Endings and transitions

With the road trip over, Lover's Lanes is going to update a lot less frequently. I did collect one love story that I hope to get typed up soon, but Blackbird has taken her last cross-country flight for a while. It's back to LiveJournal for a while with me! But first, this trip deserves an epilogue.

The night before I set out, I wrote this: "I don't know what's going to happen -- whether this will be one of the best or worst times of my life, or what kind of meaning it will turn out to have, or if it might turn out to have no meaning. I don't know. But that's the point."

Now that I do know what happened -- well, more or less -- I have the benefit of hindsight. These weeks fell squarely into the "best times" category. Viewed episodically, most of my time on the road ranged from average to fantastic. I had my share of hours, evenings, and even days of relative depression, but with so little of the mundane world to get in the way, I found it easier to transmute sadness into lessons and even pride. ("So I'm feeling threatened by Winnemucca, Nevada? Wow, that means I must be in Winnemucca, Nevada. What the hell kind of craziness made this possible? Wait, I got here by myself? Maybe I do have what it takes to step into a casino, then...")

Meaning is a trickier question. I can say Lover's Lanes was meaningless, or that it taught me about the importance of self-reliance or friendship or motion, or that it made me more of an American or an adult or a man. But the proof of any of those "meanings" is in the pudding. If I now return to my old routines with my old attitudes, Lover's Lanes was just an unusual vacation. And maybe that would be fine with someone else. But it's not fine with me.

The day before yesterday I applied to the University of South Florida's library science degree program. If they accept me, then next year I'll begin working towards an MLS. I've talked to a number of librarians and haven't heard one yet say "this is an awful job," or "I made some bad choices," or even "meh, it's a living." Is this the right job for me? Could it even be a career? I don't have the first idea, but I do know that by the end of the year I will have been in the business of tutoring for about as long as I was in college, and that alarms me. Tutoring was an experiment, an important and lucrative one, but it's an experiment that got out of hand. It's time to recork that particular test tube and try the next one. It's a big lab, after all, and time flies!

Various forms of steam

As of this day, I have achieved the Grand Isthmic Bifecta: I have visited every major United States city that is built on an isthmus! That is, both Seattle and Madison! Congratulations to me!

Today I rode on a train as a result of asking a question I already knew the answer to. Here is how that happened. Last night I was looking for something to do between St. Paul and Madison, and in my Googling I came across something called Dr. Evermore's Forevertron. In an alternate universe, the Forevertron is a device designed to propel Dr. Evermor [sic] into space on magnetic lightning bolts or something; I didn't quite follow that part. In this universe, the Forevertron is the world's largest sculpture made entirely out of scrap metal. It looks awesome. It is every steampunk novel or RPG you have ever seen, done, or eaten, like Jules Verne and Ludwig von Beethoven collaborated on a lunar rover. It is also surrounded by other scrap metal sculptures, from gigantic to tiny, of insects and birds and little tiny protestors and such. These sculptures are clearly the life's work of the couple responsible for them, and there will be ample pics eventually.

But that's not what I was trying to tell you about. I was trying to tell you about this train ride. The thing about the Forevertron is that it's located in a junkyard with no physical address in the deep rural wilds of North Freedom, Wisconsin. Nonetheless, I had managed to pull directions off Google Maps and had written them down. You'd think I'd have been happy with that, but when I stopped for lunch on my way to North Freedom I happened to pass a tourist bureau, and on a whim I decided to stop in and ask if they knew how to get to Dr. Evermore's Forevertron. This question had gotten me weird looks at the restaurant, and it got me a weird look at the tourist bureau, too. The lady working there had never heard of it but was otherwise very helpful, and I mean that sincerely; once she realized I hadn't just made up a tourist spot she was all over Google and Wikipedia trying to get me an address. I stopped her, since I'd done the same already to no effect, but not before she told me that North Freedom is really known for its railroad museum with hour-long train rides on refurbished cars from the 1910s. A train ride, you say?!? I rushed to North Freedom and arrived just in time for the last railroad expedition of the day. It was fun letting the engineer drive for a change! I also learned that -- at least in those days, no idea if it's still true -- locomotives have both forward and reverse gears. So in theory the locomotive could have pulled us forwards to the quartzite gravel quarry that was our endpoint, then pushed us backwards to bring us back to our starting place. But that's not how you actually do it, because then the engineer couldn't see where he was going on the return trip. Instead, the engineer de-couples the locomotive from the rest of the train, runs the locomotive alone backwards along a set of parallel tracks, passing the cars, then runs it forward on the original track and couples it to the caboose. Then he pulls the cars back to the starting point in reverse gear. At no point does the locomotive make a U-turn -- you can't do that on a train track; the locomotive faces forward the entire trip, even though it's pulling backward for half of it. It's designed so that the engineer has line of sight in the direction of motion either way. This is probably something some of you knew when you were six, but for this suburban boy it was a revelation. So that's how they do it!

