The End, Til the Next One

I've been thinking a lot about how to summarize the trip, and especially the unexpected turn it took.  Here's the one-sentence summary I came up with:

I had a vision and a purpose for this trip, and when I couldn't achieve any of that, I found myself in Bismarck, ND, asking myself, "What am I doing here?"

As you know, the vision and purpose had to do with two-lane US highways that promised accessibility to interesting places (Fort Peck Dam, Mono Lake, etc.) unavailable to the Interstate traveler.  Whole regions opened up (the Canadian borderlands, western WA and OR, the west side of the Sierra Nevadas, etc.).  So it sounded great.  But it wasn't going to work, for reasons I should have thought more about before I left:  few towns with hotels and even gas stations; constant use of GPS and cell phone in general instead of attending to the road and enjoying the scenery.  The latter was especially frustrating, for reasons you'll understand when you get to be my age and forced to use technology you have not used for your whole life.

I had a conversation with Abbey last night that helped me understand another aspect of the trip.  Every other trip across the country had a purpose:  bring Lily's worldly possessions to her in CA; on two separate trips, distribute Steere family heirlooms and Sands (my mother's family) family heirlooms; move the Tesla from A to B, etc.  And I always got to visit Randall and Lily, which was a great reason to go.*  And also Quog and family, for all but one or two trips.  It occurred to me that I have often joked about "finding a reason to go cross-country," suggesting that I didn't think I should be taking the time away and spending the money unless I was pursing a task.  

This trip was different.  It was completely self-indulgent, and I do not do self-indulgent.  I justified it because Abbey was spending 2+ weeks away at workshops, and we had a huge number of Chase Visa rewards points.  But, looking back, this trip was always fragile, always vulnerable to the (self-generated)** charge of "selfish!" or "irresponsible!"

I don't know what to do with that, really; it's just something to think about, is all, and to learn from.  There will definitely be other trips, because I am by no means done with the West.  Anyone need something that will fit in my car moved from A to B?

 * - The more I think of it, the more I believe that just having Randall and Lily at the far end of the trip kind of anchored it in my mind, gave it purpose all by itself, and eliminated the need to ask "Is it OK for me to do this?"  This time, I really felt their absence, there at the far end of West.

 ** - Abbey has always been very supportive; she'd be a lot happier if I were a lot more self-indulgent.

And... Home

Maumee, OH to home in Oneonta - 534 miles, about 9 hours.

I was actually in Maumee, a suburb of Toledo, last night, not Toledo itself, which is some way down the Maumee River from the turnpike.  And I'm not at Bucknell tonight because of a massive failure of the primary means of paying for hotels - the hotels.com gift card.  See the previous post for details.

After another bloody-egg sunrise, I enjoyed the contrast in city silhouettes.  Almost immediately after getting on I-90, I crossed the Maumee River.  You can look straight downstream (north) from both the I-90 bridge and the Amtrak bridge, and see the Toledo skyline, which looks like it's surrounded by forest and gives the impression of being a few buildings in a big park.  I also had the same hazy, silhouette view of Toledo and Cleveland as I had of Chicago yesterday, but today's cities looked like paper cutouts of a stylized city out of the late 19th century, rather than a ravenous sea monster.  Very staid buildings of medium height, with symmetrically stepped terraces and old-fashioned, ornamental spires.  And once again I got around Cleveland and looked back at it in the sun, and it still looked old-fashioned and respectable.

I was sorry to leave the land of 70+ mph speed limits in Pennsylvania, especially since I had over 250 miles to go.

I know I've said this before, but I-86 in western NY is a beautiful ride, especially on a beautiful day.  But man, is it loooooong.

And then, almost before I knew it, I was home.  

Why I'm Not at Bucknell

I've never thought I could justify paying for hotel rooms every night during these cross-country trips.  During past trips, I have turned rewards points from our credit card into Marriot gift cards, and rarely paid for a hotel room (once I've run out of gift cards, I've usually chalked up enough stays to be able to pay for one or two with points).

