Oh, how I love road trips,
especially when I go someplace exciting and new. Over the years I’ve
taken road trips across the USA and around my own tri-state area. There
have been times when I’d be gone from home for more than a week and sometimes
just for a day trip. In any case, most of my trips have been instigated
by friends who just need someone in the shotgun seat to keep them company, or
need help with driving. However, just because they ask me to ride shotgun
or be their co-pilot doesn’t mean that I don’t do my own backseat driving,
since I’m not always a good passenger to those whose driving skills are less
than my own. Maybe, just maybe, I’m asked to go along because I’m a good
traveler, they like my company, and know that I enjoy finding those little,
non-tourist trap places along roadside America. I could reminisce for hours about
my time taking road trips, but I will limit it for the sake of brevity.
My first memories of taking road trips in the car are of my family,
with my father behind the wheel of my mother’s 1960-ish black Ford Country Squire station wagon with the fake wood on the
sides. Mom would be sitting in the front passenger seat next to Dad, my
two brothers in the middle seat, and me in the “back-back”—the 3rd row seat,
which faced out the back window. Most of these trips were on Sunday
afternoons and were day trips to some relative's house or business
associates of my father’s. I thought it was strange that we never had any
of them to dinner at our house. The only time we "entertained"
any of them, we'd be out on our sloop, the Christeen, during the weekends in the summer
months.
One location
stands out as the place we visited the most on those Sundays. My parents
had friends (the Stewarts) who lived 110 miles away in Middletown, New
York—which, as a child, I always thought was kind of funny, since we lived in
Middletown, New Jersey. Every year in
the fall and again in the spring we’d take a day trip up to visit them, have
lunch and sometimes dinner, too, and stay until it got dark. My brothers
and I usually looked forward to the trip, since there was almost always a
trip-within-a-trip. Once we got up there, inevitably we’d be going to see
something else in and around the area where the Stewarts lived and not just
hanging out at their house all day.
Most of
these trips-within-a-trip were fun. I remember going to some kind of
quarry where you could "pan for gold" as the billboard stated.
When we got there, the building had a working waterwheel on the side of it, and
the water ran through a trough at the edge of the parking lot. Mom
bought a lunch bag-sized bag of dirt and rocks. The attendant would bring
you over to the trough filled with water and proceed to dump the bag into a
screen-lined frame over the trough. I was told to pick up the frame and
swish it in the water so that the dirt would wash away and I'd be left with
gems that would be too big to filter through the screen. Somehow this did
not seem to be the “panning for gold” that it was advertised to be, but as an 8
year old, it seemed like it was a lot of fun. I think I still have
the shark’s tooth and piece of quartz I “found” from that trip.
Another one
of the Middletown, NY, trips-within-a-trip is most memorable, but only because
of the vivid images preserved in my mind. I recall that it was a bright
sunny day, and even though it was late September, it was warm enough that I
didn’t need a sweater or a jacket—we were always warned by the Stewarts that it
was much colder in the Catskill Mountains than it would be at home near
the river where we lived. On this specific Sunday, we had already eaten
lunch at the Stewarts, and the lunch discussion between Dad and Mr.
Stewart led us to go to a nearby farm to see the barn fire from the night
before. Dad was a volunteer fireman at home, so he had to go see the remains of
the burnt barn, taking us along for the ride—Mom, too.
As we drove up to the farm, I
could see at a distance that it was still smoldering with bits of gray smoke
rising. The car windows were open, and the closer we got, the more I
wanted to leave as the smell emanating from the barn was pretty potent. This
was a dairy farm, and the barn that burned housed many cows, which had been
tied up for the night and were unable to escape the fire. That vision of
those poor cows tied and literally roasted to death is very plain in my mind’s
eye. Dad, there are some things that young children probably shouldn’t be
exposed to, and this was one. Mom saw the look of horror on my face
and agreed that it smelled bad, so she and I went back to the car to wait for
Dad and the boys to finish ogling the burnt cows. My brother John came
back to the car within a few minutes and asked if he could cut a steak out of one
of the cows, since he was hungry. Ew! Yuck!
