(Since it’s the busiest travel weekend of the year, I thought I’d post a travel poem. For all you non-Texans, Utopia and Happy are actual Texas towns: Utopia is in the Hill Country, and Happy is in the Panhandle.)
God’s Country
It’s 444 miles from Happy to Utopia
seven hours and thirty-six minutes if you go the speed limit.
No one does.
Happy, with one foot in two counties, “The Town Without a Frown.” Utopia
(so named only
because “Montana, Texas” was already taken).
It’s a long way from from the land of sky that scoops
you up to the land that looks like it doesn’t belong
like God forgot what he was doing,
threw out some miniature mountains, stuck in the Sabinal
river, relocated some lost maples down the road,
not far from the endangered birds that do pretty well so near nirvana.
I don’t know
how many folks travel the other direction, from Utopia
to Happy. It’s hard to justify a trip out of paradise
for mere happiness but some folks’ll do just that
just to watch the sun jump up and down
all over those Panhandle skies.
Next time we come to the Hill Country my husband’s determined to visit Utopia (“7 days in Utopia” did it.) We have family in Wimberley and Austin so who knows?
You painted that land well, Megan.
“No one does.” That’s the line I keep going back to.