There and Back Again

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA: In the battle between sports and music, the victor was sports and I got on the road to Canton early this morning. After all, why listen to the marching band when you can see the team play? So I arrived in Canton just as the Football Hall of Fame opened. The place was pretty cool, but not all that big. I took pictures of all the old-time Eagles stuff and, of course, a picture of a certain running back's bust. The place was pretty cool, and it didn't actually take that long to go through.

Since I still had some time, I drove over to the William McKinley monument and museum, which is also in Canton. There was an enormous grave site and memorial. Next to that was a small museum of various things that included a McKinley wing. It had lots of his artifacts and memorabilia, and some of those creepy talking robots that museums sometimes have. Overall, Canton seemed like a pretty nice town and, unlike some places I visited this summer, there's actually something to do.

Now it was time to get on the road. After one last stop at Arby's in Youngstown, I got on I-80 and started the drive across Pennsylvania. The rain started then, and didn't let up until I got to Allentown. These were the worst driving conditions I've seen the whole trip, though my parents assure me it's been raining all week here. The visibility was pretty poor, and I pulled over to a few rest stops just to wait out the worst of it.

Still, it was nice to be home. The gas station in Hazelton stocked Tastykakes, and I had to buy one, even after only two-and-a-half weeks' absence. I got back on the highway, and once the rain let up the Northeast Extension and the Turnpike moved pretty quickly. And then I was back home in the Great Northeast.

After 24 states and 7709 miles, the old Camry held up pretty well. I hope you've all enjoyed the pictures and the stories. The blog will go dormant for a while since the only place I'll be going in the next few weeks is work. But there are still more states and provinces to see, and I'll let you know when the next leg of the exploration of America takes place. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions along the way - it made the trip easier to know that there would be messages waiting for me at each stop along they way. Well, that's all there is to tell. See you around the country.

Eastward I go

INDEPENDENCE, OHIO: The eastward drive continued today, amid a little rain but mostly just clouds. It's a problem of moving east instead of west that I have less time to make stops while still traveling a reasonable distance. When I was traveling with the sun, I had time for three or four stops a day. Now, crossing the time zones the wrong way, I travel the same distance with only a few delusory pit stops. Stupid time zones.

Such was my trip to Battle Creek, Michigan. I had thought to see the Kellogg museum, Cereal City USA, but by the time I got there it was already getting late. So, I took a brief look around the city and went on my way. The picture at right is actually a Methodist church, not the cool old-time train station or city hall it appeared to me to be.

So, back on the road, I sped through the rest of Michigan and into Ohio. On the turnpike I got really hungry and had to resort to a Hardee's, a chain I had considered only one step above a Sbarro. Apparently, they've updated their menu, and now it's not half bad. They're pushing this "Philly Cheesesteak Thickburger" which is apparently a burger topped with cheesesteak meat. It seemed interesting, but like so many non-Philadelphians, they felt the need to add green peppers and Swiss cheese. I stuck with a regular burger, and it was pretty good. By the time I got here (a suburb of Cleveland,) it was too late for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so I'll try to get there tomorrow. On the other hand, the Football Hall of Fame is just over in Canton. Hmmm...I'll make that a game-time call.

Not much else to tell, so I'll crib a little quotation from Thoreau to round it out:

"Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free. It is hard for me to believe that I shall find fair landscapes or sufficient wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not excited by the prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the forest which I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly toward the setting sun, and there are no towns nor cities in it of enough consequence to disturb me. Let me live where I will, on this side is the city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and more, and withdrawing into the wilderness.... I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe."

Rained Out

RACINE, WISCONSIN: It started raining right as I left Worthington this morning, and continued all the way across Minnesota. It continued as I crossed into Wisconsin, and got heavier all the way to Madison. What this all meant was that traffic slowed down and I didn't get much in the way of sightseeing done. I had planned on touring the Old Style brewery in La Crosse, Wisconsin, but it was closed on Sunday, as was the restaurant attached to it. So I ate lunch at a McDonald's and got back on the road but when I got to the next stop, Madison, the rain was heavier than ever. Since my planned stops at the state capitol building and State Street were outside, I relunctantly stayed on the highway as traffic crept along. If you're interested, there's a nice picture of the capitol on the city's website.

