I was going to write about something else this month, but… I got distracted. My younger daughter and I recently returned from a 3900-mile, 10-state road trip. It was great to have the opportunity to spend time with her before she goes out of state for college in August, and we had a lot of fun.

One of the cool things about road trips is the chance to stop at interesting attractions. We accidentally ended up with a theme for many of our stops: holes in the ground. There was a 1900-foot mineshaft topped by glass you can stand on (I did; she refused); the Tuzigoot National Monument, which has extensive pueblo ruins; the Rio Grande Gorge (where you can walk over a bridge 650 feet high; we both did that); the Meteor Crater in Arizona, nearly a mile in diameter; Alabaster Caverns in Oklahoma; and an extensive cemetery (dating to the latter part of the 19^th century) where immigrants from Croatia and Japan have their final rest. A hole in the ground can be really fascinating!

We saw wildlife too, including deer, elk, pronghorns, and big-horned sheep (and bison, although those were in a park). We slept in a supposedly haunted former hospital and spray-painted cars at Cadillac Ranch and took an elevator to the top of the Nebraska State Capitol. We saw some great thunderstorms and, although this kid is a picky eater, we ate well too. Basque food and Thai rolled ice cream were firsts for us both.

And we shook some of our stereotypes. The Oklahoma panhandle was unexpectedly pretty. A ranch house in a very rural part of the Texas panhandle was flying a pair of pro-Biden flags. The brewpub we chose for dinner in Wichita, Kansas turned out to be LGBTQ-friendly. A bookstore in Lincoln, Nebraska had on display two anthologies that include stories by me. And we saw at least a half-dozen Pride flags hanging in, of all places, downtown Rock Springs, Wyoming.

Now, it wasn’t all rainbows and roses. When we were eating dinner one night, a quartet from Redneck Central Casting was sitting next to us. One of them went on a long, loud rant to his buddies, spouting far-right conspiracy theories, along with homophobic and racist drivel. He announced that Pride flags are, in fact, a sign that the person flying them agrees with the government’s Evil Plan (he was unclear what that plan is, although it seems to involve the Russians somehow). But the best part was when he said that you see Pride flags all over the West Coast, but, he said, “You never see that shit here.” Folks, this was in Rock Springs, where the kid and I had just hours earlier witnessed and photographed several Pride flags.

I’m taking this as a good sign. I’m hoping that people like that man are going the way of the dinosaurs that are buried so abundantly in that part of the country. Wouldn’t it be great if that became a roadside attraction? “Come See the Fossilized Remains of the Last Bigots!” That would be a hole in the ground worth visiting!

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Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.

After having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, Kim calls the boring part of California home. She lives there with her family and her day job as a university professor, but escapes as often as possible via car, train, plane, or boat. This may explain why her characters often seem to be in transit as well. She dreams of traveling and writing full-time.

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