Americana

Few things are better in life than a road trip.  I’m not talking about simply traveling from point A to point B via car, but making the trip more about the journey than the destination (thank you, Ralph Waldo Emerson).  When people tell me that they hate driving long distances, I have to believe the reason is that they have never done it correctly.

Whenever I have a long drive ahead of me, I immediately pull up a map to see through what cities I will be passing or could be passing and what points of interest are there.  Although they were never a part of my original destination, in the past I've been able to visit the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Graceland, the Corn Palace, Wall Drug, and whatever else makes for a good bumper sticker as I make my way across this big, diverse, fascinating land of ours.  Even the ten-hour drive across Kansas can be enjoyable if you are able appreciate the vast expanse of sky with its low-hanging clouds that appear to be resting on a glass ceiling, or make a game of spotting the stone fence posts that stand as a memorial to some of the earliest settlers.  A collection of good audio books doesn't hurt, either.

Hank knows how to appreciate the open roads!

Take for example, the task of delivering my dog to Indiana.  If I had viewed it only as a seven-hour drive to hand over Hank before turning around and coming home, it would have been incredibly depressing and tedious.  Instead I decided to turn it into a 2500-mile journey to see all things of interest from Greenville around the top of the Upper Peninsula and back home again, dropping off Hank on the way.  Adding in the company of my dear friend Becky made it all the better – a trip that I could actually look forward to with great excitement.

We managed to hit the road close to noon on Thursday and, aside from a detour due to an overturned log truck and a few traffic jams, we made fairly good time.  By around 8:30 PM we had dropped off Hank in Evansville where he received a welcome befitting a soldier returning home.  Our goodbye was short and sweet because we still had to get to Hannibal, Missouri that night.

If you REALLY want to have the full road trip experience, stay only in sketchy hotels along the way – swanky ones have too little potential for adventure.  At our first sketchy hotel an extremely nice and partially-toothed desk clerk informed us that, due to limited space, we would need to park in a field near an underpass... at 2:00 AM.  Econo Lodge has a penchant for thin walls and tubs that don’t drain, so after surviving the walk from the car and a quick shower in which my feet were submerged in water past my ankles the entire time, I drifted off to rhythmic snoring coming from the neighboring room and awoke four hours later to approximately fifty Harley’s revving up outside of our door.  A “continental breakfast,” the highlight of any hotel stay, awaited us.  I’m a bacon-and-eggs kind of girl, so a bowl of raisin bran is a special treat.

After our carb-loaded breakfast we headed over to Mark Twain’s Boyhood Home and Museum with great excitement.  I had stopped by twice before on previous road trips but it was the first time for Becky, an English professor and Twain aficionado.  I do not use the term “aficionado” lightly even though it’s fun to say – she began to weep as we stepped out of the car and she quite nearly hugged the man selling us tickets.  The clerk at Walgreens was treading dangerous waters when she informed Becky that she had been to the home and museum only by force on school field trips, but otherwise she found it quite dull.

For most non-juvenile delinquents, though, the town is rather fascinating, allowing one to stand in the middle of the inspiration for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.  The broad Mississippi River separating Missouri from Illinois and speckled with riverboats and barges can be almost hypnotizing to watch.  The museum contains life-sized depictions of some of Twain’s most popular stories as well as a gallery of original Norman Rockwell drawings depicting scenes from Twain’s work.  Hannibal is, however, a town that can be fully explored in under four hours, so by 1:00 PM we were back on the road.

Hannibal, MO

Our next mission was to meet Becky’s nephew Ellis in Schaumburg, Illinois for dinner (he had just moved there two weeks earlier to begin his internship).  Garmin had our arrival estimate at a few minutes before 5:00 PM, which was in keeping with my itinerary for the most part; however, passing through Springfield we made the fateful decision to stop off for some lunch.  Anyone who knows history knows that Springfield was the home of Abraham Lincoln at one time, and anyone who knows my friend Becky knows that if she has a greater love than Twain, it is Lincoln.  Naturally, when a sign just before the exit informed us that Lincoln’s tomb was located nearby, we knew that we had to make a detour.