About halfway to Milwaukee, I managed to outrun the storm and the traffic resumed a regular highway pace. I got a nice view of Miller Park on the way downtown, but the Brewers are out of town today. I got off the highway and drove to the Miller Brewery. I figured there would be no tour on a Sunday, but I hoped there would be a gift shop, or even a taproom. No such luck; the place was closed up completely. I took a picture of the sign, just because I hadn't used the camera all day. After a series of detours around construction, I got back on I-94 and headed for Racine. If it sounds familiar, it's probably because one of the teams in A League of Their Own played here. Anyway, I walked over to the Country Kitchen for an enormous seven-dollar chicken-fried steak and the company of old people, then returned to the room. Hopefully, tomorrow will have better weather.

Dead Presidents

WORTHINGTON, MINNESOTA: I started out the day at the most American of places: Mount Rushmore. This place strikes at the heart of the American take on hero-worship. In Europe in the old days, people treated their kings like demi-gods. Then we had our revolution and got rid of all that. Our leaders were just regular guys doing an important job: no hero- worship, no demi-god. And yet, people seem to have this need to worship one of our own, even if for no reason (hence celebrity magazines). So early Americans repressed the hero-worship impulse, but eventually it had to explode. And when it did, we did it bigger and better than anyone had ever done: we carved giant heads onto a mountain.

Yeah, that's good stuff. It's strange to see a place thousands of times in pictures, then to show up there in real life. I mean, I goof on it, but it is pretty awesome, in the original sense of the word. There was a good crowd here, too. Talk about creating a tourist attraction. The Black Hills are pretty nice, but there's no way all of these people would have showed up if there had not been four dead presidents carved into the hills. Good marketing by the state, or whoever decided that it should go here.

The next stop was Rapid City for lunch, then onto another wonder of the plains, Wall Drug. This is not related to Wal-Mart, but rather is named after the town in which it is located, Wall, South Dakota. No, that is not a joke. This place started out as a drug store, and later expanded into different stores across several blocks, all connected. You find the same variety of shopping choices as in a shopping mall, but they're all the same company. Last night, in the dark, I drove past the geographic center of the United States. Today, though, I found the center of old-timey Americana, and it is Wall Drug. I bought a t-shirt.

After that, it was a straight, fast drive for the state line. As you travel east, South Dakota flattens out and greens up and looks more like the Midwest than the Great Plains. I crossed the Missouri River and then the Minnesota line, and sadly said good-bye to 75 mph speed limits and giant stone heads of presidents.

Lonely Roads

DEADWOOD, SOUTH DAKOTA: I left Missoula early enough, I supposed, to get in a decent day's drive. I planned on driving into Deadwood, and even reserved a hotel room there, this being the weekend and all. After crossing the Clark Fork River a few more times (I-90 parallels this river for much of western Montana,) I crossed the continental divide for the last time. I couldn't help thinking that the Clark valley must have been even more beautiful before the interstate came through. Of course, without the interstate, most people would never have seen it.

I kept on driving east after another delicious Arby's sandwich, and the state of Montana just kept going. It seems obvious that the states are bigger out here, but actually crossing them truly drives home the point. Around 2:00, I began to worry that I would not arrive in Deadwood at a reasonable time, but a quick look at the map reassured me and I drove on. My first scheduled stop was in the far eastern part of Montana. The town of Hardin, in addition to being on the way to Little Big Horn, holds the Big Horn County Museum. This is more than the one-room museums I'd seen before, and actually includes a few buildings restored to 1910 style, which seems to be this area's heyday. I took a picture of the one-room schoolhouse.

Leaving Hardin, I took the short drive to the Little Big Horn battlefield which is, strangely, on an Indian reservation. Or maybe it's not so strange, since they won the battle. I didn't stay long, and took a state highway "short-cut" to I-94. This short-cut was actually shorter in distance and would've been shorter in time if not for the construction being done on it. Still, I don't think I lost any time, as going back and forth along interstates would've taken me far out of my way. After getting to I-94, the road became more desolate. Not scary, creepy desolate, but just free of a lot of traffic. The greatest sign of activity I saw was the bird that commited suicide by flying directly into the path of the speeding Camry. It disappeared in a puff of feathers, and left no trace on the car. Most of the land here is used as cattle ranches, and I saw lots of cows taking shelter from the sun in the shade of billboards along the highway's edge. The best was the McDonald's billboard a few were hanging out under. If only they'd been able to read!