Not much to speak of this evening. Had a quiet dinner and ice cream at the University of Madison campus; still need to plot my evil deeds tomorrow morning and hopefully see something else that makes Madison cool before I go join Jono's parents for Thai food and subsequent hospitality in La Grange, a surburb of Chicago. (Spelling matters. If you type in Lagrange, Google Maps will send you upstate.) Sadly, the Forevertron trip left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, because I talked to a woman there, a local tourist if there is such a thing, who perceived that I was in a hurry, and I am indeed worried about being in too much of a hurry. I mean, just one day in the Twin Cities? You could spend a week there and just scratch the surface. I tell myself you pass through a lot of towns on a cross-country road trip and (without a ton of time and money) you can't delve into all of them. The trip's already taken longer than I expected it to. But in some sense I am hurrying, and I don't like that, because who knows how long it will be until I'm in North Freedom, Wisconsin again, you know? It's like speed dating. You're just getting to know the town, and then whoosh, it's gone, time for the next one. Fortunately, Chicago is a city that I already know at least a little bit from my four years in college there. I know some of the good restaurants and intend to reacquaint myself with them, while also enjoying the companionship of semi-familiar faces for the first time since Seattle. Two nights in a city I already sort of know means less hurrying. Onward, upward, and southeastward -- but not too quickly!

More of a Boo-Boo than a Yogi

Brief one today because it's late and I'm tired. I'm posting this from Gardiner, Montana, a tiny town in the south of the state that exists solely to serve as the northwest gateway to Yellowstone National Park. Originally I planned to spend two nights here, the better to see more of Yellowstone, but a combination of several things -- the price of the hotel, my eagerness to return east, and my early arrival at the park today, to name a few -- made me decide otherwise. Today I explored the northern reaches of Yellowstone end to end. This was not entirely planned. I had meant to go to Tower Falls, in the central north part of the park, and then go back. But coming out I managed to make a wrong turn that resulted in me driving all the way to the northeast corner of the park, actually reaching the exit before realizing I'd made a wrong turn. This was even more remarkable because the scenery was rather different than it had been on the way in, and everything had different names, yet apparently I noticed nothing wrong. I think the angel of adventure was steering at that moment.

But all went well. If I hadn't made that wrong turn, I wouldn't have seen the herd of easily over a hundred wild bison grazing on the mountainous plains. I wouldn't have seen a few curious bison up close, standing right next to (and in one case, on) the road, inspecting the traffic as if posing for photographs. Wild bison are ugly sons of bitches, with mats of fur and big dead black eyes. I would have preferred to see more of the small black bear, who flashed once between trees, visible only for a moment but in the center of my vision. He caused a traffic jam. I'd read about "bear jams" at Yellowstone, but I'd somehow thought they were caused by bears standing on the road; I now think they're mostly caused by tourists trying to photograph bears standing beside the road. In addition to these megafauna and some tame mule deer who live near the Mammoth Hot Springs, I made the acquaintance of some odd rodents who look like squirrels but have almost no tails, or like large chipmunks but with no markings, and also two species of insect I haven't come across before. One in particular, which emits a loud flapping buzz as it flies, is paranoid and extremely well camouflaged, lost against the scenery the moment it alights and impossible to photograph.

