I’d forgotten it was Easter weekend. That’s what traveling hither and yon can do to your memory. This day, Good Friday as it turns out, provided several reminders.
First, while waking up, I realized I needed to ditch the feather bed on top of my new mattress (it put me up so high I almost touch the ceiling; the mattress is 10 inches and the feather bed adds another 6). I lay in bed for a few minutes loving the snug feeling it gives, wondering if I could smoosh it down enough to store underneath the bed. The answer was no.
Space is just so limited. I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. As I walked to the outhouse to do my morning business, I came upon a couple breaking camp. They appeared to be in their forties, not terribly well off. Their van was an older Chevy, not one of those fancy “Van life” rigs people with means drive around.
They greeted me by telling me how cute they thought my trailer is. I gave them reciprocal strokes for their van.
“Did you sleep in it or a tent?” I asked.
“Oh, we slept in it. It was our first night. We just got it,” the woman gushed. “It was good except the floor was pretty hard. Our camping mats were good five years ago.” She laughed.
“Oh, I understand,” I commiserated. “I had a four-inch memory foam gel pad under a feather bed but still woke up every morning with my hips hurting. I had to break down and buy an actual mattress. Last night was my first night in it and boy, did it make a difference.”
“Well, that may have to wait until next month,” the husband said. “Today we’re heading to Eureka Springs for the Passion Play.”
It was then I noticed their tee shirts. Christian imagery with He is risen in gothic font.
“Oh, for Easter,” I said, stupidly.
“Yes, it’s very powerful,” the woman added, “We go every year if we can.”
“Hey, you know…” I said, thinking quickly, “I may have something that will make your sleeping better. I have this feather bed which I woke up thinking I need to get rid of somehow. It’s just too much height for my space. Maybe you’d like it?”
They looked confused. I think the husband feared I was trying to sell it to them.
“I don’t think we can…” he began.
“Oh, I’m giving it to you.” I cut him off. “It would really help me out and I think it would help you out. It’s a really nice one. It’s clean. It’s had a mattress cover on it and everything.”
The woman looked hopeful.
“Why don’t you come have a look?” I said, “If you like it, it’s yours.”
So, she did. 
And of course she liked it. And I was happy to be able to make their situation better. And happy to be improving my own. I thanked my guardian spirits for the perfect solution.
A few minutes later, Christa (her real name), a Texan woman close to my age, passed by while I was drinking my coffee.
“Oh, good,” she exclaimed, ‘You’re another solo woman traveler.”
And she came on into my site for a visit.
Christa turned out to be a Christian missionary biker who has lived an interesting life.
We bonded over the fact that we’d each done service work trying to improve the life of indentured prostitutes in Thailand. She’s also been to Cambodia, Namibia, and India doing Christ’s work, planting rice, digging water works, and working in a school for orphans.
We ended up having an interesting, deep conversation about faith, about Christianity, about other spiritual belief systems, about our differences.
She kept telling me that what set Christianity apart and makes it the one true religion is that it requires us to be washed in the blood. She brought up human sacrifices and the old Hebrew lamb sacrifices as necessary means in those days for God’s blood requirement.
“But of course, we don’t need blood anymore, because Jesus gave us his blood when he sacrificed himself out of love for us.”
“But communion is still about drinking blood, though symbolically. And eating the flesh, so I think maybe it is still a big part of it all.”
“You’re right,” she agreed.
“But Christa, I can’t accept such a patriarchal religion which minimizes women. And even defamed Mary Magdalene by calling her a prostitute when they were so threatened by the fact Jesus preferred her above all his apostles.”
She allowed that to be true. Excused it by saying again, it was just the times.
“And women, virgin women, bleed when they consummate with a man in holy matrimony,” she said, “If the man discards them, they often have no choice, at least in those days, but to become a prostitute to feed their family.”
I laughed, said gently, “I think women bleed when we consummate with a man regardless.”
“That we do. Until we get too old and begin to dry up. Like now, “she laughed a full-bodied laugh.
We chatted awhile about synchronicity and spiritual guides, then she remarked about how amazing it was to meet someone like me on Good Friday.
“I feel we have a lot in common,” she said, “Even if our beliefs aren’t exactly the same. I believe it was meant to be.”
I agreed. Said, “We can use all the good people in our lives we can get.”
Christa, a true believer
Then wished her well on her journey, saying I needed to get on the road.
“Happy rest of holy week,” I waved to her as I drove by on my way out.
A couple of hours later, after I turned off onto Highway 77 north, I was enjoying the green rolling hills of Oklahoma.
The wind was fierce, had been all morning, so I was moving at the slow pace of 50 mph. This annoyed several big pick-up trucks driven by men, who all tailgated as if that might make me speed up. This tailgating is significant because all of a sudden, on the left side of the highway, a man dressed only in a white loincloth was hanging on a cross.
I mean, this was a living, human man. He looked to be in his thirties. He had thick black hair and beard, the whole Jesus look was down pat. Just hanging there. On a cross by the side of the road. In the middle of nowhere. Not in a church parking lot, either.
I wanted to stop and take a photograph but this blue truck behind me gave no quarter. It was several minutes before there was a space I might have turned around in, by which time I convinced myself it would be rude to take his picture.
This is not the same person and I didn’t take this photo, but this is what he looked like. Imagine that cross is ten feet tall.
I thought a lot throughout the rest of the day about what would make someone hang themself on a cross on Good Friday.
It wasn’t a publicity stunt. It was definitely his faith, a desire to suffer in the way he imagined the Christ suffered. I have no idea how long he was there. Maybe he was going to hang there all day and be pulled down after passing out, the closest he might get to embodying the spirit of the crucifixion.
There were no other religious experiences after that. Kind of hard to top seeing Jesus personified on the cross in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma. With the wind come roaring down the plains.
Six hours later I arrived at Fort Supply Campground.
Fort Supply is where General George Armstrong Custer was based when he led the 7th Calvary in its slaughter of the Cheyenne village camped along the banks of the Washita River.
The fort was the main hub of transportation and communication, serving also as supply central, in a region that included southwest Kansas, the Texas Panhandle, and all of western Indian Territory.
The fort is now abandoned, though available to tour by appointment only. The little town of Fort Supply that remains is a dot on the road. One gas station, one trading post/bar, a couple of falling down buildings. The campground is several miles off the main road along the banks of an Army Corps of Engineer’s constructed dam. There are not services, no bath houses, one porta potty to serve the 60 campsites, of which about a third are occupied this Easter weekend.
I haven’t seen the ghost of General Custer 
but a thunder and lightning storm had made an appearance. 
And the temperature has dropped a lot, letting me know it is going to be a cold night. I may miss my feather bed after all.