The next stop was Marmarth, North Dakota, so I left the interstate and drove east on U.S. 12. Some of you may be wondering why I would drive to an old railroad town with a population of 140. Well, Julia's grandmother was born here and when I planned the trip Marmarth wasn't too far out of my way. I had changed my plans a bit, but this way still seemed as good as any other. By the time I rolled in to the town it was 7:30, but still plenty bright with sunshine. I slowed down to the town's 25 mph speed limit (this is the problem with the U.S. roads rather than interstates - towns have ridiculously low speed limits, and because I expect some small-town cop to be hiding behind each corner, I observe them.) And, finally I entered Marmarth, which has to be the saddest town in America (actual ghost towns excepted.) Some houses were occupied and reasonably kept up, but every single commercial building was abandoned (including the two in the picture here and at least three of four on the town's website) with the sole exception of a small bar/restaurant. I suppose this is to be expected when the railroad doesn't stop here anymore (the town's depot still stood, abandoned) and the auto traffic is re-routed to the interstate. Still, seeing a dead town full of empty buildings is far sadder than seeing one of the two-building towns along the way. Not many folks live in either one, but Marmarth used to be something worth seeing.

I drove on, growing more concerned about getting to Deadwood. A closer look at the map told me I had at least 150 miles to go, all along U.S. 85. 85 proved to be emptier than 12, with only farms, roadkill, and the occasional opposing traffic to keep me company. I drove on, and on, and by 10:00 the sun had gone down for good. Fortunately, the road is straight and well-signed, and my high beams kept me where I needed to be. I was just hoping to get off the road, and was having paranoid imaginings of deer jumping in front of my car.

My heart leapt for joy as I saw ahead the lights of the metropolis of Belle Fourche, South Dakota. I had given up on Deadwood, and just wanted any clean room for the night, and the "clean" was looking less and less important. But a stop in a few hotels quickly failed to produce a vacancy. The clerk at the Motel 6 even called around to other hotels, but all were full and she suggested I drive ten miles south to Spearfish, along the interstate. The interstate! Why had I ever left it?!? I drove on to Spearfish but, there too, there was no room at the inn.

By now, I was considering sleeping in the car, but those same visions of angry cops not taking kindly to me kept me awake and driving forward. By this point it was 10:30 or so, and I was only twenty miles from Deadwood. Would they still hold my reservation? If not, perhaps some other lodging might be found. The Deadwood area, I was learning was the single greatest tourist attraction of the northern plains. I drove into town (did you know there are casinos here?) and past a number of hotels, some with the "no vacancy" sign up, and pulled up to the Super 8. I haven't named names much here, and after a bad experience in upstate New York on a different trip, I'd been avoiding Super 8s. But that's where I had my reservation, and a more welcome site I never did see.

I pulled in and walked up to the desk where a man and a woman were working.

"I have a reservation here. I don't suppose you still have it, do you?" I said, expect more rejection. The woman looked at her papers.

"Are you Kyle or Matthew?" she said. Wow, these folks are on the ball!

"Kyle," I said. "Is the reservation still open?"

"Well, of course," the man said with a big grin on his bearded face, "you reserved it with a credit card!"

And so I had! I'd forgotten that part as I'd talked to myself for the last few hours.

"If I'm going to pay for it," I said, "I guess I may as well sleep in it."

He laughed, and we chatted a little as he processed the information. Thank God for friendly hotel keepers and credit cards. I went upstairs, and directly to bed. I think I'll drive a bit less today than I did yesterday (852 miles) and I'll definitely make a reservation for Minnesota.

Hail Columbia

MISSOULA, MONTANA: Lots of driving today and not much sight-seeing. The problem is, there's not much between Seattle and Missoula in terms of tourist attractions. That added to the fact that I got a late start from watching the USA-Ghana soccer match this morning meant that I spent most of the day behind the wheel. Still, there was lots to see from the driver's seat. I drove from Aberdeen to Olympia where I picked up I-5 to Seattle. I then turned onto I-90, the longest highway in the country (Seattle to Boston).

I-90 runs through a bunch of mountain ranges, various parts of the Cascades and Rockies, creating many scenic views. The first of these that I stopped for was an overlook just past the highway bridge over the Columbia River. There in Eastern Washington, the deep greens of the Pacific Northwest give way to the drier, browner lands where the mountains have blocked much of the rain blowing off the ocean. Sometimes the "vista points" advertised from the road turn out to be boring views that make me regret I even pulled over. But this one was worth the stop:


After that I kept on along the same route across Idaho and through the Lookout Pass into Montana. The mountains here were greener with pine trees than the hills of Eastern Washington were. Again, I didn't see much, but I wanted to get a decent day's drive behind me. Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll have more time to stop and more interesting things to report.

