Summer 2020 Roadtrip - Part 1: Columbus, TX to Breckenridge, CO
In the midst of a spreading global pandemic, following a roller-coaster period in financial markets, our family departed our beloved nature preserve for a summer vacation road trip in our 2016 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel pulling our new 2020 Taxa Mantis camper on July 1, a broiling hot day where we were all sweating from head to toe just from packing. Our intended route would take us north into the mountains of Arkansas before turning west for Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas, and back home. We would, as much as possible, stay off of interstates so that we could pass through towns and communities and lay eyes on the “real America.” All the way, we would wear our face masks, stay out of public gatherings, use hand sanitizer, and observe social distancing both for our own and our nation’s good.
Our goals are to improve at this new form of travel (pulling and living in a trailer), see and learn about new places, have fun, and get a sense of where this nation is at and is headed during a tumultuous time. Our travel is made possible by the extraordinary confluence of modern vehicles, roads, and information technology, allowing us to travel and navigate, make reservations, and stay in touch with our world back home.
Our first days took us into North Texas, eastern Oklahoma, and into Arkansas. What stood out above all was the vast and incalculable effects that dams and reservoirs have had on our landscapes, lives, and economies. Dams all along the Arkansas River and other rivers transformed hardscrabble rural areas into towns, recreation areas and vacation homes, water supplies for growing cities, hydroelectric stations, and irrigation sources. The modern United States probably owes more to the impoundment of river water than to any other thing, as it set the locations and patterns for human settlement and economic activity. We ourselves benefited from the well-maintained state and federal campsites and parks that often hug the shores of these reservoir lakes. I found myself trying to imagine what these areas looked like before the dams to better understand what also has been lost along the way: remote and rugged river canyons, oases in the middle of the vast landmass of North America.
Our short few days in northwest Arkansas showed us a very beautiful part of the country, with a dynamic area encompassing the growing towns of Rogers, Fayetteville, and Bentonville (home to Walmart). Our friends’ lakeside home, dock, and boats on the emerald green waters of Beaver Lake provided hours of fun and a glorious July 4 fireworks display. In Bentonville, we toured the dazzling Crystal Bridges museum and grounds, built with the foresight of Walmart heiress Alice Walton and the international architect Moshe Safdie. Speaking of Walmart, we were lucky to come across one every so often on our travels to be able to buy the odds and ends that we had forgotten to bring or had run out of - Walmart is one of an RVer’s best friends.
In Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, and Colorado we felt a sense of the Native American history in these parts, including the Trail of Tears which forced southeastern tribes out of their homelands and into western lands - especially Oklahoma - which themselves were often later taken away with broken promises. On one travel day we learned in the news that the US Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, reiterated that much of Oklahoma remains Native land by virtue of past treaties. It is important to us that our children understand that the United States has often broken its word to native Americans. In a time where modern lies and liars wreak havoc on our national honor and ethics, it is useful to understand that this dynamic of greed over truth has a much longer history. We hope that our children will contribute to our nation as a place where someone’s word is their bond.
In Oklahoma, we visited Tulsa, where my mother is from, and its gracious and beautiful neighborhoods and rejuvenating city center. Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser has led the development of a $450 million urban park called the Gathering Place, and we enjoyed a bike ride through it. Oil has had a dramatic impact on Oklahoma in the last century, and Tulsa, Bartlesville, Ponca City, Oklahoma City all benefited from the wealth and global connections that the oil business brought. How these cities and Oklahoma itself will fare in the twilight of petroleum is a major challenge, as it is in Texas and other places as well. It is astounding to note that the energy business now accounts for less than 5% of the value of the S&P 500 - the market sees little future there.
We made a brief stop at the Williams Tall Grass Prairie Preserve north of Tulsa, one of the last remnants of the original grass prairie that once supported over 50 million head of bison on the Great Plains before they were exterminated by American settlers and their governments in the 1860’s and 1870’s. The remaining bison that day were hiding from the heat, but we valued the chance to see the long vistas of native grasses - bluestem, switchgrass, and others - that many conservation ranchers, including ourselves, are now dedicated to returning to health.
As we proceeded through western Oklahoma and into Kansas and Colorado, the staggering transformation of the Great Plains into the “breadbasket of the world” by settler homesteaders and their descendants was clear and impressive. Vast field after field of corn, wheat, alfalfa, and soybeans emphasized the extraordinary achievements of American farmers, and although we generally differ politically from these communities, we felt gratitude for their hard work in feeding us and so many others. We struggled with the numerous cattle feedlots we passed (we are not vegetarians but try as much as possible to source humanely raised meat), in which thousands of cows were penned to be fattened up on corn and other non-grass feeds. But we tried to refrain from judgments of others who are depended upon by our society for meat in diets. And we thrilled at the enormous wind power turbines now populating large sections of the plains landscape, taking their own place as staples of the local economies.
Along US Highway 50, headed west, the silhouette of the Rocky Mountains appeared suddenly over the plains yesterday. We have now arrived in the high altitude former mining town turned ski resort of Breckenridge, Colorado, for a few days with my parents at their second home, doing laundry, cleaning the truck and trailer, taking long hot showers, and enjoying the much, much cooler weather than the plains heatwave.
Everywhere we have been treated with kindness and courtesy, without exception, by all other Americans. As we plan our next phase into the Rockies, canyonlands of Utah, and the Grand Canyon itself, we are hopeful, and even think it probable, that a better America lays just ahead, just over the horizon, exactly as the mountains dramatically appeared to us over the plains.
Leonard Golub, CFA
Fiduciary Financial Advisor