As I got older, and made many
friends along the way, I was invited along on other trips with their
families. My best friends in high school were twins and the three of us
did practically everything together. Their parents owned a pop-up camper
and took week-long camping trips with it. I was invited along on one of
those trips during the summer after my junior year in high school.
The 225 mile trip was to Assateaque Island in Maryland. It’s a barrier
island strip of land with sandy beaches and where wild ponies run free,
but the ponies didn’t know about being wild. Most of the ponies are tame,
and a few spent a fair amount of time in our campsite. The memories from that camping trip
are a bit vague, for the most part, but I remember not sleeping in the camper,
but in a pup tent—just the three of us. The twins’ parents and sister
stayed in the pop-up trailer. It worked out well, since their father was
quite a loud snorer, and somehow the sound of the crashing waves on the beach
deadened the noise coming from the trailer. I also remember their sister
swatting flies—using a fly swatter, but gently—to rid the ponies’ rumps of the
annoying insects. I think the flies were only stunned, since I watched
some fall to the ground and after a few moments seemed to no longer be in the
pile of fly bodies lying on the sand next to the pony’s feet.
One
day on this week-long trip, we went to a water park, which was fun, don’t get
me wrong, but seemed odd to go to, since we were staying at the beach and swam
in the ocean every day for hours on end. I’d never been to a water park
before and had some trepidation about climbing way up to slide down on a thin
spongy kind of mat into the waiting pool below. The line was long to go
up, and the line was long to go down. I waited my turn.
The twins
and I talked and laughed each time we got to the top, After a few turns going
down alone, we decided to try a “train” like we’d seen happening among the
other people. On our first train attempt we all sat with our feet at the
waist of the one in front of us and held on at the ankles. Well, our train fell
apart about mid-way down the first tube. As we crashed into each other at the
bottom pool, we decided that we weren’t holding on to each other tight enough
and would have to try it again. On our next attempt we wrapped our legs
around the one in front. Going around the turns was hard to do in that
position, so we kept trying different methods. We kept at it a few more
times, but for some reason our train kept falling apart, but we still had fun
trying.
A few years ago my friend Mary asked me if I’d like to ride shotgun on the way
to the National Poultry Show in Columbus, Ohio, I came out with a resounding YES!
Of course, I didn't know what I was getting into, but it sounded exciting, and
I was happy to go with her, as we are kindred spirits with many similar,
however some dissimilar, interests. Chickens are Mary’s primary interest
of late—raising chickens, watching chickens, telling chicken tales (tails?),
giving talks about chickens at the local library, and showing chickens.
The National Poultry Show was set
for a weekend in November, and I found myself getting really excited about
going on this 550 mile trip to the Ohio State Fair Grounds. We’d be
driving it all in one day, with the requisite pit stops for gas, food, and
bathroom breaks. The event lasts for almost three full days, and Mary
expected to be there for at least two of those days—the show part on
Saturday—oohing and aahing at all of the birds—followed by the swap/sale
between attendees, and the awards part in the early afternoon on Sunday.
Friday evening was some kind of meet and greet thing that she’d rather
avoid. We’d be driving all day on Friday and really wouldn't have time to
do whatever it was on Friday anyway.
We
arrived at our hotel in Columbus, and it was really late, since we left later
than originally planned. I was ready on time, but something unforeseen
happened and Mary was delayed a bit—like 2 or 3 hours delayed. Our trip
across Interstate Route 80 was pretty much uneventful, and we spied a couple of
quilt shop signs along the way—thanks to the shop owners for putting up those
billboards—but we would just have to wait to visit those shops on our way
home. We were on a mission to attend the Ohio Nationals, as the
National Poultry Show has come to be known, and nothing would deter us from
getting there on time, barring any more unforeseen events.
Saturday
morning came early, since Mary had brought along six of her girls to be in the
competition, and the rules stated that any competing birds had to be “cooped
in” by 9 a.m. so that the judges had time to view all of the entrants.
After getting to the show and cooping in the girls, we wandered around the
massive building, which housed approximately 40,000 birds. The racket was
deafening, to say the least; never mind the odor. I spent about an hour
roaming the aisles and quickly looked at various birds. Who knew that “show
chickens” and poultry was such a big thing? Here in New Jersey a poultry
show may not be considered a big event, unless it’s a chicken eating contest,
but out in the mid-western states, well, it seems to be the national pastime.