Of course the scenery is beautiful, but other than that it is unremarkable.

At several points during the day, such as when I glimpsed a hawk perching atop a nearby rock in a picturesque fashion as I drove past, I wished I'd had the presence of mind or reflexes to take a snapshot (as I did of many other scenes today). I caught myself slipping into the "pics or it didn't happen" mentality that is why I distrust cameras in the first place. So I want to state right now that there was a hawk, he was perching on a rock, and he was very handsome, and although I would like to share the moment with you, it happened whether you can see him or not. I remember.

Tomorrow? Cody, Wyoming, if the park ensnares me as I take the long loop through it past Old Faithful and Yellowstone Lake; or Greybull, Wyoming, if I am less captivated. The angel of adventure is pulling for Cody.

What not to do while on a road trip

When I drove from Eustis to Atlanta in a day, then drove from Paducah to Kansas City in a day, those were some pretty long hauls. They were about as far as I'd want to drive in a day. They were also substantially shorter than today's drive, which took me virtually nonstop from Pacifica, in the south Bay Area, to Waldport, Oregon, about halfway up the Pacific coast of that state, on Route 101, which is two lanes and 55 mph for much of the way. I spent twelve hours in the car, getting on the road at 7:30 and not stopping till Waldport at the other 7:30. I will not be doing that again this trip if I can reasonably help it.

Fortunately, having friends in the car makes time go faster! Alexis and Isaac both joined me for this leg of the trip and kept me awake. I arrived rather happy and wired at the home of an online acquaintance of Isaac's, whom he was meeting for the first time -- a beautiful house overlooking Alsea Bay and the Pacific Ocean -- which is where I'll be sleeping tonight. On the way we somehow managed to squeeze in a few en-route adventures. We stopped for lunch in Arcata, where I had an enormous burrito (the first burrito I've ever liked, though I was intimidated by its size), followed by a regional treat called an It's-It: vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two soft oatmeal cookies and with a chocolate shell. Absolutely delicious, of course, and how could it not be. Apparently northern Cali is the only place you can get them!

In Oregon I made a surprising discovery: it is illegal to pump one's own gas in Oregon. All gas must be pumped by a gas station attendant. Isaac, who lives in Portland, says this idiosyncracy is just make-work, and I expect he's right. Nevertheless, gas in Oregon is a quarter cheaper than gas in northern California.

Driving up the coast, we saw some of the most amazing scenery of the trip in the form of enormous redwoods, white water and beaches on the Pacific, and cliff faces that looked like something out of an adventure or romance film. Tomorrow we'll likely head back south a few miles to properly check out the trails around Cape Perpetua, then make what I'm assured is an easy three-hour drive to Portland. And then, the world!

The dusty Winnemucca road

I bade a fond farewell to Salt Lake City this morning, but first I set out to explore its greatest remaining mystery: the Great Salt Lake. One would think that it would be impossible to drive past the Great Salt Lake without seeing at least three billboards for boat tours of the lake, but as far as my Googling and inquiries can discover, all the lake's boat tours are either luxury or bankrupt. The best way to experience the lake seemed to be driving across a bridge to Antelope Island, where there's a road that showcases the lake on one side and native flora and fauna on the other, but it would have been two extra hours of driving with nothing to do but gawk at things from the car. I generally like activities better that let me gawk at things from outside the car, so I took a pass on Antelope Island. Instead I pulled off I-80 at a beach (yes, the Great Salt Lake has beaches) and waded out to the water. The interesting thing about the Great Salt Lake is that you experience it with all five of your senses. The other interesting thing about the Great Salt Lake is that none of those senses can distinguish the lake from the Gulf of Mexico, the coast I'm most familiar with. There is simply no way to tell that this is a lake and not an ocean. Indeed, the early explorers thought they'd reached the Pacific.

