Captured Images

Images from the drive to Springfield:

Near Post Oak, a white-haired woman wearing a blue denim shirt and a red bandana tied around her head like a headband, plucks blackberries from bushes along the fence row. Her right pinkie is extended and she moves her hands with the grace one would expect of a dowager princess selecting jewels from a glass case.

Near Deepwater, an ancient bone-colored Winnebago with a turtle skull wired to its front grille pulls a trailer loaded with tricked out, electric blue Harley Davidsons.

Near Quarles, against a brilliant summer-blue sky, a yellow Caterpillar front-end loader lifts thousand-pound hay bales onto a black trailer pulled by a red Massey Ferguson tractor.

Near Humansville, black Angus, rootbeer-colored Hereford, blonde Charolais, and Brown Swiss cows stand knee deep in an alfalfa field. Every head down to eat, only the torsos are visible and the scene looks like a Far Side cartoon: Maniac Meat Machines Munch Madly.

Everywhere, huge flamingo-pink flowers burst from deep green Mimosa trees, begging to be loved.