Come as you are

ABERDEEN, WASHINGTON: I traveled north through Oregon to Washington yesterday. There was a quick stop in Portland for lunch, but not too much to tell. The downtown area is pretty nice, as is the downtown mall, much to my surprise. Anyone from Philly will understand why I doubt that another town's version of the Gallery will be nice, but it seems like other cities are better at this sort of thing. There was some bookstore I was supposed to check out while I was there, but I couldn't find it and didn't feel like asking anyone. Instead, I strolled the streets, bought a shirt, and went on my way.

The next stop was Aberdeen, where my sister (Jess) and brother-in-law (Kris) live, along with two cats and a dog. I took the drive slowly because I knew my sister didn't get off from work until 4:00, and I managed to arrive at around the right time. We went down to one of the local taprooms for dinner, then came back to the house and watched movies. The next day, I got the oil changed in my car. After lunch, we went to the beach with the dog.

There's not much to do here, so I'll talk about some general observances of the West. One thing that stands out when driving around out here is that there are tons of hitchhikers. In Philly and its surrounds, I never see anyone hitchhiking, but out here they're everywhere. None of them look like the sort of folk I'd want in my car, but somebody must be picking them up. Here's another thing: hardly any mosquitoes. Back East, we would be entering the height of mosquito season. Here, I haven't had one bite yet. In Berkeley, Tim's house didn't even have screens! One more thing that's different here is the hair: lots of beards and long hair on men. In Philly, the Willie Nelson look is pretty rare, but it's still going strong in the American West.

Twists and Turns

RIDDLE, OREGON: I left Berkeley this morning and drove north on US-101. Today the trip itself was the thing to see as I drove along some of America's most beautiful scenery. Instead of taking another interstate, I picked a road that is almost as fast and many times more interesting. Parts of 101 are local roads, but other parts are full-on highways (or as they pronounce it out here, "freeways.") The twists of the road - many more than you'd guess from looking at the map - were due to the road's location along mountain ridges, river valleys, and (in the north) the Pacific coastline.

After leaving the Bay Area, the road moves into the Redwood forests of northern California. These massive trees are hundreds of years old, and bigger than anything we have back east. Even better, there was one hollowed out to make a hole big enough for a car to drive through. I tried to snap a picture as my own car went through but it came out blurry, so I took this one of somebody else's. I got back on the road and winded through some more redwood forests. After Eureka, California, 101 turns toward the coast and the forests give way to even more spectacular views of the rocky beaches. The weather was beautiful, too, and I was pleasantly surprised to be riding around in 70-degree temperatures in June. After Crescent City, I switched to US-199, which was , if possible, more curvy than 101. The going was slow as it passed through towns, but eventually this took me to I-5 in Oregon and to this hotel. The only other thing I see around here is an Indian casino. Those places can either be fun or depressing as hell. If there's no baseball on TV, maybe I'll check it out.

Ocean in View

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA: Yesterday, I spent the day with Tim and his roommates in Berkeley. We watched the World Cup game in the morning (the USA tied Italy 1-1). Afterward, Tim and I made the trek to the Communist Cheese store. Or at least I was given to believe that they were commies. Instead, I found a private corporation that sold luxury goods to rich Californians. There were two things that made them "commies": the workers were all shareholders in the business, and they give discounts to oldsters and those "in need." Now, I don't know who exactly is "in need" of a block of Roquefort, but who ever they are, they get 5% off.

The next day (today) was dedicated to exploring the Bay Area. We drove first into San Francisco to do the tourist thing, picking up souvenir shot glasses and what-not. Tim suggested we have lunch at the In-n-Out Burger, a west coast fast-food chain. It was as awesome as promised. Then there was the drive to the Golden Gate Bridge for the obligatory photo there (at right). Then it was across the bridge to Marin County.

We took a drive up the Shoreline Highway, which featured some awesome views of the mountains and the ocean. Here's the weird thing about northern California beaches: in Philadelphia, we have the eternal summer vacation debate - down the shore or up the mountains. Here, they do both. You look to your right, there's the beach. You turn to the left, there's tree-covered mountains. It's crazy! I stuck my foot in the ocean, just to say I had done it, but went no further because it was wicked cold.