Sometime between my last trip (Dec 2019) and now, the exchange rate between Chase VISA points and Marriot gift cards has changed a great deal, in the wrong direction.  However, hotel.com gift cards could be exchanged for the old Marriot rate.  So I brought hotel.com gift cards which were, allegedly, good at most major hotel chains, including Marriott.

Except they're not.  I had two Marriott free nights and enough Marriott points for four nights, which I had used up by today.  Today was when I would begin using the hotel.com gift cards.  

At least I called this morning to check whether the hotels around Bucknell would take them, so I didn't have to drive all the way down there to find out.  I called five places, including the Marriott, and none took the gift cards.  I called this morning because I had some reason to suspect trouble; I had asked at a couple of places during the trip (including the disastrous night in Ironwood, MI) and the answer was always 'no.'

So since I was temporarily out of Marriott resources, and the gift cards wouldn't work where I needed them to, it would cost me around $150 in real money to take a side trip to Bucknell.  Some other time.

I am imagining being in the desert country of eastern Washington and Oregon, or in Nevada today, and discovering that I would have to pay cash for every hotel room from now on, until I made it back to the East Coast.  I don't know what to think about that. 

Around the Lakes

 Eau Claire, WI to Toledo, OH - 560 miles, 11 hours.

Never got to Peru.  I decided there was room for an adventure, so I took I-90 right down into Chicago and out, saving 53 miles and almost an hour.  Maybe.    

I-90 rolls down the Wisconsin diagonal in all its 8-lane glory for at least 60 miles, straight as an arrow, pointed right at the heart of Chicago.  For about the last ten miles of that, I could see downtown, where the skyscrapers are.  The sun was behind them, and it was a little hazy (wildfires?) so the buildings were a horror-movie silhouette, the sharp, angular, broken, long row of fangs of some unimaginable beast rising up out of Lake Michigan.  Really, it was quite a sight.  The highway brushed up against them on the west side, turning in to run through (or mostly below) them at their extreme southwest.  Traffic.  Maybe twenty minutes of very slow going, stop-and-go, and then suddenly - it was really quite a stark transition - we were spewed out onto a clear road in the sunshine and were fleeing at 70 miles an hour.  A quick look back in the mirror - and Chicago, now in the sun, looked like a PR photo.

So maybe I saved some time, but maybe I spent that time in the traffic jam.  Anyway, I know I spent a very long time in very slow traffic for miles because of construction in Indiana.  Maybe thirty minutes to go a few miles - and both directions were affected.  Then that's done - and another one appears five miles on  And another one.  Huge road construction projects which have to be taking months and months - and all traffic, on the major east-west highway in the region, adds maybe an hour to their trip.  And if that's not enough, the rest stops in Indiana are a gas station and an actual 7-11, and they still have toll booths.  Sheesh.

A large majority of the vehicles on the road with me today were trucks or commercial vehicles of some kind, and there were a lot of them.

Drove through Hammond, Indiana and Gary, Indiana, where the huge black behemoths that were US Steel plants in better days are still rotting and blighting the view of Lake Michigan.  Story my family knows by heart:  During the ur-trip across the country - my first - when I was 11, my mother took one look at Gary, Indiana from the car window and said, "If I'd ever seen this, we would never have named you Gary."

Tomorrow, I think I'm heading for Lewisburg, PA, for a stroll around the campus of Bucknell University, to see if I recognize anything.  Then home.

I'll tell the Peru story because it's a monumental travel story, but some other time.  I have a Zoom meeting:  Otsego County Democratic Committee By-Laws Committee.  Stimulating stuff.

East

I'm in Eau Claire, WI, tonight, and I feel great.

I spent all (OK - most) of yesterday evening thinking, worrying and consulting maps.  I charted all the possible westward routes; each one turned south, and eventually east, at a different place.  They were all possible, but none made me feel that I had found what I was looking for.

Then this morning, I woke up (in Bismarck, ND) and lay in bed and thought some more.  I thought in the shower.  I was thinking at breakfast, and - it was just as I had taken up a forkful of scrambled eggs - I had a new thought:  "So what if I just turned around now and went home?"

