Day 1 - The Rules
Yesterday I went into the AAA travel store in Minneapolis and told them I was taking a roadtrip. They said they had handy little travel books for any states I’d be visiting – which ones would I be needing? In the words of the great Johnny Depp from the movie Blow, I dutifully replied, “All of them.” Granted, Mr. Depp was referring to bags of marijuana and not free tourism literature, but still.
I’m going on a trip to all 48 states. By car. This trip is going to take a long time. About 7 weeks to be exact. And this website will be my online documentation of this hefty venture, thanks to a handy little laptop and a handier little cell phone with internet access from anywhere. I'm not doing this as proof to anyone - though at some points I may need proof myself that I would do something so completely retarded as to drive 12,000 miles to 48 different states. It’s more to help me remember. A web diary, if you will - a storage of memories. Memories of every story I find along the way, every picture I see, every filthy Texas gas station I stop at in the middle of the night for beef jerky and Jolt.
It’s kind of daunting to think I’ll be seeing every single continental America state over the next two months, from the Redwood forests the gulf-steam water or however that jingle goes. Remember that license-plate game you played on trips when you were a kid where you tried to spots plate from as many states as you could? Buddy, I am the license plate game. And that’s perhaps the lamest claim to fame I’ll make over the next couple fortnights.
There are only three rules to this trip, though I reserve the right to make up more whenever I deem it necessary/funny. For what roadtrip would be complete without whimsically-invented bylaws?
1. No speeding. I will get into this more later, but I don’t have the best history of avoiding speeding tickets. I’ve never been in an accident (knock on wood), but apparently my driving prowess does not extend into the area of being able to resist challenging posted speed statutes, or avoid being caught every time I do. Thus the financial reasoning for the no-speeding rule, but more importantly is the time enjoyment factor. This is not a trip from point A to point B. It’s a trip from point A to point A in the most roundabout, ridiculous manner you’ve ever seen. So there's no need to rush it. Which leads directly into Rule #2...
2. No interstates. Well, no interstates as much as I can help it. Again more later, but there are things about America you just can’t see from the mega-highways. Sure it’s faster not to drive through small towns and redneck bars, but on a trip where these are your destinations, often the little squiggly black lines on the map are the most memorable ones.
Finally,
3. Do whatever sounds like an adventure. I have some stops and a basic route planned, but if this is supposed to be a wandering, self-finding journey, there’s gonna need to be some wandering and self-finding. How will I ever know if True Enlightenment lies inside the Worlds’ Largest Ball of Twine unless I look?
For Day 1 I head south, in a strange but purposeful loop that will make sense as the trip unfolds. I depart from the company of many good high school friends in Minneapolis to head towards Dubuque, Iowa to do some voice-recording with a new acquaintance I’ve made in the past few weeks. From there it's St. Louis to visit an old college pal, and from there, well, it’s wherever the tires take me. The purpose of this trip is to reaffirm relationships with friends, wherever they might be, besides reaffirming the one with myself.
So thanks for joining me. These posts will be updated nightly, if you ever care to tune in and see what kind of mischief I’ve gotten myself into. I can at least promise stories, pictures and mischief, if not full-blown shenanigans. If I ever get too philosophical and stir-crazy from being on the road by myself for so long, please email me with threats and I’ll knock it off. In the meantime, however, welcome to my quest through America and the meaning that lies within.