The final stop was back in Berkeley at the Indian Rock. This is a big outcropping of rock at the top of the hill in Berkeley that offers a view of the whole Bay Area. Pretty cool place just to hang out and talk about life or whatever. A very California kind of place - a person could just chill here all day and never get any work done.

City by the Bay

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA: Hello, comrades. Today was a relatively easy day of travel. I left Reno around 9:00 and drove a short distance west to Tahoe City, California. I had heard that the Lake Tahoe area was beautiful, and those rumors proved correct. The drive from I-80 to the lake was though a federal forest, and trees and a small river lined both sides of the road. The lake itself was very pretty with many campgrounds and hotels ringing its shores. I spent a bit of time there, and I think that this spot alone might have been worth it's own vacation.


My next stop was Sacramento. Tim, who I was crashing with in Berkeley, was still at work, so I needed to eat lunch and kill some time. I parked downtown and walked around in Old Town Sacramento, a restored downtown area that is made to resemble the city about one hundred years ago. Lots of good places for a tourist to hang out. I still needed lunch, so I wandered into a place that turned out to be rather fancier than I'd thought. I suspected at first that the hostess would throw garbage at me on account of my bedraggled appearance, but instead they agreed to seat me and I resolved to use my better manners. The food was very good, and the meal proceded without incident.

I then drove to Berekely in the first real traffic I had encountered on this trip. Tim met me by the exit ramp, and we drove back the house he shares with his roommates. It's a nice old place with a little back yard and an impressive video gaming system. As the hours progressed, members of Tim's college diaspora assembled and we all went to dinner at the Nepali restaurant, then repaired back to the house for the aforementioned video games. I still suck at Mario cart.

Desolation (and Polar Bears)

RENO, NEVADA: Howdy, friends, from the "biggest little city in the world". I put in a long day of traveling yesterday, starting first with a drive through the Great Divide Basin. This dry area straddles the Continental Divide. While most of America's water drains eventually into the Atlantic or the Pacific, rain that falls in the Great Divide Basin doesn't go anywhere. In a wetter climate, this would form some sort of lake, I suppose. Here, it's just desolate, though a few cows could be seen from the road. As you might expect, I didn't stop to look around, since there's little to see here and I wanted to make Reno by nightfall.

After passing into the Pacific watershed, I came to Green River, Wyoming. I don't think I made it clear in the last posting how much I enjoy this state. The natural beauty makes it an obvious place to like but more than that, it just feels more alive and optimistic than other places. There are farms and mines of the sort that once covered Pennsylvania, but now are gone in many places. Yesterday, I drove by a massive oil refinery, followed a few minutes later by an array of windmills. Here is a state, I thought, that does it old-school and new-school. A few years ago, I might have not come back, but fortunately I now have good reason to return to the East, even if Pennsylvania is no longer the world's largest oil-producing region and is notably short of windmills.

I pulled into Salt Lake City around noon. The streets confused me at first in their simplicity. The street two blocks south of downtown was called 200 South. This pattern is replicated, with few exceptions, throughout the city. The streets are wide, like you might expect in a Western city, and also carry secondary names, as to honor some person without losing the number that tells you where you are. The choices in names are surprising: if you had told me that I would be driving at the corner of Rosa Parks Street and Cesar Chavez Avenue, I would not have suspected you were referring to Salt Lake City. But so it is. I walked to the Temple Square at the center of the grid pattern. I sat for a while, enjoying the cool breeze and the fountains that are in between the Mormon church's buildings. When after a few minutes, no one tried to convert me, I left at drove back to I-80.

The land west of Salt Lake City was the truest desert I've yet seen. The land is completely flat, and the sand is blindingly white, owing to salt in it from the lake. This is what I had expected from a desert, and while boring, the driving was easy. I stopped at the Great Salt Lake where the road goes near it. It was strange to have the smell of the ocean in my nose while being hundreds of miles from the Pacific. I heard some woman ask her husband why it smelled so bad. I never thought of that smell as bad though. It wasn't that rotting-fish low-tide smell you sometimes get on the way to Cape May, but just the salt marsh air that lets you know you're nearly there. I guess they just weren't beach people.