Wishful thinking on their part. They still had a ways to go. The western mountains in this country simply do not end! Whenever you crest one, there's another behind it. Sometimes they're craggy peaks, sometimes mesas, sometimes big ol' hills that look like contour maps out of an MMORPG. But there are always more of them. It's a good thing I'm driving primarily to see the country, because if I were driving primarily to reach a destination I'd be frustrated to no end. In fact, I was frustrated today. I turned off the interstate to look for a canyon they advertised. It turned out to be a forty-mile round trip, and so inadequately marked that I never did find what I was looking for. I did hit a prairie dog while looking, though. I don't think it lived. I cried a little bit on my way back to the interstate. I was going a little over the speed limit, and if I'd been going slower I might have stopped in time. It was one of the small, careless tragedies that happen every day. I'm so sorry.

Later I finally reached Winnemucca. Winnemucca is a small town that appears to be built entirely on transient tourism like mine. Small-time casinos are everywhere, poised to rake in the passing traffic. Well, I reasoned, if I want to experience Nevada I have to go to either a casino or a prostitute, and prostitutes are expensive. I got $40 turned into chips. This was my first time gambling and very nearly my first time in a casino. I didn't know the rituals. You pay for your chips in cash, no credit. No blackjack till six. Chip bucket on your lap, not the table. Only one hand on the cards. Scratch the cards on the table to hit, shove 'em under the money to stand. No touching cards other than your first two. Drinks are free while you play. I didn't know any of that stuff, but I walked in knowing there was a lot I didn't know. I still don't know how many of those rules are universal to casinos and how many are specific to Winners Hotel & Casino. What's important is that I overcame my intimidation -- and Winnemucca is an intimidating, masculine town -- for no other reason than to practice courageous living. I didn't do too bad, either! Conservatively, I kept my winnings separate from my principal and left when my $40 was gone. At that point I had $29.50. So I paid $10.50 for a drink, some entertainment, and a bracing memory. Absolutely a fair transaction.

Exhausting the list of things to do in Winnemucca was Sid's Restaurant, sort of a de-chained version of Perkins, walls decorated with everything from framed artwork to My Little Pony coloring book pages. I asked the waitress what her favorite dish on the menu was and got a chicken focaccia sandwich -- which was not at all what I'd been going to order but turned out to be very good! One thing I've learned repeatedly on this trip is that people who know more than I do about an area, or a restaurant, or a culture, are to be treasured; it's through them that I can approach that knowledge. They don't always help, but they almost never hurt. Of course, sometimes I stumble across things on my own, too, and that kind of knowledge is also sweet, like a little secret. Which I promptly blab about to all of you. :)

Days like this, part 3

This is the third and last part of a three-part post. Please read part 1 first; it's two posts below this one. Blogs aren't like novels; you have to read them in reverse order. It's like the movie Memento, except not actually intended to be viewed that way. Bizarre.

Decatur, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, was my next stop after Eustis. I rushed to Decatur to meet my host Zach, who was generous enough to wait for me before heading to a biweekly get-together at his friend's house to play tabletop games. I was looking forward to getting to know Zach (a friend's friend who I'd never met before) and his cohort over a board game -- but things didn't quite work out that way! Zach's friend was MIA, and through a series of increasingly frantic phone calls Zach eventually discovered that game night was canceled. He didn't even hesitate before dialing yet another number, then several more, organizing an impromptu meet-up at a local Thai place. The ginger chicken was nice and savory, and the conversation was a real challenge; I navigated a sea of unfamiliar names and relationships that emerged among the four of us there. Unfortunately, amidst the general rush of the evening I didn't have my camera with me, and the Slug Incident back in Zach's apartment was a sucker punch that knocked any will I might have had to photograph anything out of me. I feel very much like Bilbo Baggins -- someone not naturally proactive or good with exigencies who nonetheless finds himself on an adventure and doesn't always know how to cope with it.

I mentioned in the last post that the three towns I've stayed in have been completely different, and Decatur is the polar opposite of spacious Eustis -- ultra-urban, with everything crammed into as little space as possible, bending streets and buildings in the process. It's not a pretty place -- is what I thought driving in on Sunday evening. But this morning (was it only this morning?!?), driving out, I saw the way the skyscrapers vanished into the dawn fog as though their tops were rubbed out with an eraser the color of the sky... and I decided maybe Decatur wasn't so bad.