Day 2 - The Imposter
So there’s unfortunately been a bit of deception on this roadtrip already. I’ve been leading everyone to believe that I would be touring the country in a giant aqua spacecraft known affectionately as the Jurymobile or the Spacemobile. Yet, treachery abounds. This has always been the plan, but the Bluebeast has been acting particularly persnickety as of late, and at the last minute a substitution had to be made. Quite clearly,
Note the complete lack of similarity, even through the worst artist’s rendition. Make no mistake, the Spacemobile will return – my dear parents are meeting me in Wisconsin with it in a week to swap out (and go to a family reunion). But until its repairs and trial runs are completed, however, my transportation will be a swanky, agile black Ford Taurus with vanity plates.  Which was not my call, by the way - "Big Jury" was my youngest brother Alex’s doing, who deserves the title much more than I do. Alex and my middle brother Mark have developed a love for this car, much like a man’s love for a fine wine, or a fine woman. And they have adapted it to make it their own. My heart, however, lies in the teal German bowels of a Eurovan – for this first leg of the journey, the car I’m driving will be known as the Spacemobile Imposter. It could be used perhaps as a lifeboat for the true Mobile, or an escape pod.
I didn’t get quite as far as Dubuque on Day 1, a town that has bit of family history for me. My mother spent several of her “formative” years there before my father swung in on a vine and rescued her from the nunnery. Yet due to my usual frantic running around before any trip, I didn’t get out of the cities until about 5pm, and it would have been rushing it to show up in Iowa any time before really late. Which, as mentioned, clearly violates Roadtrip Rule #1. Plus I wouldn’t have had time to stop and take random pictures of corn.
So I crashed instead in the spacious passenger seat of the Imposter (not all automobiles are endowed with a queen-sized bed in the back seat). The leather luxury suited me fine, however, coupled with my decision to fall asleep right next to the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa. Well, what I thought was the Field of Dreams - I awoke the next morning to discover that it was just an ordinary cornfield near the Field of Dreams, one that had no baseball field or ghosts. But a short drive fixed this, and before I knew it I was traipsing about on the old stomping grounds of Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones. By the way, “If you build it, they will come” could have applied to the field’s tourism campaign as well – there were roughly 300 little kids with their parents running around the field when I got there, throwing baseballs at one another and running in and out of the corn and wondering why they didn’t disappear. I watched all this for a little while before moving on from reportedly the only cool thing to see in Iowa. And this told to me by and Iowa native.
Day 3 - Corn and Bugs (Iowa)
 It’s been a lot of driving to get to St. Louis – actually mostly driving, aside from brief stops in Dubuque and Wellman. I suppose that’s what a roadtrip is, though. I had a foiled dinner attempt at this quaint (and I use the term loosely) little pizza place in Iowa. I wanted to eat there mostly because of their sign (does their pizza need to be explicitly qualified as food? Or if that’s a hyphen in between, is pizza somehow different than regular food?). But the restaurant was inside this woman’s house and she was putting her kids to bed by the time I got there, so I settled for an IHOP in Waterloo instead.
  I'm starting to get into the real heartland as well, where corn out-populates people and bugs out-populate corn. This gas station in Keokuk was prime example of why humans make houses and Raid. It was seriously like that movie where a hoard of insects descends upon that African town and kills all the crops... oh wait that was the Bible.
I’m hatching a new Road Trip Rule (#4) – no more driving at night, unless I absolutely have to. Aside from the bugs and your increased chances of cremating a deer, you just don’t see as much, except fireworks being set off by bunches of people drinking beer from the backs of pick-up trucks. This was occurring right near the welcome to Missouri sign, I guess as a way of saying welcome to the state. Or better yet welcome to the part of the country where people do this kind of thing.
Day 4 - Gateway to the Southeastern Midwest
Day 4 involved not so much road-ing, not so much tripping, but good times in St. Louis nonetheless.
My friend Craig is in med school there curing cancer, but he was able to take a day off to show me the town/let me use his shower. (As you can see from the right, he ain't got a bad view, either). Now, Missouri has a habit of sharing all of its big cities with other states (perhaps none of them want the embarrassment of having to say they’re surrounded on all sides by Missouri), but we managed to peruse much of St. Louis without having to venture over the bridge into Illinois. I got a pretty good crash course of the town, including the Greek-American restaurants (aka gyroburgers), a free last-half of a Cardinals game and some good late night stogies purchased from the only Shell station in America with a humidor section. Of course, one could hardly expect less from a place right across the street from the Busch brewery headquarters.
