across the country

Hurray for wireless internet. Above is a picture of my odometer turning over to 100,000 miles somewhere in the middle of West Virginia yesterday. Michael and I are in day two of our drive from Pennsylvania to California. Tonight we are in Stroud, OK. I think it would be apt to say we are in the middle of nowhere. There is an Indian reservation, and a small beer/liquor store, that had a weight bench, and a bird, and about 6 types of beer to choose from in six packs. When we left the cashier told us to "Have a good'un." I have tried to google this town but nothing interesting came up on the first page and I am too lazy to search further. Wait wait I was spelling it wrong before thinking of breweries as I enjoyed my beer I typed in Stoudt, Here is Stroud . Last night we stayed at a Drury Inn (nope, I'd never heard of it either though I was singing the muffin man song in the elevator) in Terre Haute, Indiana. Tomorrow we may be in Albuquerque.
It was Michael's idea to drive through Tulsa and stop somewhere on the other side. What we didn't realize was that there was nothing on the other side. The land in Missouri was rolling. The highways had no guardrails. Missouri and Oklahoma have speed limits of 75mph, but most inhabitants seem law abiding citizens and ready to settle and drive at or below the limit. This is very different from PA and NJ driving but it is nice to stop looking in the rearview mirror for flashing lights as I drive at around 80mph. In Oklahoma there are many signs by the road that implore motorists with the message DO NOT DRIVE INTO SMOKE . I have no idea what this means. The smoke signs are interspersed with blue triangle signs that say Keep Our Land Grand, much nicer than the usual signs that display littering fines. I can't decide if the roads look cleaner because of the cute signs or the lack of inhabitants. We haven't stopped much here but when I do I seem to get funny looks from people when I speak (the PA accent?) I was thinking of putting on my silly southern drawl, but I am not sure it might be worse here where I cannot catagorize the accent and I definitely saw a boy leave the welcome center wearing only denim overalls. Well, I'll leave you with that picture and possibly update again tomorrow if the wireless internet is as happening outside of Stroud, OK.