At the risk of offending anybody north of the Mason-Dixon Line, Lincoln is not one of my favorite historical figures; however, I love visiting historical sites because they make past events feel more real than the disconnect that often occurs from simply reading a textbook.  His tomb was admittedly impressive – I expected something more notable than a simple headstone in the cemetery, but the 117-foot structure covered in bronze sculptures that appeared before us left little doubt as to which tomb was his. The inside of the vault was lined with marble along a round corridor dotted with more bronze statues that chronicled Lincoln's life and led to his burial spot.

Lincoln's Tomb

Our detour mission now accomplished and Becky once again regaining her composure, we continued the journey towards Schaumburg only about an hour off schedule.  But we were in Illinois, the Land of Perpetual Road Construction and $4-per-Gallon Gas, where traffic jams abound and most driving is done between orange barrels and on the shoulder of the road.  The 70 mph signs are a tease, because anything over 55 mph will get you ticketed for speeding in a work zone.

Using the “Detour” button on my Garmin is always a gamble.  A few years ago it landed my friend Leslie and me in The Ghetto of a St. Louis ghetto where our conversation was limited to the constant repetition of, “We’re going to die,” but occasionally it does pay off.  I’m also the type of person who would rather be moving than sitting in traffic, and with a line of cars extending as far as the eye could see and Google Maps showing us only about a quarter of the way through the jam after several minutes, I decided to take a chance.  Whether it saved time or not will forever be a mystery because apparently all side roads in Illinois are also perpetually under construction, but at least we were moving.

The TripAdvisor app is a necessity for any road trip, especially when traveling through areas that are unfamiliar.  We picked up Ellis at 6:30 and chose Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria because it had the fourth highest rating out of 269 restaurants based on 162 reviews, and the hour-long wait to be seated in one of the most jam-packed, loudest restaurants on the planet seemed to support the reviews.  Dinner was excellent (I recommend the Trio of Dips and Pizza Chips appetizer), but by the time that we finished and dropped off Ellis it was almost 10:00 PM, about 4 hours later than my incredibly optimistic and inaccurate itinerary estimate.

Our plan had been to reach Niagara, Wisconsin by 11:00 PM and spend the night at our friends the Kimbroughs’ house; however, the Garmin estimate now showed 3:00 AM and it kept going up with each traffic light and work zone.  We were also flat-out exhausted from the previous late night and the day’s adventures, and just reaching the Illinois state line was going to be a challenge, so we made a spur-of-the-moment decision to drive only halfway.  Sheboygan, Wisconsin sounded like a good stopping point, and I really liked saying “Sheboygan.”  Actually, I like saying most city names in Wisconsin, especially in a strong Wisconsin accent.

Saturday morning after another invigorating four hours of sleep, we continued our journey towards Niagara with a stop-off at Northland International University.  Becky and I first met and formed our friendship at Northland – we were both teachers at the school between 1999 and 2001 (although Becky was there a total of eight years) – and we had been roommates my second year.  We found our old apartment and took some obligatory shots by the door, hoping that the current residents weren't watching us through the peep-hole and remembering those days of yore when we ourselves peeked out of that same peep-hole, spying on our neighbors or hiding from students who decided to drop in for a visit.

Becky showing off our old apartment

The campus was quiet and almost empty, and our attempts at breaking into any of the old office and classroom buildings were futile.  Having exhausted all efforts and snapping more photos in front of several buildings, we hopped back in the car and finally reached Niagara.

The Kimbroughs were just like family to me during my time at Northland.  Wynne and Vickie taught at the school and Wynne eventually became the pastor of the church that I attended.  Some of my fondest memories from my time there revolve around being in their home.  Despite having five children and her mother already living at the house, Vickie always seemed to have a flow of guests for everything from birthdays to holidays, and she made every occasion special.

Vickie and Wynne with the "baby" of the family, Jared

After a sweet time of reminiscing and a wonderful dinner, we crawled back into the car and made our way east.  The ever-reliable itinerary had us leaving Niagara at 5:00 PM and arriving in Bay City, Michigan at 11:30 PM, but we were already two hours behind schedule.  Then I saw the flashing blue lights in my rear-view mirror.