 I also gave in to tourism pressure and saw the St. Louis arch, or the “Gateway to the West” as the placard indicates. If eastern Missouri can be considered "The West". It certainly was big, but I was a little disappointed that it doesn’t actually bridge over anything, and you can’t go up inside. I was kind of hoping there would be a ladder up one side and a giant slide down the other, but alas. But what do I know about large national landmarks, anyway. I heard they have this giant lady holding a torch in New York and a giant stone phallus in D.C.
Day 5 - Serenity
 So this is where I am right now. A little camping ground/boat launch in Southern Missouri where I’ve stopped for a jog and a rest. Perhaps not a swim though, as the lake is roughly the color of a brown crayon. I left St. Louis early this morning to head toward the home state of old slick Willy, though I doubt I’ll get as far as Little Rock. The plan is just to head across the border, stop at the first place I see and ask them for an interesting thing to do in Northeastern Arkansas, before I head over towards Memphis.
The Spacemobile Imposter is holding up well, now well past its first thousand miles. The only thing wrong at all is the remote door-unlock-thingy seems to have stopped working, so I have to resort to actually using the key. But sometimes life is harsh like that. Will check in later with updates.
Day 5, the Revenge - Trouble
And no sooner had I written the above than Trouble began. With a capital 'T'. The setup is as follows - I was out on the dock writing, shirtless and cooling down from my jog, everything else locked safely in the Imposter except my laptop and digital camera. The running shorts I was wearing had no pockets, so my wallet was in the car as well, and the keys to get in the car were tucked safely in my belt as I started back to take my leave of Wappapello Lake.
 Or so I thought. Exactly how it occured I don't know, but the picture to the right shows exactly where my keys went through the dock. In between the slats, down into the brown abyss below. It was like in slow motion, as the keys bounced once, twice, thrice safely across the wood before finding a way down, me standing there staring, unable to move. And then they were gone. Oh, shit.
Now, this wouldn't have been nearly so serious if I still had the backup keys locked somewhere inside the Imposter, but I had made the bonehead error of leaving them in St. Louis this very morning. And now I had no keys, and with them no access to stuff, transportation - in essence, life in general. And I was about 100 miles from any towns in southern Missouri. Oh, shit.
Thus, my options were as follows. One, I could dive into the filthy lake in my shorts in an attempt to recover the key from the muddy bottom. Given that the water was about as translucent as rootbeer (and not nearly as sanitary), and that the lake bottom was that kind of sinky mud that absorbs your feet about six inches when you stand on it, this task would be like looking for a needle in a very gross haystack. Option Two was to call Craig in St. Louis and beg him to drive down the two hours with the extra key and then two hours back, for which he would most certainly kill me. Or Three, I could find a someone somewhere in these boondocks in which I was now stranded who could first open the car and then hotwire it so that I could drive it somewhere to get a new key, none of which would be cheap. The needle in the haystack was getting more and more appealing.
So I went up to the campground office and explained my debacle to the old, white-haired man sitting there, explaining to him how screwed I was, and asking him if he had any advice. "Nope, nope, sure don't," he replied, rocking convulsively back and forth in his chair.
"Well, how deep's the lake?" I ventured.
"Oh, I dunno, I reckon about a couple inches, to about six feet under the deep part of the dock, where all them frayed cables is at."
Well the deep part of the dock was exactly where my keys had gone, so this was not good news. I told him I guessed I was going to have to go in after them, as it didn't look like I had any other choice. "Nope, nope, sure don't," he replied again.
"Uh, alright," I said, turning. "Anything else I should know about then, before I jump in?"
"Uh, nope, nope. Just watch out for the snakes."
I stopped. Now, I don't have any particular aversion to snakes, at least not in the way Indiana Jones did or Adam and Eve did. Not that I particularly like snakes, but when it's a matter of car keys or death, even water snakes (one of the creepier of God's creatures, I admit) I could probably tolerate the thought of slithering down around my ankles. Unless they're poisonous or something.