Immediately I felt better.  

So I did. I finished my eggs, got in the car (under a setting almost-full moon) and did not hesitate to turn east onto I-94.  Soon the sun showed up, a blood-red egg yolk on the misty horizon, and rose slowly, slowly becoming the sun.  Seventy-five miles per hour all the way to Fargo.  For the first time this trip, I was in the "driving across America" groove.  I remained in that groove right to the end,* here in Eau Claire, 518 miles later.  It felt like the shortest trip so far.  (OK, it was the shortest trip so far, but it felt really short.)

North Dakota still looked like Kansas and Nebraska on the way back.  I returned to the Hudson's Bay Watershed, and left it again.  At Fargo I turned 45 degrees south and went on a slant across Minnesota.  The first twenty or thirty miles were corn fields as far as you could see, but it got hillier and agriculture seemed to disappear after that.  I know that the Mississippi River goes through Minneapolis but I did not see it, or a sign indicating it, even though I was looking carefully - or as carefully as I could considering I was driving through construction.

Tonight I'm just inside Wisconsin, in another town with a French name (which, by the way, means "clear waters").  Best plan for tomorrow involves continuing to diagonal down through Wisconsin and into Illinois, and then turn due south in Rockford, meeting I-80 in a jumbled collection of cities that includes Peru, Il, more of which later.  Then east on 80.  This is the only route that does not require me to drive through the center of Chicago, which would be a good thing.

So - I'm going to enjoy driving home - a sort of new experience.  I also may take an alternative route home from Ohio, by staying on I-80 through Pennsylvania, and maybe visit my alma mater.

 * - I didn't like Minneapolis much, but Minneapolis is a really big city and the road was under construction the whole way.

Changes

This trip is not turning out the way I hoped it might.

I've had 30 hours and 1,500 miles to think about it, and it seems to come down to:  I'm not enthused about it.  It's dangerously close to being work.

Teasing out why that is true is the hard part.  So let me resort to a list, and maybe that will enlighten us.

1 - It's the first trip since I have retired (the second time - Jan 2020) - the first trip not to be a pleasant diversion from a pretty busy and responsible schedule.  It's a diversion from a pleasant retirement.

2 - It's the first trip done in the summer, or anything close to summer, and the heat - more specifically, the sun in the windshield - is really wearying.

3 - I have a pretty good working knowledge of the US Interstate system, and on previous trips I haven't needed Google maps at all, except to get from the exit ramp to the hotel, or to someone's house.  This time, of course, I've been on local roads which rarely go where I want to go, so there are lots and lots of turns.  I need to keep track of the directions on the cell phone constantly - and the bracket I brought to hold the phone where I can see it broke the first day.  So I've had the phone down on the console, a really dangerous place given the amount of time I'm looking at it and not at the road.  Add to that the fact that I can't keep the map screen up for any real length of time - partly because I'm always touching it when I don't want to, and partly because it decides randomly that I want to see something else - and the result is a miserable experience.  This is one part of the reason I'm returning to Interstates.

4 - I'm substantially older than during most of the other trips.  I know that shouldn't matter, but it does.  Being a septuagenarian seems to mean something to me. 

5 - I have always counted on using credit card rewards programs for gift cards and free nights, so lodging has always cost nothing, or almost nothing.  In the year and a half since my last (east-only) trip, these programs have become more opaque and difficult to use, partly on purpose, I presume.

6 - The other part of the reason why the rewards programs have become more difficult to use is that they are more app-based, and as I noted previously, I am not an app guy.  Each day I have to find wi-fi (McDonald's, usually), fire up my laptop, and figure out how to get a room somewhere close to where I predict I'll end my day.  Even then, it often requires that I use the app on my phone, or make a phone call.  And every time people have made mistakes, given me the wrong information, sent me back and forth, and just disappeared from the phone (this afternoon).  Some of this incompetence is me not using the app the right way.  So when I look a the next week or two on the road, I see massive headaches every day.   Last night, I came very close to not having any place to stay at all.

