car and started walking, the sun right at my back.  My shadow stretched fifty feet ahead of me, up to the tracks, up to the trees.  It was like a figure from a dream, or a sinner being illuminated by the fires of hell, only these fires were cleansing fires, what came out of them was a new being, a new way of life. 

I sat down beside the tracks.  Crickets were chirpings and a few crows were cawing.  A power truck pulled over beside my car.  A few minutes later a black truck pulled up next to it and the drivers began a short conversation.  Beyond them I could hear cars whirring by on highway 49.  The black truck moved down the road.  Some yellow and red lights began to flash on the power truck and it crawled off as well. 

A tractor was coming down the road now.  What did I look like to the farmer?  Just another blues nut, I imagine, trying to make his own deal.  The noise of the tractor grew louder and louder.  The chirping of the crickets seemed to swell.  Right before the tractor reached me, I looked up and nodded my head.  The farmer smiled and waved his hand.  At least one of us had a job to do that day, actually both of us, if laundry counted as a job.

My act was looking pretty raggedy right about now.  After leaving the crossroads, I went off in search of a laundry mat.  It was still an hour and a half before the Delta Blues Museum opened.  There was a laundry I found right across from Abe’s Bar-B-Q.  After putting a load in the wash, I decided, with some trepidation, to call Avis because I was considering asking for the car for two more weeks.  Everything was going so well, and as long as I could keep finding places to camp, I wasn’t spending that much. 

When I got ahold of a representative I got a rude reply, however.  Not only could I not extend my lease.  She demanded that I return the car the next day.  I took a deep breath and explained to her why this wasn’t going to happen.

It is true.  I had put over ten thousand miles on the car in a month, but she didn’t claim that to be the issue.  Even though she acknowledged that my reservation had been for six weeks, she said the lease I’d signed had only been for a month, and that it ended the next day.  This was devastating to hear but what could I do, but plead and implore. 

They must have been tracking my journey.  They knew I’d been out on a rampage.  Was this there way of getting back at me for taking advantage of the unlimited mileage clause?  At last, the woman relented, and said I could bring the car back on the last day that I’d reserved it.  Good god.  To go out like that would’ve taken the wind right out of my sails.  I still had big, big plans for the Mountain Bluebird.

A couple smoking a joint outside of the laundry mat helped me figure out the dryer.  When my clothes were done, I drove to the Honson Plantation just outside of town, where in 1935, cotton picking first became a mechanical, rather than a hand-picked, operational.  Here the famous piano player Pinetop Perkins once drove a tractor.  It looked like a good place for a blues retreat, period equipment strewn around the property, and sharecropper’s shacks that looked like they could be rented out.

After that, I went looking for the Delta Blues Museum, passing the old Riverside Hotel, where Bessie Smith had died, following a car accident.  The museum was on the corner of Delta Avenue and Blues Alley.  The area it was in seemed to be enjoying some kind of renaissance, with various cafes, street art, and galleries, giving it a vibrant atmosphere.  I walked past Bluestown Music and Deak’s Mississippi Saxophones, advertising live music, folk art, and cold beer.  There was the Sunflower River Walk and banners celebrating Robert Nighthawk, Willie Brown, Son House, Charlie Patton, and Howling Wolf.  Outside the museum was the Blues Mobile, a Cadillac as long as a train. 

Cameras were off-limits in the museum.  I could’ve spent a week inside, but on this occasion hurried through, my head already stuffed with information and images.  I walked over to the Delta Blues Stage where someone had stenciled an image of Robert Plant. 

Walking back to the car, I took a picture of Muddy Waters holding a microphone that was inside one of the windows.  Reflected in that same window was a street lined with cars, a mural of other blue greats, and an image of myself, holding up my phone, looking into the past, the present, and the future at the exact same time.  The next time I made it to Clarksdale, I’d be playing music there.

One place that had always intrigued me that I’d never been to was Hot Springs, Arkansas.  The name conjured up images of pools of hot water surrounded by pine trees.  I decided to make that my next destination, but first wanted to pass through Little Rock.  I took the 49, briefly pulling over at the Louisiana Purchase State Park before deciding that my plate was already full enough, and getting back on the road.  I got on the 40 west and was just about fifteen miles from Little Rock when I saw a sign for the Toltec Mounds, which I decided to check out.  I took the 15 south to the 165 and the park was right there.

The Toltec Mounds were named that, based on a false assumption that they were constructed by the Toltecs of Mexico.  Both the mounds, there and at Moundville, do resemble the bases of sites I’ve been to in Mexico, but even archaeologists don’t know for certain who really built them.  The best that they can do is make educated guesses, like dreaming up a whole dinosaur out of a discovered tooth or bone. 

A wooden walking trail looped around the mounds, but what interested me more than anything was a cluster of broad-based swamp cypress trees growing out of a narrow, green lake behind the second mound.  The color of the water and the way the trees reached out of it took me by surprise, adding a science-fiction element to the grand mystery of it all.  A UFO touching down on the mound right behind me would have fit right in.

It was just twenty miles to Little Rock from there.  The few times I’d passed through had all been on a Greyhound Bus.  On this occasion, I didn’t see much more, just drove downtown and past the state capitol.  What I really wanted to do was get to Hot Springs National Park in time to enjoy the rest of the day there.  I envisioned myself changing into my swimsuit, sitting beside a hot pool with my ukelele, dangling my legs in the water.  It was just an hour to get there.  I took the 430 to the 30 to the 70. 