Chicken
shows really aren't my thing, so I had made plans for a trip within this
trip. Mary gave me the keys to her pickup truck, and I headed off to the Longaberger basket company headquarters in the Dresden, Ohio, area, which is
about 40 miles from the Fair Grounds. I was excited to be going to
Longaberger, as I had heard so much about it and own several Longaberger
baskets. Its main office building is in the shape of a basket. I
was really excited to see that 7 story building with the basket handle way up
on top as it loomed above the landscape when I rounded the bend in the
highway. I’m sure there have probably been some accidents in the vicinity
if a driver isn't expecting to see that massive building and its unusual shape.
The
interior of the building was decorated for Christmas, complete with a 6 story
Christmas tree made from probably thousands of Longaberger baskets and
greenery. It was a very impressive sight. Around the lobby were
little vignettes set up as living rooms, dining rooms, bed rooms, and a
kitchen, and all had an ample number of Longaberger baskets in each room, put
to good use holding magazines, napkins, fruit, and hair brush sets, etc.
It’s a retail company, so why shouldn't it show off what can be done with some
of its baskets?
After
visiting the main headquarters, I set off to see Longaberger Home, just a short
drive from the main office. It's the factory and a mini strip mall, where
the baskets are made and sold. Mary’s mother had given me some money for
something Longaberger and asked me to get whatever that would buy. I
hunted around and found the perfect things, which I bought for myself,
too. I found a small rectangular basket and some Mason jars with the
Longaberger logo and a basket weave design embossed into the glass. I had
just enough money to buy her 2 jars and the basket.
As
I roamed the factory, I observed several people making the baskets, but with
the aid of an experienced basket maker. I really would have liked to do
that myself, but it was a bit out of my price range, so I just watched for a
while. I was taking photos of one woman and a master craftsman, and for a
moment the woman excused herself. The craftsman asked if I’d like a photo
of myself pretending to make a basket, so, what the heck! I said,
“Yes!!!” I stepped up behind the basket the woman had worked on, and the
craftsman took my camera, told me where to position my hands, and he photographed
me in that pose. It was fun and felt a little deceptive, but I didn't
plan to share the photos with anyone, so it really didn't matter if I was
really making that basket or not. It
was nearing dinner time and I needed to go back to pick up Mary, so I headed
out to the truck and found my way back to the Fair Grounds. Even though
I’d never been to Ohio before this trip, I found that it was really easy to
find my way around. It helps that I’m really good with directions and
maps and am extremely observant of landmarks. When I got back to the Fair
Grounds and eventually found Mary among the noise, she made sure her girls had
feed and water before we went back to the hotel for a while before meeting up
with some of her BackYardChicken.com friends for dinner at the Red
Lobster. It had been a very egg-citing day for both of us!
I met my friend Marge when her granddaughter Nancy joined the Girl Scout troop
my daughter was in and I was one of the leaders. Through most of the
years Marge would be one of the parents to come along on our camping trips and
other outings. We shared similar interests and became fast friends.
In time we would take small vacations together with our respective children/grandchildren
in tow. Once Marge’s grandchildren graduated from high school, she and
her hubby Bob decided to retire and move to Colorado, where her son and
daughter-in-law lived with another batch of grandchildren. Her
house sale moved rather fast, and the moving company was hired to do the
essentials of removing her household goods and safely moving it all to
Colorado. There were special things which Marge didn’t want to put on the
truck, like the handmade pirate’s chest one of her uncles made and carved from
wood he'd found along the beach. This chest was so magnificent in my eyes!
The handles were carved dolphins, and there was also a carved skull and
cross bones on the lid. I wouldn't want the movers touching it either!
Marge was going to pack all of her special things in her minivan and
drive out to Colorado, but she needed a co-pilot to share the driving, since
her hubby was legally blind and was no help to her. She asked me to be
her "backseat driver" even though I'd be in the front seat either as
a passenger or driver. Her hubby was going to fly to North Carolina to visit his
sister for the first week after leaving New Jersey, so it was just going to be
the two of us for this trip. (Her grandchildren were staying in New
Jersey to attend college.) Let the preparations begin for this 1800 mile
adventure!
