Blog #10--Shotgun rider and backseat driver

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?