I thought this desert would continue all across Nevada, but as I crossed the state line I saw that there was some vegetation. This might be a desert, but it's not like the sand dunes that people have to crawl over in movies. Actually, the path that the highway and the railroad follow here is the course of the Humboldt River. While it's not a mighty torrent, the Humboldt does contain enough water to green some of the surrounding country. Still, when a tumbleweed rolled across the highway and hit the car, I knew this place was desert enough. I stopped in Elko, in search of the world's largest polar bear. I came to a museum that promised to have a tiger inside. I figured this was a good place to keep the polar bear, too, so I went in. I did, in fact, have a polar bear, but not the world's largest. I didn't ask where the other polar bear was, because I didn't want the lady at the museum to think I was an asshole. "Oh, this polar bear's cool and all, but is there a better one somewhere else?"
I looked around, and moved on to Winnemucca, where I greedily ate two McDonald's double cheeseburgers. My growing love for Arby's notwithstanding, in a time of hunger, I return to my roots, with a side of fries. I ate in the car, because the sunset was coming and at night the Camry turns back into a pumpkin. I raced down the road and arrived at Reno at dusk. I drove around in confusion for a half hour or so (lots of construction on the streets here), and found this hotel. The promised internet connection failed to deliver last night, and there was no ESPN or Comedy Central on the TV, so I couldn't watch Jon Stewart or find out how badly the Phillies had lost. So I went to bed, only to find the internet miraculously restored come morning. It must portend a good day.

Now, for the most dangerous part of the journey: Berkeley, California. Will I survive a trip into the red, red heart of American Socialism? Will I be brainwashed and forced to work on a commune/gulag? Will I be force-fed communist cheese? Stay tuned for the gripping conclusion of Both Hands on the Wheel!

Hell on Wheels

RAWLINS, WYOMING: The original inspiration for this trip came a few years ago when I read Empire Express, by David Haward Bain. That book is the best history of the transcontinental railroad available today, and it first made be consider going west along the path of that first rail line built by the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific. All of the towns I visited today were founded because of the Union Pacific's line across the Platte Valley and the mountains of Wyoming.

The first stop was Ogallala, Nebraska. The road west from Grand Island showed the slow change from the fertile lands to drier ones as I crossed the 100th meridian. The land gets browner and crops cease to flourish except where they are irrigated. The trees are fewer, and mostly Cottonwood. It is here that the coming of the rails has the greatest impact. People lived in Omaha and Sacramento before the rails, but the land in between was known as the Great American Desert; it had no towns, no roads, only wagon trails and Indian nomads. But the technology of the day demanded that where a railroad passed, there needed to be stops along the way to restock coal and water for the locomotive. Wherever a likely water source was found, a depot was established and a town grew up. Ogallala was such a town. Often the largest these towns ever were was when the railroad workers passed through with their camp-followers. Together, this traveling bunch of workers, peddlers, and shady characters was known as "Hell on Wheels". The people in Ogallala have preserved some of that old frontier heritage, keeping (or restoring, I'm not sure which) the main street of the town in old frontier style. It was too early for the saloon to be open, but I did stop by the petrified wood museum.

A quick ride on I-80 and I-76 brought me to the next stop, Julesburg, Colorado. This was actually the fourth Julesburg, the first having been burned by Indians, the second and third having been relocated to take up more advantageous positions with regard to rail traffic. The fourth incarnation of the town is home to a museum in the former Union Pacific rail depot. Exactly what it is a museum of, I am not sure. It holds a collection of nearly everything old or interesting from the town, including information on the Pony Express, the railroad, the early inhabitants, or whatever else there is room for. There was also a restaurant advertising "prairie oysters," but I declined in favor of an Arby's in Sidney, Nebraska.

After passing back into Nebraska and eating lunch (I highly recommend Arby's Chicken Bacon Swiss Combo), I set my sights on Wyoming. It started getting quite hot again in the plains, but the consensus on the blog being that air conditioner use is perfectly safe, I cranked the A/C and was spared the worst of the 95-degree day. I pulled into Cheyenne to check out what there was to see. If Indianapolis seemed like the perfect state capitol, Cheyenne is more like a county seat with a state house in it. That's not an insult; it's a very nice town (and is, in fact, the county seat) but it's not very large (55,000 people) so it lacks the built-up downtown I usually think of a city as having. That being said, it's a nice, clean town that I wouldn't mind living in. The state capital has a gold dome, as so many do, and it is set right in the middle of the town, unassumingly, as though it's no big deal, not trying to show off or anything. That seems like the spirit of Western democracy: just regular folks doing the people's work.