The trip was planned for mid-July that
year, and Marge wanted it to be slow and sweet, since she knew that she’d
probably never get the chance to do another one of these road trips.
Marge's New Jersey family and friends gave her and Bob a going away party,
which I also attended. It was at this party that her brother Russ decided
to dub us “Thelma and Louise, but with a better ending.” He was
referring to the movie with the same name, where Thelma and Louise go on a long
cross-dessert trip and end up driving off a cliff at the end. No cliffs
for me and Marge! We took a slow ride to get to her new home in Longmont,
CO, stopping at various places along the way.
Our
first stop was at Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania. It’s
the Frank Lloyd Wright home he designed and built over a stream and
waterfall. The house tour was quite impressive as I’m a fan of Frank
Lloyd Wright’s architecture. It is simple in nature, yet beautiful to the
trained or untrained eye. Every detail of the home seemed fluid and
amazing to me. My favorite part was just seeing all of it up-close and
personal, since I’d seen it all in books for many years. I was finally
here! Check that off of my bucket list.
As we headed
out towards the Chicago area, we weren’t quite sure what we’d do once we got
there, but something caught my eye in the AAA travel guide I’d brought
along for the ride. There was a stained glass museum on the old U.S.
Navy
pier, which had been
converted to a retail center in Chicago. I also found information
about Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio in the Chicago area, so we set off
to visit all of those sights.
The
stained glass museum held many pieces designed by Wright and made by Tiffany, as well as many
other beautiful works, with unknown artists through the ages. My favorite
non-Wright piece at the museum was a door that was so intricately designed with
glass—all of the same blue hues—but had an overlay of wire in a scroll design
that worked together with the monochromatic color scheme to create almost a 3-D
look to the door. Just amazing! Frank
Lloyd Wright’s home and studio
were right next to each other in Oak Park, so we took the tour and enjoyed it
as much as we enjoyed Fallingwater. The dining room was my favorite part
of his home, as everything in it was designed by Wright, including the lighting
fixture, the table, and straight-backed chairs, which are his classic and
simple designs. A lot of homes in Wright's neighborhood were also designed by
him, so we meandered through the streets and could easily pick out the ones he
had designed. There was so much talent in that man that I’m still in awe
of it all. I can’t get enough of his work, I guess, but Marge felt like
she was on Frank Lloyd Wright overload, so we headed out of town for our next
adventure.
Friends
of Marge told her not to miss the Amana Colonies in Iowa, so that was our next
stop. I looked up the Amana Colonies on the Internet prior to our trip and
found that it was a restored village and former religious commune. The
village has many artisan shops and restaurants, much like the ones here in
Smithville, New Jersey, where Marge and I loved to shop. Marge and I also
share a love of quilting and found our way to the quilt shop located on the
edge of the village in a refurbished barn. You know, the one who dies
with the most fabric wins, so Marge and I are competing in that respect.
Though I knew that I had to limit my buying on this trip (since I would
be flying home and needed to be aware of how much I could or couldn’t take on
the plane with me), I loudly declared that we couldn't spare the room in
the van. The sales clerk heard me say this and mentioned that they ship
anywhere. Problem solved!
When
we stopped for the night in Adair, Iowa—population 781 on the 2010 US Census—located in the western part
of the state, we couldn’t seem to get a cell phone signal at the motel.
We drove up and down the main street for a while trying to find
one. We didn’t! Then we figured we’d find a pay phone around town, and we
roamed around near the motel for a while looking for one, but most of the
businesses were already closed for the night—and it was only about 8
p.m.! It doesn’t matter anyway, the motel should have Internet, and we’ll
just send our loved ones an email of our location, so we headed back to the
motel. Well, the Internet was not working on the motel's lobby computer.
We resigned ourselves to the fact that we’d be “missing” for a day, and
we’d just have to explain ourselves the next morning once we found cell
service. Our morning regimen included a leisurely
breakfast at the only restaurant in town opened for breakfast—the Happy Chef.