I did get a picture from Decatur, but it's not the skyscraper one. It's the side of Zach's apartment building, a poor picture that could have been taken anywhere. I wish I had pulled over and snapped the shot of the skyscrapers.

As I passed through southern Tennessee on the way to Paducah, I saw several signs for some tourist spot named Ruby Falls. I was on track to get into Paducah very early and had some time to kill, so I figured, what the hell, waterfalls are pretty. Right decision. Turns out Ruby Falls is an underground waterfall at the end of a half-mile cave a thousand feet beneath Lookout Mountain, just outside Chattanooga. Twenty bucks bought me a gorgeous tour -- and one that I do have pictures of.

A tourist-oriented cave tour is not photography-friendly. Though everything is lit just right, you're never at rest for long, and when you are there are heads or hands between you and the thing you want to photograph. Nevertheless, I got some fantastic shots, which I present here without further comment, except to say that they are all much more beautiful in person. If you're ever near Chattanooga, go.





And now is the part where I want to regale you with tales of the wonders of Paducah... only writing these posts has ended up taking most of my spare time this evening, so I haven't seen much of the town. Actually, I'm glad. The last few days have been full of sensory overload, and so for once it's probably better for me to sit inside staring at an electronic screen than to be outside getting fresh air and discovering things. I'm sorry, Paducah. You seem like a nice town. You are two hundred years old and full of river lore. If I ever come back I promise I'll give you the exploration you deserve.

Cutting a swath

My itinerary is coming along nicely. Leg One of the trip is Fort Myers to San Francisco. I need to make this trip in at most twelve days in order to attend wedding festivities on the 27th, and in case of unexpected developments along the way I've planned it so that I'm crossing most of the continent in half that time.

June 13: Set out from Fort Myers, FL. Stay the night in Eustis, FL, just north of Orlando, with Alexandra/moroschino from IRG. Totally gives me a reason to leave the house in the first place! Meals: with Alex; attractions: at Alex's discretion.

June 14: Stay the night near Atlanta, GA, exact location TBA but hopefully with a friend of Alexis, a friend from anime club. Meals and attractions TBA.

June 15: Stay the night near Paducah, KY, at a hotel. Meals and attractions TBA.

June 16: Stay the night in Merriam, KS, just outside Kansas City, with Jacob/Stormcrow from IRG. Another day to look forward to! Meals: Korma Sutra (Indian) or Free State Brewing Co. Attractions: Independence Church, the site of the Second Coming of Christ according to the Latter-Day Saints.

June 17: My birthday! Have lunch with Jacob at Andre's Confiserie. Stay the night near either Hays, KS or Stockton, KS, depending on whether I take the interstate or local roads; it'll be a hotel either way. Dinner and attractions TBA.

June 18: Stay the night in Denver, CO, hopefully with Wiley, a friend from the U of C. Need to get in touch with her. Meals and attractions TBA but plentiful.

From there the itinerary is still very much under construction. The two major choices are whether to get on I-80, taking me through Cheyenne and Salt Lake City en route to the West Coast, or whether to stay on I-70 into southern Utah and take local roads across Nevada. If I really do arrive in Denver on schedule on the 18th, though, I'll have oodles of time to get to San Francisco, so I may do something more radical like cut south through Albuquerque and take the by-all-accounts-gorgeous drive up the California coast. Will make contingency plans.

Day's anatomy, part 2

To see how the three-day rule works, let's try a test case: Mobile, Alabama. I chose Mobile because I know absolutely nothing about it and because it's an early stop on the first-draft route of our journey.

The previous stop will probably have been Pensacola; I'll just have driven an awesome bridge stretch of I-10 that spans Mobile Bay by way of various islands and peninsulas that stud the delta. Though it's a long bridge, it's a short drive. Google Maps estimates 55 minutes from Pensacola to Mobile, and that may actually not be too unrealistic; with the magic of Street View I can see that the bridge is actually four lanes, which I wouldn't have guessed, so I'm unlikely to get stuck behind a semi. If I leave Pensacola at eleven I can be at a Days Inn near I-65 by one at the latest.