The next stop was a rest stop near Laramie. Normally I don't even write about the rest stops, but in Wyoming they seem to situate them near scenes of natural beauty or some other attraction. In this case, the attraction was a giant bust of Lincoln that overlooks the highway. I took a picture, considering it a preview to my eventual visit to Mount Rushmore. From there I took off for Rawlins. Rawlins is another of the towns the Union Pacific founded on its way west, and even now the railroad is, along with the oil refinery to the east, the major employer in the town. This is also the last town of any size for about a hundred miles, which explains why the first five hotels I stopped at were booked solid. It also explains why a town of 8,000 people has more than five hotels.

So, tomorrow, it's on to the Great Divide and the desert. Keep those comments coming!

Old Osawatomie

GRAND ISLAND, NEBRASKA: I started out the day by blazing west across Missouri. My internet searches for world's biggest somethings had come up empty, so I decided on an alternate attraction: the John Brown State Historic Site in Osawatomie, Kansas. This was a bit south of my planned route, but to see the homestead of this great freedom fighter, I figured it was worth the trip. Brown, a free-soil settler in antebellum Kansas, lived in Osawatomie before setting off with his sons to commit the Pottawatomie Massacre some miles north (thus giving rise to one of his many nicknames, Osawatomie Brown). When pro-slavery forces sacked the state capital, most of the anti-slavery types just wrote their Congressmen. Not John Brown. He and his sons rode up to Pottawatomie and hacked five of the ringleaders to death with broadswords. That kind of old-time valor in pursuit of a righteous cause was just as hard-core then as it is now. The guerilla war in Kansas polarized the nation, and the Civil War soon followed (after some more freedom-fighting shenanigans by Brown in Harpers Ferry).

So, I figured it was worth the trip. The restored cabin was full of period artifacts, including a broadsword and some guns (the government only likes guns in museums, it seems). It was surrounded by a picnic area and park, which was in turn surround by a pretty little town, Osawatomie. A nice lady at the cabin gave me a brief explanation of the place (it was actually Brown's sister and brother-in-law's cabin, but he stayed there a while) at let me look around. I ate a sandwich at a picnic table outside, then returned to my trek.

It was about this time that it began to get as hot as a crotch. My USA Today weather map had shown the middle of the country in various shades of red for today, but feeling it was something different altogether. To be fair, what Westerners say about dry heat is somewhat true. But this is the difference between it feeling like 90 and feeling like 95. Either way, I was sweating my ass off all across Kansas. You may be asking, why not turn on the air conditioning? The answer is, I'm paranoid. I fear that the combination of 90-degree temperatures, driving 80 mph for hours on end, and cranking the A/C will cause a 1994 Toyota Camry to explode. Or at least overheat. What is this based on? Nothing, really. If any of you know about cars, please leave a comment one way or the other. In the meantime, I put on the A/C for short intervals, drink water, and take advantage of air-conditioned rest stops. Oh, here's a fun fact: while among the most architecturally interesting I've yet seen, Kansas rest stops are most notable for their complete lack of vending machines.

Most of the rest of the day was spend driving with the vent on full blast and the books-on-tape cranking away. At Salina, Kansas, I left I-70 and turned north on U.S. 81. This is kind of a local road, but there are so few towns that it's not much different from highway driving. Lots of farms, and some cows. The farm smell here (hay and cow shit) is different from that in the hills back east (bacon and sheep shit). This continued for sometime, then I arrived at I-80, and turned west for another forty minutes or so, until I finally arrived here, 664 miles later, in Grand Island.

Gateway to the West

WENTZVILLE, MISSOURI: The westward march continued today as I rolled into Indianapolis at quarter 'til noon. I walked around the downtown in search of a suitable place to view the World Cup soccer match, and finally settled on a Champps sports bar. Big TV's and generous portions had drawn many other fans to the bar, and it was pretty packed until we started losing. I was hoping a "U-S-A, U-S-A" chant might break out, but there was little cause for adulation as the Czechs beat the Americans 3-0. Still, I was still glad I had stopped, because I got the chance to walk around downtown Indianapolis. It's a nice business district they have, and the state house and War Memorial were the sort of nice civic sculpture one expects to find in a state capital. It was like I had imagined a pleasant seat of business and government for a state, and there it was. There were even a few bums thrown in for verisimilitude, but not so many as to be tacky.

After that, it was back on to the highway. I thought that my long lunch of soccer and a patty melt would have put me behind schedule, but as I crossed the Illinois state line, I found that the time zone shift had granted me an extra hour. This left time to visit Vandalia, the historic end point of the National Road and the former state capital of Illinois. Vandalia is still banking on the fact that it used to be the capital, and sure enough the building is still there. The rest of the downtown is sort of run-down and sketchy, so I just drove in a big circle and got back on the highway. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't there.

