DAY 9 SAT. MAR.26 BENTON, AK - FESTUS, MO

If America is a land of extremes, perhaps that is best symbolized by its weather. We began with an early departure from Benton. The skies were dull and foggy, and a steady drizzle heralded single digit temperatures. We saddled up and left, retracing our steps towards Little Rock and the open poverty of swampy eastern Arkansas. Before we could cross the Mississippi, we turned north, through better looking farmland, paralleling the great river, and into the vast sweep of flat prairie in south-eastern Missouri. The panorama to our left was incredible: it didn't seem to end. To our right were gentle wooded hills reaching down to the Mississippi. Much of our journey was uneventful here: indeed, the sun broke out a couple of times. Then, off to the north, was a foreboding storm system that seemed to toy with us, moving west to east in front of us, and staying north, ahead of us. We witnessed several dramatic lightning strikes around us. Rain returned, and the temperature began to fall. Hail assaulted the car, and conditions worsened. Then, in mid afternoon, we lost the prairie and entered gentle rolling hils and farms that resembled southern Ontario. But as we closed in on St. Louis, the temperature dropped dramatically. Snow dusted the ground, nothing to be considered a problem, or so we thought. But southbound traffic featured cars covered by a thick blanket of snow. We looked at each other and knew what we were driving into. Each mile brought more whiteness, and the rain began to adhere to the shining roadway. We decided to abandon our push to St. Louis and found a hotel in Festus just as the rain became ice pellets. A few minutes later, ice and snow rose to a height of 2 or 3 inches, and we knew we'd made the right decision. A few more miles and we'd be battling an ice storm that bent over the tree tops 36 hours after sweltering in Austin's heat and humidity. The political theme of the day is pro-life. We encountered several billboards extolling that philosophy over the miles, and a large hospital featured a lawn full of tiny white crosses and a large billboard that proclaimed "I trust in Jesus." I believe each cross represented an abortion performed at that hospital, although we couldn't be sure of that. Lou and I, both liberals, are becoming overwhelmed by the loud right-wing agenda of south-central America. Are there no American liberals? Or are they hiding from the billboards and the menacing army behind the messages, ready to take guns and bibles to drive away any "pinko" who dares to exercise his or her free speech rights into oblivion and damnation? Or do the liberals take the high road and express themselves elsewhere? Perhaps the truth of America is that there is no one America. The interstate largely cuts through rural America, and liberals tend to live in larger cities, where there's no need to shriek your beliefs from on high. So the country folk proclaim their ideas loudly in the hope of keeping the city slickers away. At least, that's my hypothesis.