I've already whined enough times about the injustice of my speeding ticket to anyone who will listen, so I’ll just cut the story short by saying that I didn't think that the highway patrol would clock your speed while you're passing a vehicle on a two-lane, two-way road.  If I had passed the van at 55 mph I would have soon run into oncoming traffic, especially when the van’s driver would speed up and slow down spontaneously, but I digress…  We continued the drive $125 and two driver’s license points shorter, crossing over Mackinac Bridge in the dark (not quite as exciting as during the day) and rolling into Bay City after 2:00 AM.

The Econo Lodge in Hannibal may have been sketchy, but compared to this one it was the Ritz.  A sign, which I am fairly certain had been up for decades, said that it was “under construction” to explain the bare bulbs dangling from the hall walls, the peeling wallpaper, and the sagging ceiling plaster.  Becky reported that the tub was close to overflowing while she showered, and when I pulled back the covers on my bed I discovered that no fitted sheet separated the mattress cover from the top sheet (Becky’s bed had both sheets so it was apparently not a hotel standard).  After waiting through about twenty rings for the front desk to answer the phone, I finally gave up and slept on just the top sheet with no protection from the blanket.  When you’re exhausted, though, it hardly matters.

Sunday morning, or should I say, Sunday later morning was the time that I was anticipating the most.  Detroit might not have the reputation of a great place to visit, but it does have one very special gem (technically it’s in Dearborn, but close enough).  My family visited The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village twice – once while I was in middle school and again in 2012 while we were up north for a reunion – and absolutely loved it.  The museum has an astonishing collection of historical artifacts from almost every period and aspect of America – the chair in which Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, the writing desk of Edgar Allen Poe, the bus on which Rosa Parks was arrested, the limousine in which Kennedy was shot, George Washington's army cot – and the village contains such buildings as the houses of Robert Frost and Noah Webster, Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park, the McGuffey schoolhouse, George Washington Carver’s cabin, and the Wright Brothers’ Bicycle Shop.

Of course, The Henry Ford Museum does have cars as well

By 4:00 PM we were finished, worn down and overheated from hours of walking and a little too much time in the sun.  For once we were ahead of schedule because the museum closed at 5:00 PM and for the first time on our trip it appeared that we would reach our hotel before midnight.  We spent our last night of the trip in Georgetown, Kentucky, only about 20 minutes north of Lexington.

Monday was Memorial Day.  Our plan had been to visit Keeneland early that morning in hopes of seeing the running of the horses before taking our breakfast among jockeys in the Track Kitchen, but the racetrack was bare and the cafeteria was closed.  TripAdvisor found us a suitable alternative at Wallace Station Deli and Bakery (sans jockeys), and with our bellies sufficiently full we began our final leg of the journey home with a few minor stops in between.

The closest that Becky would get to a jockey at Keeneland

Around 8:30 PM I dropped off Becky at her home.  As I drove to my parents’ house, a combination of feelings suddenly overcame me – being alone for the first time in four days, missing Hank, realizing that I was leaving in one week – and I started crying uncontrollably.  I cried the entire way home and for another minute as I sat in the driveway.  I thought it was at least partially attributable to extreme exhaustion, but two days later I still find myself perpetually on the verge of a meltdown – as if one wrong word or question will set me off.

Prior to this week all the way back to June 2013 when I decided to go to Le Cordon Bleu, I never shed a tear, perhaps because my focus was constantly on planning for my life in Paris.  I've avoided thinking too much about the time when I would have to leave my friends and family, but with this week concentrated on scheduling last lunches, dinners, get-togethers, and going-away parties, it’s impossible to dwell on anything else.  As a matter of fact, at this point in time when I most need to be wrapping up my travel plans, I am at my lowest level of motivation in months, almost bordering depression.

I was semi-joking with a friend that it might be easier if I just left right now without seeing anyone before I go, like ripping off a band-aid.  At the same time, the outpouring of love, support, and prayers have opened my eyes to how blessed I am to have so many wonderful people in my life.  If leaving were easy then I would probably have been a pretty sad person to begin with.

I should probably start packing.