Meridian Highway

Tracks Out of Enid___8x10 oil on linen panel__for Passing America...but available!

Leaving Enid we had a spectacular sunrise, and I was able to start several canvases for "drive- by" paintings...this one is about the sky. As we drove I snapped photos between brush strokes, and this rail yard was my favorite foreground. I imagine the cars will be full of farm products in a few months, but this day things looked quiet there.
The route for this leg of my recent plains trip a few weeks ago was the Meridian Highway. We call it US 81, now, and it was EXACTLY what I'd hoped it would be: A BIG ROAD FOR FARMS! It passed through MANY towns, and unlike to towns in the Texas Panhandle Plains, these towns were ALIVE with commerce, mostly driven by agriculture. This Meridian Highway has a great history and even its own web site.

http://www.drivetheost.com/meridianhighway.html This web site says:

As the only primary north-south highway girding America’s heartland, the Meridian intersected with dozens of named trails, including the Old Spanish Trail at San Antonio; the Bankead Highway at Fort Worth; the Ozark Trails at Oklahoma City; the National Old Trails at Wichita; the Santa Fe Trail at Newton, Kansas; the Victory Highway at Salina, Kansas; the Lincoln Highway at Columbus, Nebraska; and the Yellowstone Trail, at Millbank, South Dakota.
In 1926 most of the 2,400-mile-long Meridian Road was converted into U.S. 81, an improved two-lane highway connecting Laredo to Joliette, North Dakota.