"What, like poisonous snakes?"
"Why, yup, yup, sure are. I saw some pokin' their heads up around the dock just the other day."
Oh, shit.
I would have never imagined there could be poisonous water snakes in a lake in southern Missouri - in fact I still can't - but at this point the thought was stuck in my head of being bitten by swimming, venomous reptiles while I was sifting around through mucky crap trying to find invisible car keys. Now the haystack had scorpions crawling in it.
"Alright, I wish I wouldn't have asked, but I guess I still don't have a choice," I said, suddenly very cold despite the 90-degree heat. "If I'm not back in 20 minutes, maybe come look for me or something."
"I got a pocket-knife. I can cut an X."
A moment. "What?"
"Ain't that what you're supposed to do? Cut an X where the bite is?"
This had officially become the worst thing ever. "Yeah, right. I'm, uh, leaving now. Thanks for the help."
"Oh," he chuckled. "I didn't really help ya that much!"
I left shaking my head, and set about the task at hand. I have never been more freaked out to jump in a lake. And once I did, I have never been more freaked out to dive down and sift through the bottom where any number of slithery beasts were undoubtedly waiting to bite me and kill me. Plus I couldn't see a goddamn thing, even with the three-dollar children's goggles I had promised the old guy I'd pay for when I could get my wallet. I even had to give the cheap bastard my digital camera as collateral. Hell of a scheme to get a free pair of useless plastic goggles, if you ask me. Anyway I couldn't see a damn thing, and I couldn't even hold my breath for longer than ten seconds or so because I was so wigged out. I was getting nowhere. I was looking for a needle in a six foot deep muddy haystack with a blindfold on and scorpions crawling around inside it waiting to kill me. And I had to hold my breath.
After about ten minutes of this misery I hatched a better idea. Maybe if I held onto the dock I could sift through the mud with my feet, and not have to come up for air all the time. Of course this meant removing my sandals which I had kept on to combat the serpents of the deep, but by this point I figured I was a gonner anyway. So I did. I lost the sandals, and sifted like mad with my feet like a hopeless gold-miner, and prayed. Yeah, I actually prayed. I've always thought that in a world full of suffering, there have got to be tons of people with a lot bigger problems than mine, so I've always tried not to bother God with frivolous requests for help on exams or good luck on the upcoming blackjack hand. But today I prayed, for the snakes to have mercy on me and that, by some utter miracle, my digging toes would strike gold.
Well, I guess I'm due for some heavy church attendance, because a miracle happened. Somehow, by some grace of God, a guy who once lost the shoes off his feet in an airport magically was able to find a set of car keys under a cable in some mud at the bottom of a lake. I've never been so pumped to find anything in my entire life. I must have launched out of the water Flipper-style and landed into a victory dance on the dock, screaming and yelling, by the way the people around me were staring. I didn't care. I opened the car, threw my stuff inside, grabbed my wallet and charged up to the office. I whipped open the door, a soaking, shirtless, ecstatic muddy mess, slammed a ten-dollar bill down on the counter, held up my keys to the staring old man, and proclaimed "Fuck the snakes. Keep the change." And I stormed out.
In total I spent about four hours at Wappapello Lake, and my shorts reek like toxic ass. But I'm on the road again, and I'm now the proud owner of some crappy three-dollar children's goggles that keep water out like a sponge strapped to your face. Oh, and the remote clicker thingy for the Imposter works again. In with drunken fireworks, out with poisonous, key-eating water snakes - I'm getting the hell out of Missouri.