I had my fill of eggs, pancakes, bacon, and tea, and Marge had hers.
We paid the bill to the cashier and thanked her, and she proceeded to ask
us where we were headed, since she could tell we “weren’t from
these here parts” by listening to our accents. Marge said we were headed
for the Denver area. The waitress mentioned that from where we were standing
Denver was just 7 hours away. Marge and I looked at each other and
raised our eyebrows at that thought.
When we got to the car, I looked in the AAA travel guide to see what we might
see in Nebraska along the way. Nothing caught our eye that was even
remotely close to Route 80, so we decided to ride it out and get to Denver that
night instead of in two days. We averaged about 5 hours of driving a day,
so one day of driving 7+ hours wouldn’t seem too bad. While driving along
Route 80 in Nebraska, we were impressed with the landscape. We were told
that it was flat and barren of much greenery—and flat and brown it was—but it had a serene beauty about it, even with its
flatness. There were many farms with horses, cows, and some crops
growing. We even saw a camel at one farm along the interstate
highway. There were small windmills, which more than likely were there to
aid in pumping water up to troughs and pools for the animals on the
farms. There were also the giant windmills used to generate electricity,
and we noticed that there were “farms” of those, too, with those
giant windmills numbering in the hundreds and which seemed to go on for
miles and miles.
As we approached the western edge of
Nebraska before getting off I-80 to turn south towards Denver, I spied a small
white straw-like wisp forming off to the left that seemed to be moving out of
the clouds and towards the ground. It looked like a funny cloud formation
to me, but it soon became apparent that I had just witnessed the beginning of a
tornado. The sky was fairly clear with some white puffy clouds and bright
sunshine, so this wasn’t the kind of tornado I’d seen on TV, which always
showed dark clouds, hail, and everything getting blown away and swirling
upwards.
My knuckles starting turning white,
and I wasn’t even driving at this point, Marge was! I pointed out the
tornado in the distance and to the left. She remarked that it looked like
someone was just burning something as the dust puddle started to rise like
smoke from a fire. I told Marge to put on her sunglasses to cut the glare
so she could see the white straw attached to that puddle of dust. Oh,
my!!! It was a tornado all right. My first, and hopefully my
last! As we were speeding towards this sight at 75 miles per hour--the
speed limit out on I-80—my heart was pounding, I could feel
my blood pressure rising, and my face getting hot with the fear. I could
feel my toes curling to grip the inside of my shoes and my hands tightly
clenched as my nails dug into the palms of my hands. I was nervous, to
say the least.
We immediately
turned on the radio to listen for a weather report. I took out the map of
Nebraska to know where the heck we were and figured out that we were in the
northwestern part of a particular county after we passed one of those “city
limit” signs, but with no city around. Where was the city?
Evidently it was hiding from the tornado. Our speed didn’t change as we
continued to head towards the tornado. After about 20 minutes of driving,
the radio gave the warning signal that I normally associate with “this is a
test, this is only a test of the emergency broadcast system” but this WASN'T a
test! THIS was a National Weather Service (NWS) announcement, and it was
about the tornado we were heading towards. The NWS mentioned that there
were tornado warnings in that same northwestern part of the county we were
in, so we were in the thick of it and making me even more nervous as I fixated
on that continually rising cloud of dust swirling in the distance.
Did
I mention how flat it is out there in Nebraska? Well, the tornado was
probably a good 75-100 miles away, but we could see it! New Jersey
doesn’t have that kind of flatness, so to see something that far away was
something that took a while to comprehend. After I finally recognized
that that tornado was a bit to our south, we passed it and relief washed over
me. I turned to look out the right side window and saw another
tornado! Thank God we were past that one, too, and I was certainly
pleased that I hadn’t notice it until then, or else I surely would have had
heart failure.
All of these memories of road trips have one common theme: I’m with good
friends or family, we see new places together—sometimes serendipitous,
sometimes not—and I’m always ready for a new adventure. Who will be the
next to ask me along for the ride to be the co-pilot, the shotgun rider, or the
backseat driver? Wherever I go, I go with a happy heart to see new
sights and learn new things along the way. It doesn't matter where.
I'm
ready. When’s the next trip?
