The best way to cope with a long drive is to try seeing something new or interesting. It’s especially nice to also learn something along the way.

During Memorial Day weekend, I drove 15 hours roundtrip to Oklahoma - a “new” state for me - during which time I tried to keep alert by looking for something interesting. I didn’t see anything monumental, but it did pique my interest in learning more about Native Americans living in that state.

When I entered Oklahoma, I saw a sign that says, “Cherokee Nation,” not to be confused with Illini Nation sports fans. I subsequently saw other tribes’ nations territory designations, which got me wondering about the differences between a “nation” and reservation.

Having grown up in Nebraska, with relatives farming on reservation land in Minnesota and a father who worked on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ projects in South Dakota, I was familiar with Indian reservations, poverty within and other aspects of peoples’ lives there.

A perusal of the Internet hasn’t answered all of my questions, but I did see that there are mutual law enforcement agreements with estabishment authorities and tribe memberships. I also saw campaign signs for “principal chief” and “second chief,” and discovered the Indian nations issue their own license plates - with cooperation from the state.

All of that was new to me.

Sometimes it is the familiar sights, though, that also perk up a long, boring drive because of the memories they evoke.

From about Rolla on, perimters of Interstate 44 were littered with corpses of unfortunate armadillos who either were too stupid, too slow or just didn’t bother looking far down the road for the zooming cars and trucks approaching them.

Seeing those dead mammals reminded me of a family trip to Arkansas about 10 years ago when we saw a dead armadillo by the highway. We explained to the two younger children how the nocturnal critters crashed through our campsite one night in Texas, which sounded like a small invading army but turned out to be small, timid creatures.

Rather than explain the crusty football-with-tail animals, we pulled off the road to show them first-hand what an armadillo looks like. I think my son poked it with a stick. Anyway, they were intrigued by the odd animal, which to them resembled a tiny dinosaur - I know, an oxymoron.

It was the passing motorists, though, who were the most amused. They slowed down and we could see them smile, point or perhaps laugh as these people from Illinois seemed so interested in armadillo road kill.

Happy safe, INTERESTING travels this summer.

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