Why Days Inn? Because a friend of mine who went on a road trip of her own last year reports that Days Inn is the best for having safe, comfortable, affordable rooms, and also because it's everywhere. I could look into local bed and breakfasts or something, and maybe sometimes I will, and I'm now a certified member of CouchSurfing.com so I have that option, but Days Inn will always be a good fallback.

The particular inn I'm looking at in Mobile is near the mall, which is a minus in terms of noise but means I'm likely to be in a district where I can buy groceries and get laundry done. What's more, it's spitting distance from Spring Hill College, which according to Wikipedia is a historically significant Jesuit college full of young people whose love stories just might have something to do with their faith. Score!!! I can probably visit on the day I arrive while I wait for check-in time at the inn. The University of South Alabama is only a little farther afield and might make a good Day Two destination.

A quick search for laundromats turns several up nearby, along with two Circle K locations, so necessities are covered after check-in on Day One. Nearby Dauphin Street is crowded with restaurants if I feel like splurging. With the interstate nearby it's mostly fast food, but there's also a Chinese place, and there are several cafes near the college and elsewhere, which just might mean more love stories. Bizarrely, there are four nursing homes within a mile of the inn, also good story repositories. And who knows what I'll pass on the way to and from all these places that might draw my attention. Plenty to fill Day Two even if I don't make it to the university.

If indeed the second day is as fruitful as I hope it'll be, I'll spend another night in Mobile and continue along I-10 the next morning. Biloxi would be the obvious next destination, or I could plow through Mississippi the better to reach New Orleans, surely one of the ten most important cities to visit on a trip like this. Either way, I'll have had a great visit to Mobile, busy without being exhausting, and full of stories!

Day's anatomy

It's not clear how much you can "plan" a trip like this one. You can prepare for it, at least to a certain extent; you can buy provisions, chart a course; but if I tried to make a day-to-day itinerary I'd be off it by day three. So much is unknown -- not just because I've never done this before, but because, if nothing is certain but death and taxes, nothing is uncertain like travel and people. Want to know where I'll be on a given day? I'll let you know when I flip over the calendar page. Okay, maybe I can do a little better than that... but not by much.

What I can do is think about what I'll do within a day. That begins with figuring out what proportion of my time I want to spend on the highway as opposed to in a city. I have a few philosophical options here. I could stay as long as I feel like in a town, collecting stories until I feel the urge to move on. But this is a little too sedentary an option for me; Lover's Lanes is about motion and emotion, and staying in each town indefinitely doesn't put quite enough emphasis on the first. In fact, when I first conceived of Lover's Lanes I thought I'd keep moving whenever possible, never staying in the same town twice except perhaps in allied ports where I have a friend to stay with, stopping only for necessities like food and rest and love stories. This is still tempting in some ways -- constant motion! -- but logistically it may be unwise, unfun, or impossible. Navigating within towns will probably take more attention than navigating between them. It takes some time to figure out where the love stories are, after all, not to mention the challenges of stocking up on supplies and doing laundry in a town you've never been to before with enough time left over to get to the next port of call. I'd be more comfortable with a local base of operations outside my car, and that will usually mean a hotel room I leave in the morning and come back to in the evening.

Which means that I'll be better off adopting Kino's rule: don't stay in one place longer than three days. That seems more resonant anyway given the influence of Kino's Journey on how I'm thinking about the trip. I can cheat on the rule when I have a (broadly defined) good reason -- I don't have Kino's phobia of attachments -- but the three-day rule seems to give me enough time, if not to get to know a city, then at least to take what I need from it and be ready to move on, and keep me from getting too seasick. At the same time it will keep me moving at a good clip and ensure that the scenery of the trip changes often enough to keep things interesting without being my own personal Bataan Death March. The rule also gives me a very approximate way of making a calendar -- or at least it will, just as soon as I get a route planned out and ascend to infallibility.