One would think not much else could happen after a poisonous snake key-finding adventure, and that's pretty much true. I mostly just drove through Arkansas and got lost a few times, drying my clothes out the Imposter window as I went down the highway. But it had been a very draining day, and by the time I got near Tennessee, I really really needed a beer.  And so I figured I should do it the right way - at a hardcore southern dive bar. And that it was - the Nic-Nac Bar and Grill boasted one beer on tap (Bud Light - a good choice I must admit), awesome 80's decor of vinyl records suspended from the ceiling by twine, and a total of two customers besides myself, two very southern gentlemen discussing their prison experiences in a dialect I found very difficult to understand even sitting right next to them. There were pornographic pulltab machines in the background.
 This was not the worst bar I could find - in fact, it was the best one I came across in West Memphis. The L.E. Social Club, clearly a gathering-ground for the high-brow, had been boarded up and shut down, as had the Pig 'N Poke, a frightening little place next to Nic-Nac that the owner later described to me as "filled with hookers. Not even classy hookers, I'm talking real low-life, blowjob-for-a-quarter hookers." But there was none of this low-classiness to be found at Nic-Nac, where beer was $1.25 off the tap (I tipped heavily - had to represent Minnesota you know) and served in a plastic cup, and everyone (both employees and both customers) were very friendly and willing to talk to me, even though I couldn't understand what they were saying and I was just some random Yankee who had wandered into their dive bar in Arkansas at midnight on a Monday. Man did those $1.25 Bud Lights hit the spot after a day like today.
Day 6 - Rule #1
I woke up this morning in a parking lot in West Memphis, Arkansas, to an elderly gas station attendant rapping on the window of the Imposter. I rousted out of sleep and opened the door to allay their fears that I was a vagrant or serial killer of some sort, and was greeted by a cool breeze that made me realize it had gotten pretty damn hot in the car, even at 9:30 in the morning. This was actually why they had knocked – people don’t usually sleep in their cars in the middle of summer in Arkansas, and a small crowd of gas station employees had gathered around to see what the deal was. As I waved and explained myself, I saw money change hands. I think they had a pool on whether or not I had died.
West Memphis, home of my new favorite bar ever, is actually just a roguish Arkansas-side suburb of the real Memphis, which in itself is pretty roguish. I took a short jogging tour of the city, including the infamous party avenue Beale Street, which is actually only three blocks long before turning into the projects, before satisfying myself that Memphis wasn’t going to get any less roguish if I stuck around. So I split, deciding to flake on Graceland as I headed north. Tourist Mecca as it might be, I figured I’d seen enough pictures of Elvis on the way into town.
Day 6, stretching all the way from Memphis to Indianapolis, was a day of perhaps a little too much driving. I’ve already seen a lot of Kentucky and Tennessee, but mostly I needed to make good time if I was going to get to Indy by a reasonable hour. I even had to speed a little bit to keep pace, another violation of Roadtrip Rule #1. I know, I’m sorry, but it was only a couple of miles over, and I figured it would give me an excuse to elaborate a bit on the rule. See, I don’t think anyone actually follows the speed limit these days, at least not on purpose, but there’s a big difference between slight speeding and the kind of avaricious, peddle-to-the-metal excess that can get your license ripped in half and your car rolled into a ditch. I’ve found the ideal speed is about 4 miles-per-hour over the limit, which will put you at a swift 69 mph or so on most highways. There’s not a cop in the world that will pull you over for 4-over, unless you happen to be weaving wildly or throwing endangered baby pandas out the window or something. For the slightly more bold, 9-over will rarely get you in trouble either – I’ve been clocked many times going 74 in a 65 through Wisconsin, notoriously one of the more anal radar states, and never once pulled over for it. Any more than this and you’re on your own though. 10-25 mph over the limit is fat ticket territory, and higher than that… well, I can thankfully say I’ve never really tried. At some point it becomes reckless driving, and then at some point beyond that the cop just walks up to your car, shakes his head and then gives you a backhand or chubs you or something.
4-over is the limit for this trip, and hopefully I won’t even have to use that often. So far, so good (knock on wood).
