Ahhh, Texas. I hit the northern plains Wednesday afternoon and knew immediately that something was different. The skies seemed to open up a little bit, the land got a little bit wider. Sure the sides of the highway are built up with motels and gas stations and fast food joints, but I can’t help but wonder how the land struck those early pioneers who’d grown up in the New England woods or Southern pine forests.

The first thing I did when I got to Texas, crosseyed from having driven from Oklahoma City that morning and the air hot and muggy enough that my shirt is sticking to my back within 2 seconds of stepping out of the car, was to dive into the Baylor University library. I was digging around their manuscript collection looking at papers of ranching families from the late 1800s. Maybe it sounds dull, but it was actually fascinating to unravel parts of life stories from the paper trail they had left behind. And that’s how I stumbled across the love story between Clitus Jones and Lily Sutton.

In the middle of a thick folder of papers a little note pops up, written on faded blue-lined paper.

Miss Lily Sutton,
Can I have the pleasure of your company for a drive this evening?
Your friend,
E.C. Jones

I turn over the note, and to my delight and surprise, there is Lily’s reply.

Mr. Jones, I accept your invitation for a drive this afternoon with pleasure.
Your friend,
Lily Sutton.
Cuevo, Texas. May 8th, 1881.

The formality of the language and the quaintness of it all is, frankly, adorable. I read on breathlessly as their courtship unfolds. The pair progresses from “Mr. Jones” and “Miss Sutton” to exchanges of “I never wanted to see any body as badly in my life” and “An intire [sic] week passed away before I heard one thing of you for your letter only came today. It is needless to say how much pleasure it afforded me to hear from you.” They ditched the platonic “your friend” for “ever yours” or “ever your own loving Lily.”

I wonder when Clitus is going to ante up and finally seal the deal. The pair swaps letters for nearly a year and a half, writing to each other at odd hours, promising to keep the missives short but somehow, can’t seem to stop themselves from writing on and on.

At last, the wedding invitation. It is a plain white rectangle of paper, simply announcing the marriage of E. Clitus Jones and Lily Sutton at the Episcopal Church in Cuevo, Texas on January 17th, 1883. As far as I can tell, they did live pretty happily. After nearly a decade of marriage, Clitus was still sending Lily letters from his business trips, addressed to “My Dear Little Girl.”

That evening, I was ready to emerge from Victorian-era romance to the 21st century by way of downtown Austin. After almost a week of traveling solo, I connect with my good friend Circe and we proceed to get knee deep in what the city can offer.

We start with dinner. One of the tattooed guys hanging out in front of one of the endless places to get inked in this town recommended Stubb’s Bar-B-Que . It was all we had hoped it would be – large plates of meat upstairs, a band downstairs, cool exposed brick mixing happily with neon signage. From there, we roll to a bar called The Library because my curiousity was piqued by a place that has floor to ceiling bookshelves and also serves booze. Turns out its a Texas chain, but still a fun place for drinks and people-watching. There is live music everywhere. Seems you can’t throw a rock without hitting a guy with a guitar, and that is just the way we like it.

We end the night at Maggie Mae’s. Yelpers are all over this place, and justifiably so. The staff are friendly and the crowd this Thursday evening seems relaxed and readu to have a good time. We listen to Jeremy Steding and his band (tagline: “A Damn Good Ride”) and they do crowd-pleasing covers of Johnny Cash and Tom Petty. While on break, Jeremy stops by at every table to distribute smiles and business cards. The kicker of the evening, though, is an amazing guitarist (also a pretty good dancer) named Adam Rogers who gets onstage and makes that thing wail. His acoustic rendition of the notorious “Thong Song” stunningly enough actually sounded good.

Yes, this is a long, long way from 1881.

I have been on the road three days and have covered 1,337 miles, or almost a third of the total trip distance. I have been waiting for the landscape to change, but the variations have been subtle. On Saturday I rolled through hour after hour of Ohio and Illinois farmland. Today I covered Missouri and a good bit of Oklahoma. The Missouri bluffs were pretty and greener than I expected. The other surprise: roadkill armadillos.

Yesterday I knocked around St. Louis with my sister. We ditched the Arch and explored the Delmar Loop, rubbing elbows with Midwestern hipsters and trawling vintage clothing shops. In late afternoon we climbed the Indian bluffs outside of the city, about the oldest and most mysterious thing the area has to offer.

Clark recorded seeing the Cahokia Mounds while the expedition was camped out on the eastern side of the Mississippi River during the winter of 1803/1804. It was a freezing day in January, the cold bitter enough that his wet feet froze to his shoes so that they had to be carefully extracted from the leather. Quite a change from the sweltering heat of midsummer I felt yesterday, a field of rolled haybales visible just to the left and the city limits of Collinsville, IL hardly a stone’s throw away.

Beyond St. Louis I hit Interstate 44, built to bypass historic Route 66. There was a earlier route that predated both of these roads, a universe away from joyriding Americans reveling in the freedom of the highway. This same ground had been traveled over by Cherokees marching westward on the Trail of Tears. This is the dark side of the American dream and the pioneer spirit, the part that kills or dislocates whatever gets in its way.

Tomorrow, I’m off to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum to look at some old cattle trail maps and other relics. This seemed the place to start digging into the West, to see it in its distilled museum form.

Tonight, I’m camping out with the sounds of cicadas surrounding my tent. I chatted with a couple folks who were impressed and maybe a little surprised to see a woman traveling alone. Turns out they spent a stint in northern Virginia. It’s a small world.