This brief detour behind me, I drove to the Gateway to the West, St. Louis. The highway merged with two or three others and deposited me at a government parking garage near the Gateway Arch. I parked, and went to take in this best-known symbol of Missouri. And, wow, is it big. I mean, you see pictures, and it's even on the Missouri state quarter, but when standing there, it's quite impressive. I had to walk across the street to get a picture.

I tried to find I-70 west again, inadvertantly re-crossing the Mississippi a couple more times. Eventually I sorted it out, and stopped at the first hotel with the wireless. So, here we are. Stay tuned: I hope to find the world's largest something or other pretty soon.

After the Flood

SPRINGFIELD, OHIO: I left Annapolis at 9:00 this morning, and made my first discovery of the trip: now, I understand how the Washington Beltway works. People have been complaining about the traffic on that road for years, but I now realize that it is designed only to fit the traffic patterns of a typical Sunday morning. At such a time, the highway efficiently funnels commuters around and into D.C. If used at any unintended time, it is bound to malfunction. Those Godly highway-planners at the Department of Transportation must have only intended that people drive the Beltway on the way to church. Genius!

After navigating around Washington, I traveled up I-270 and I-70, and into the Near West. I should note, I guess, that Maryland has the finest roads and road signs I've seen to date. That state has some of the highest state taxes in the nation, and tons of intrusive regulations, but in road maintenance the people's money is well spent. Indeed, for someone used to the potholed Philadelphia streets, a ride down US-301 or I-70 is like gliding along a sheet of silk. In a car, no less.

I ate lunch in Cumberland, Maryland, the gateway to the National Road. The National Road was one of America's earliest federal construction projects. It was initially designed to run from Cumberland to Wheeling, (West) Virginia, and was later intended to go all the way to St. Louis. What's more, unlike most roads of its time, the National Road was paved. This constituted, in the early nineteenth century, Big Government, which is why funding was cut in 1839 and the road stopped in Illinois.

The history of all this interested me, so I decided to follow the road - now U.S. 40 - all the way to St. Louis. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that much of that road is limited to 25 or 30 miles per hour, and full of traffic lights. If I had three months to travel, a la Blue Highways, I wouldn't have cared. But time was of the essence, so I paralleled the Road as closely as I could from the interstates, and headed into West Virginia and Ohio.

There were mostly mountains until just past Wheeling, then the land flattened out and the Middle West spread out before me. There wasn't much time to sight-see, since I wanted to get a good distance completed today, but I did pass a church in Frostburg, West Virginia that claimed to be reconstructing Noah's Ark. There was some sort of structure rising up, but it didn't look like an Ark just yet. Hope that flood holds off until they finish it.

From there, I just kept going until it was getting near time to eat. After 504 miles, I pulled into Springfield, a pleasant-looking town along the Mad River (yes, that's the real name). I don't know much about the place, but Wikipedia informs me that it was chosen as an All-American City in 2004. That seemed pretty impressive, until further research revealed Philadelphia to have been chosen for that honor four times. I don't know what the standards are, but I can't see what old "corrupt and contented" Philly has to do with this nice little city in western Ohio. Oh well, I'm off to the Cracker Barrel. Maybe they'll know there.

Bobblehead

ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND: Friday night after work, I set out on the road for Annapolis. This part of the trip was familiar, since Julia lives there, so no new ground was covered. I drove down I-95 to Delaware House, one of the world's great rest stops. Then I drove down US 301 through Middletown, Delaware and Maryland's Eastern Shore to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, where I crossed into Annapolis. This is a great route to take to Annapolis or Washington, because the tolls and traffic are so much lower than on 95. I just like screwing Delaware out of the ridiculous tolls they charge for my twenty minutes spent in the state.

On Saturday we drove into D.C. to see a Washington Nationals game with some of my law school friends. The victors in that matchup were the Philadelphia Phillies, as expected, and all fans where honored with the presentation of a Chad Cordero bobblehead. We ate dinner in Silver Spring, which was a great surprise. When I lived there, it was run down and boring. Now, fully gentrified, it offers a wide array of eating and shopping experiences for the young professional with too much money in his pocket. A good time was had by all.

So now, I leave for the West. Look for more postings from the road!