When I reached the National Park, I was puzzled.  I’d been directed to downtown Hot Springs and a series of bathhouses on the main street.  Was this the park?  Apparently, it was.  I found street parking about a half mile away and walked back to Bathhouse Row.  Dating back to 1892, eight historic bathhouses stand side by side: Superior, Hale, Maurice, Fordyce, Quapaw, Ozark, Buckstaff, and Lamar. 

I walked past those, looked at the Fordyce Spring, took a picture of an Indian mural in a parking lot, stopped outside the Gangster Museum, with Al Capone on a bench out front, looked into the window of the Wax Museum, featuring both George Bushes, and passed the Gambling Museum on the way back to my car.  What I never did was get into my swimming suit or get wet.  Frankly, I was confused.  I needed to find a place to camp.

There was a campground on Lake Catherine, about twenty miles from Hot Springs.  I let Karen from Google Maps take me there.  I was on auto-pilot, just blindly following directions, hoping there’d be something open.  It seemed to take forever to get there.  When I did, there were a few spots available.  I was supposed to register at the office, but it had looked closed when I passed it.  I just took my chances and put my tent up, flipping the sign in front to say it was reserved.  Just as I’d gotten my camp set up, here came a ranger.  He said it was OK if I stayed there.  I could just pay when I checked out.

It had rained a few days on my trip, but mostly every day had been beautiful.  This was another good one.  A long deck stretched out into the lake.  I walked to the end of it.  There was not the slightest breeze.  The water was totally calm.  The sky was still blue, and the lake was blue, ringed by a green reflection from the surrounding hills.  The lake seemed shallow, not deep enough to dive into.  Some locals told me I’d come at the perfect time.  For the past week, it had been almost unbearably hot.  Now everything had cooled off in time.  The weather was going to be just fine.

It was my intention to stop by the office and pay for the campsite I was occupying at Lake Catherine once I woke up, but then I woke up at two in the morning and couldn’t sleep again.  I was anxious and restless, ready to hop back in the car and charge.  My idea was to hit almost the whole of Indian Territory in Oklahoma.  As the days left on my trip began to wind down, my desire to stuff them beyond maximum capacity only escalated.

I tried to calm my frenzied mind, climbing up into a cross-legged position and attempting to monitor my breathing.  Instead, my breaths came out hard and forceful, like those of a woman in labor.  I zipped the door opened and tried again.  The stars were showing above the pine trees.  A few of them were scattered in the branches like Christmas lights.  There it was, the electric hum of the crickets and cicadas that accompanied me for most of the journey.  Lights from houses that circled the lake reflected off it; white, silver, yellow, orange.  They rippled across it and then rippled through my mind.  My mind was still racing. 

Something raced past the door of the tent.  Then another.  I picked up my flashlight to investigate.  It was four racoons, their eyes shining in the glare.  One was already up a tree.  Two others had begun to climb it.  The fourth sat motionless on the ground.  I sat back down and tried to calm my mind.  It was impossible.  I jumped up and started to break down camp.

It was the middle of the night.  I was on my way to Oklahoma.  I went gliding out of the campground, past the many RVs and registration office.  Sorry about that.  Many deer were standing by the side of the road.  Their eyes looked like lanterns.  Two of them crossed the road ahead of me, crouched as low as coyotes.  I stopped for gas and got a coffee and Hostess cupcake.  I had a long day ahead of me.

I took the 70 all the way to Broken Bow, driving through the dark night, with my headlights on bright for most of the time.  My aim was to reach the Choctaw Indian Reservation.  The first sign of it was the lights of the Choctaw Casino in Durant.  I stopped at the travel plaza to fill up on gas and get coffee.  Then I drove into downtown, the first light of day only now breaking in my rear-view mirror.  There were two statues of horses at the Heritage Plaza, one on its hindlegs, bucking its way to freedom.

The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is the second largest reservation in America.  In the 1830s, many Choctaws living in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana were moved to Indian Territory, west of the Mississippi.  This relocation, known as the Trail of Tears, shattered their way of life and identity.  Other tribes that were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands included the Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole.  My hope was to visit the Choctaw Cultural Center, but it was closed.  Instead, I crossed the road to the casino, and saw the Tim McGraw, Reba, and Keith Urban were playing there later that year.

It was two hours to get to the Chickasaw Nation.  It covers 7,600 square acres in south-central Oklahoma and the tribe is the thirteenth largest in the States.  To get there I took the 70 west to the I-35 and headed north.   I exited on the 7 and came to the Chickasaw Cultural Center, which fortunately was open. 

There was a large museum to explore, with interesting statues out front.  Out back they were demonstrating a circle dance, which was one of the highlights of my trip so far.  An elder was explaining the tradition behind the dance and seven young dancers were demonstrating.  The women had cans with rocks or beads inside strapped to their legs that rattled when they danced.  These were particularly apparent when they did the stomp dance.  They also used deer hooves and turtle shells as percussion instruments.

It was another hour and a half to get to Oklahoma City.  All I did was drive up there and cruise around the downtown for ten minutes.  I didn’t have a destination.  I was just passing through.  When I left town, I went to get on the 40 east, needing, for some odd reason, to merge onto the freeway from the right.  Someone wasn’t paying attention, and I came a quarter of an inch from being sideswiped by a car roaring past in the next lane. 

Once again, I could not afford for something like that to happen.  I was getting into the homestretch now.  I could taste it.  One false move and everything would go straight down the tubes.  I would have to keep my eyes wide open from now on.