![\"DYLAN](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/722262.jpeg\"\/)
DYLAN IN the early 1960s. (credit: Don Hunstein\/Wikimedia Commons)I always had an urge to explore America\u2019s open roads as a teenager, but my parents would barely let me take the car past Denver\u2019s city limits.<\/p>\n
\u2018Who wants to go on a road trip in the US?\u201d I asked my kids on a recent Shabbat afternoon.<\/p>\n
As expected, they were all in.
Why not? \u201cRoad trip\u201d conjures up a coast-to-coast, all-expenses-paid journey from the redwood forest to the New York island. Who wouldn\u2019t want that?<\/p>\n
\u201cSounds great,\u201d The Youngest said. \u201cWhat\u2019s the itinerary?\u201d
\u201cOklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi.\u201d<\/p>\n
The enthusiasm waned.
\u201cAbba is going in search of his hillbilly roots,\u201d The Wife offered.
\u201cOklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi?\u201d The Lass asked. \u201cWho goes there? Why there?\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cWhy?\u201d was the easy part.
We all carry around a private list of things we tell ourselves we\u2019ll get to one day. Mine, for as long as I can remember, was to visit all 48 contiguous states. I grew up on Woody Guthrie and Jack Kerouac, falling in love with road signs \u2013 Wichita, St. Louis, Kansas City \u2013 that hinted at something distant and unknowable just over the horizon.<\/p>\n
DYLAN IN the early 1960s. (credit: Don Hunstein\/Wikimedia Commons)
I always had an urge to explore America\u2019s open roads as a teenager, but my parents would barely let me take the car past Denver\u2019s city limits.<\/p>\n
Still, I always wanted to visit all the states.
Now, well into my seventh decade, only four states remained: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Vermont.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve avoided Vermont since Bernie Sanders<\/a> began ranting against Israel and Ben & Jerry\u2019s turned against us, but I\u2019ll eventually get there since it\u2019s only an afternoon drive from New York and Sanders won\u2019t be around forever. But how was I going to get to Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mississippi?<\/p>\n A recent speaking tour gave me a narrow window: I was scheduled in California and then New Jersey, with three days in between.<\/p>\n I turned to the Jewish Federation<\/a> in Oklahoma City to see if there was any interest in a speaker, and \u2013 bingo \u2013 there was. I had less luck in Arkansas and Mississippi, but no matter. This was a now-or-never moment.<\/p>\n So I flew from LA to Memphis and spent the next three days wandering through Mississippi, Arkansas, and Oklahoma \u2013 sleeping in Oxford, speaking in Oklahoma City, and eventually making my way back through the Ozarks to Memphis.<\/p>\n As I told a friend, you haven\u2019t lived until you\u2019ve seen the Ozarks. Except, of course, I had to, because I had to click that box. And now I have.<\/p>\n America looks different from Israel<\/p>\n
I always mistakenly associated Arkansas with the movie Deliverance, which scared the heck out of me as a kid, so I was never particularly eager to go there. For me, Deliverance did for Arkansas what Midnight Express did for Turkey \u2013 it made me never want to visit.\u00a0<\/p>\n