Ritzville

I’m a 1000 miles from nowhere

Time don’t matter to me

‘Cause I’m a 1000 miles from nowhere

And there’s no place I wanna be

Dwight Yoakam

Ritzville is a pass-by town, a freeway town where farmers drop off their wheat to be shipped off. Unlike Walla Walla, it hasn’t made the transition into the local food movement that can bolster a town’s economy. Ritzville is barely hanging on. In these towns, it’s always the Mexicans who work as ranch hands or in the slaughter houses or run and work in the restaurants that keep these places alive. In Ritzville, it was no different. The only place that showed any sign of life was Las Casuelas, a restaurant on the main drag. Here, we were greeted with smiles and made to feel at home so far from our own. 

Movement, like that of our road trip, is made up of time and space. Being in nowhere makes time not matter.  It is in these places that I feel like there is no other place I’d rather be. When I’m in cities, I’m always thinking about the next spot, never content with who I am or what I am doing. But it is the Ritzvilles of the world where I feel like other times and places don’t matter anymore.