Terra Extraneus

My previous post is a review of Dustbury, one of Oklahoma’s best blogs, written by the inimitable Charles G. Hill. I intended to post that review to coincidence with Hill’s World Tour 06, which began two days ago on June 12.

Every summer Hill gasses up the car and hits the road to look for America. He burns 4,000 to 5,000 miles of highway exploring what he can in two to three weeks. Best of all, Hill invites his Dustbury readers to come along as he blogs each day from the road, complete with occasional photos.

Dustbury archives contain the reports from World Tours 2001-2005. On those various expeditions, Hill has traveled NW to Montana, N to North Dakota and Minnesota, NE as far as Maine, E to Virginia, SE to Georgia and S to Texas and Louisiana. Hill has a preference for the slower highways and out-of-the-way locations. His tours have mostly taken him back and forth across the Great Midwest and Deep South. Writes Hill:

I’ve traveled to forty-two states … I’ve driven enough miles to reach half a dozen times around the world. Even in the cases where I can’t say “Done that,” I can still often say “Been there.”

For World Tour 06, Hill mapped out a southbound route to Florida and back. For the first leg, Hill left OKC on Monday headed SE down Highway 3 toward Texarkana. He got as far Coalgate, Oklahoma, 114 miles from home, when World Tour 06 came to an abrupt halt.

I love Hill’s idea of driving the smaller highways. It’s not just about avoiding the traffic and tolls, but about taking your time and actually seeing America rather than just racing past it. Driving those old highways is like traveling back in time. Rural America along the old state highways hasn’t necessarily changed a whole lot in the last 50 years or so.

But small rural highways are not without hazards of their own. In particular, there is the wildlife. Just outside Coalgate, Hill had a collision with a deer. Bambi is dead. So is Sandy. Hill is apparently OK, although I think he’s still in shock. He’s back home, and he’s kept right on blogging, but he has had surprisingly little to say about his disappointing turn of events.

You’ve got to understand, this is the biggest news to hit Dustbury in a long time. For one thing, Hill is the kind of guy who gave his car a name and wrote a love letter to “her,” a Mazda 626 LX, when he first brought her home back in 2000. Yesterday, he posted a terse three-paragraph note titled, “She’s Dead.”

Furthermore, the World Tour must be about the biggest event of the year on the Dustbury activities calendar, so it must be a crushing blow to Dustbury’s citizenry for the tour to be canceled. In a post this morning, Hill comments on the Dodge Stratus rental he’s driving now:

This is the bottom-feeder of the line, with a nothing-special four-banger driving the front wheels. It’s an acceptable grocery-getter, but not the least bit amusing to drive, and while the seats are better than average, their adjustment range doesn’t include any position in which I’m comfortable.

Charles, we sure are sorry about your bad news. Sorry for you, and sorry for the rest of us, too. I was looking forward to being a vicarious participant in my first Dustbury World Tour, and hoped to bring a few TerraX readers along for the ride. But we’re glad you’re OK, and hopeful that there will be plenty more World Tours to come.