7 - This is a stupid one - and would not be a big deal normally - but the mouse I brought with me is not working right, and it takes probably twice as long as it should to publish a post.  For instance, I can't bullet-point this list.

8 - No baseball.  Not on any of the TVs so far.*

9 - I'm tired.

Looking back on the list, it seems that it's made up of things that would make a bad situation worse.  But what makes the situation bad in the first place?

I think it's this:  My idea of taking US routes through very long stretches of isolated country was fundamentally flawed.  Even if I had a working bracket, too much time and attention would be spent on navigating.  And finding gas at the right time, and a hotel at the right time, could easily be problematic in far north ND, MO and ID, not to mention eastern WA and OR.  Just those three issues would - and already have - serve to overwhelm any meaning the trip might have.

And if I'm going to abandon the primary purpose of the trip?

We'll see.  I'll stick to Interstates and decide when I'm ready to come home, and then I'll come home.

It's a plan.

 * - This is true, but survivable.  Just hoping to add a little levity.

The Midwest

Ironwood, MI to Bismark, ND - 541 miles, about 12 hours on the road.

Driving through four Midwest states in a day might be quite an accomplishment, except that literally, two minutes after getting on the road this morning in Ironwood, MI, the lady in the GPS said "Welcome to Wisconsin!"  So it's three states plus two minutes.

From Ironwood to Fargo, ND, was all two-lane road through almost completely deserted countryside.  I drove through three or four settlements not quite as big as Worcester (NY), about the same number that were a little bit bigger, but nothing as big as Oneonta.  It was a long time to be out of touch with where you were and where anyone else was.  Hardly any vehicles on the road.  Very gently rolling country, and the view was hemmed in by trees just about the whole way.  Yesterday and the first half of today, many of the place names were French.  

Toward the west side of Minnesota, it opened out some into meadows and some fields of corn.  Many lakes (and pickups towing boats) but more marshes, with six-foot-high marsh grass crowded from shore to shore.  I passed a really large lake called Leech Lake.  Now that's just wrong.

In eastern Minnesota, I crossed the Mississippi River.  It was about half the width of the Susquehanna River at Oneonta.  It's always a milestone on a trip west, or east, but this time I almost missed it.

The exception to rural isolation was, of course, the iron-ore shipping cities of Superior and Duluth.  I caught a glimpse of the end of the wedge-shaped western edge of Lake Superior, and crossed the St. Louis River, which flows between the two cities on its way to the Lake.  Lots and lots of railyard full of ore cars (anywhere else they'd be called coal cars), and big conveyor belts for loading the ore ships.  The whole time, I am embarrassed to say, I was humming "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

If you've been paying close attention to the map, and my proposed route, and today's route, you'll see that there's been a change.  I'll write more about the change in a later post, but the short version is that I've gone back to Interstates:  it's just too hard to drive two-lane roads in the middle of nowhere for 12 hours a day.  I've abandoned US Rt. 2, and there are other changes I'll go into later.

So spent the morning heading for Fargo, ND, because that was the closest place to pick up an east-west Interstate (94).  Then I spent much of the afternoon driving 75 mph (the speed limit) to Bismarck, which is a little west of center of the state, and also the capital. 

North Dakota is, really, indistinguishable from Kansas and Nebraska.  Sorry, but I've driven both a number of times, and there's nothing new up here north of them.  Some corn fields along the extreme eastern side, but mostly the short, brownish grass as far as you can see, with dirt ranch roads heading straight north and south as far as you can see.  And lots of exits marked "No Services."  And the temps were in the 90s today.  I passed a sign noting the Continental Divide, at about 1400'.  This startled me, because it had to be wrong.  I just looked it up, and it's correct - but it's not the Divide we always think about.  As I traveled east to west, I moved from the Hudson's Bay watershed to the watershed of the Gulf of Mexico.  I had spent just a few hours in the Hudson's Bay watershed (look it up - it's interesting), which is, I supposed, something.

So here I am in the capital of a conservative state which is named for both a battleship and a leader of a foreign country, both of which made their names in wars against us.  Go figure.