Day 7 - Indy
It was only 3:45, but already the Burnmoore school ground was nearly deserted. Private school teachers had departed for the day and all the young tie-clad boys and skirt-clad girls had gathered their books and been picked up by an alphabet parade of SUVs and BMWs. Sophie could only see one other girl still waiting, a lone thin figure breathing mist into the chilling fall air.
Sophie had never spoken to Madison Ferrell before – she only knew her as the rich pretty girl who always wore nice shoes and sat in the back of the class, never speaking except to curtly reply a correct answer to Mrs. Ewing’s occasional questions. Yet it was this reserved arrogance that seemed to make her popular with the other girls – or perhaps it was the helicopter her father reportedly flew around in to do business.
She doubted if Madison wanted to talk much to her, but Sophie’s mother had always said to be polite and try to have a good conversation with someone before making a judgment. She picked up her navy backpack and moved to the curb.
“Waiting for your ride?” Sophie ventured timidly.
For a moment Madison said nothing. Then she turned her head and looked at the little pig-tailed girl addressing her, the one from the front of the class who always chewed her pencils.
“Aren’t you the girl whose dad picks her up in Corvette?” Madison asked finally.
“Um, yeah. He does. My name’s Sophie.”
Madison said nothing. Sophie felt compelled to explain.
“He’s a car mechanic. He repaired it from almost nothing. My dad says you should find one thing you love and build it up from scratch so it’ll always mean something to you.”
“My dad’s a CEO,” Madison said after a moment. Sophie scratched her head.
“I know.”
“He always sends a taxi to get me, because he’s too busy to get away from work this early. He has an account with the cab company. They’re late today.”
Sophie nodded, but didn’t really know how to respond. Madison kicked a rock out of her way and some gravel game loose on her shoes. She scowled.
“I wish they’d finish this construction. It’s making everything filthy.”
“I heard they’re making a new wing so they can have more students. That’s why the tuition went up.”
“I don’t care about that,” Madison said. “My dad says as much as we’re paying to go here, they can at least keep the place clean.”
Again Sophie had no response. She was beginning to wonder if her mother had ever tried to have a conversation with Madison Ferrell. Finally she thought of something.
“So is your dad coming to Job Day?”
“My dad’s too busy for Job Day,” Madison said. “He’s got clients in from Hong Kong, important ones. He doesn’t have time to come talk to school kids about it.”
A silence fell, as only the sound of the whipping wind cut between the two girls, wet with coming rain. After a minute a beat-up blue Toyota pickup pulled up. Sophie tottered nervously for a second, then picked up her bag.
“Well, um, guess I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”
Madison looked at the truck, and the mustached man waiting inside. “What happened to the Corvette?”
“Oh. My dad had to sell it to pay tuition. I’ll see you.”
She jumped into the passenger seat, a little damp from a window that didn’t quite close all the way. Madison stared as Sophie was greeted with a warm hug from her father, and they drove off. The Toyota turned a corner and disappeared into the gathering fog.
A minute later a yellow taxi pulled up, and Madison threw her bag over her shoulder and climbed into the back seat. The cold air was beginning to make her shiver. The driver threw his arm over the seat divider and looked at her.
“You know, honey, you can always come sit next to me up front.”
“There’s more room back here,” she answered, already looking out the window at the empty campus. Her father shrugged and put the car in gear to go.
“How was school? Did you find out when parents’ Job Day is?”
Madison breathed on the glass, and the world outside became fuzzy. “Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she answered. “They cancelled it.”
Today was spent in Indianapolis, crashing with my old roommate John, getting together for after work drinks with an old fraternity buddy Mike (ah, middle age is upon us), and taking a little time off from the old driving to sleep and catch up on bills and busy work. Main Indy exploration was done while driving around downtown searching for parking and passing a relaxing evening with the traditional Indianapolis triathlon of basketball, volleyball and drinking with John and his Rolls-Royce engineering buddies. Besides, the city pretty much summed itself up with a late night pickup truck hauling a trailer with a Harley driving by your bar. Welcome to good old fashioned Midwestern city living.
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