NY: Didn't scream once

Ok, so after a 13 hour day we’re home. I admit, I was feeling pretty conflicted about the whole road trip idea. I don’t like road trips. My mother wanted to live on the east coast; she never liked change and wanted to stay put. My father had bad asthma, and also I think sensed some glamour in heading west. We even moved there for a year, to Scottsdale, which wasn’t nearly as developed as it is now – there was desert for miles around, where we played in sand storms and my brother would bring home Gila monsters and tortoises, putting them in the bathtub while he tried to convince my mother that they would make good pets. I went to kindergarten in Scottsdale.

But my mother won out, and we returned, not to Philly but to NJ, being part of the flight to suburbs where the schools were free and inhabited by people who looked like us. But in the meantime, we drove back and forth. I don’t remember how many times, but I do remember interminably joyless trips in the back seat of an un-air conditioned two-toned Pontiac, me and my two older brothers, chewing gum stuck in hair, squabbles and swats, me throwing my shoes out the window and watching them disappear on the horizon to amuse myself. I remember with particular fondness a pair of red Keds.

So when Jon proposed we do this trip, I was conflicted. Ok, it is in my unwritten job description to go with him; I would want him to go with me, if the situation were reversed. But road trips are boring and physically uncomfortable and my legs are sticking to the vinyl car seat and my brothers are there and there’s a box turtle stuck under the seat who would’ve really preferred it if we left him in Texas, and please don’t make me go.

But we went, 7+ days, across 8 states, farms, mountains, the occasional small town, skirting cities, majestic rivers… and back again. This is one big honking country, I tell you. These states are frigging big. Hooooouuurs later you are still driving across the same damn state.

At times I settled in to a strange complacency. I lost track of time. I wasn’t nearly as squirmy coming home as I was on the way out. I’m still not sure what you get out of it though; you have a destination in mind, you get there, and you do what you went to do. The way there is kind of a loss. This country is resplendent, there is no doubt, and I’m thinking that’s what there is. You look out the window and it’s pretty. Hopefully. It might not be; it might be boring or ugly or exploited or neglected.

I think the dilemma was, this was a destination trip. To Woodstock NY and back, with just enough fluff time thrown in to keep us from flipping out from the tedium and the endurance test of sitting in the same pose for 13 hours a day. You can stop and get out, take photos, shop for souvenirs and what not, but a little negging voice wants you to just get the hell on with it. So the entire trip I was conflicted: Wait, let’s stop! Take photos, shop in that funky little shop back there…. Wait, we’re past it. Let’s just keep going. Every moment we stopped, in my head, added to the length of the day. I’m sure there’s a happy ratio: drive one day, stop for two, maybe. Whatever the happy ratio is, we didn’t employ it.

But I enjoyed the company, and nothing of any significance went wrong, and there were certainly bright spots along the way. But I think the jury is still out on the appeal of a road trip, particularly one halfway across the US and back in one week. Tell you what - next time I’ll fly and meet you there.

NY: And the birds sang along

July 30, 2011

Cleveland is a nice city. It seems some cities have an unfairly bad rep, mostly from people who have never been there. I live in Kansas City (on the Missouri side); I do recall my mother expressing surprise on her first visit that Kansas City “has a real airport”. When my father visited he brought groceries with him, in case he couldn’t find a store nearby. And I’m sure both of them half-expected to see a cow wandering down Main Street.

Does Cleveland suffer from the same assumptions? I imagine if you said you were going to Cleveland, the response would be, “Really? Why?” Does size matter? – is it that these cities are on the smaller side? How much stuff do people need to do, anyway? I’ve lived in Kansas City for 30 years, and I don’t take advantage of all there is to do here. You should visit; I’ll show you around.

Anyhow, in the morning we schlepped the laptop to Panera for some real coffee and a bagel, since our no-frills hotel only had non-dairy creamer. I’m sorry, but life is too short. We planned our day and headed out. Up 77 north to the West Side Market.

This market made me wanna move to Cleveland, no kidding. It’s one of the few remaining enclosed farmer’s markets in the US. Sturdy old building with just the right amount of ornament, with aisles and aisles of glass cases with people hawking meat, produce, cheese, baked goods, juices, prepared foods, ohmigod it was colorful and noisy and just smelly enough. We bought poppy seed Russian Tea Biscuits for a nosh, as well as some freshly ground horseradish (double X!) and some fresh coarse Dijon mustard to lug home. I would be at that market weekly if I lived there. –sigh- The funny thing is, if I had chosen the Cleveland College of Art and Design over KCAI, I might live there now...

Then east to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Under a ton of construction but they steered us along with cool signage. Visited a Japanese / Korean exhibit of calligraphy that didn’t hold our respective interest, but a photography show and a breeze through their contemporary collection did the trick.

Headed due north to see the Lake (Erie), just because it was there, and the Rock and Roll Museum because I.M. Pei designed it. They want $22 a pop. The Art Museum is free. As Jon put it, as big a fan as he might be of Tina Turner, he doesn’t care about seeing her dress.

Back to the no-frills but functional hotel for a snooze (the first of the week. Impressive stamina, I think, and I am a Big Napper). Then to Blossom Music Center for a concert by the Cleveland Symphony. Jon said they are one of the best in the country; Blossom is their summer venue. Blossom is the name of the big donor, isn’t that serendipitous? A nice evening, if a little steamy at the start. Birds inside the pavilion competed with the solo violinist but nobody seemed to mind. An all-Russian program – Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Stravinsky… A long program but not too.

Here’s a sweet thing: they started with a performance of Sibelius and Prokofiev by students in the Kent/Blossom Summer Institute. Then for the last piece (Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky), the students came back out and were stand partners with the orchestra musicians. Some of them fought back grins during the performance. How cool is that. What a memory that will be. Jon said, “One of the best endings”. He meant the Mussorgsky piece, but it was a nice ending to a good day. And yes, in Cleveland.

NY: Sooo, where you from?

July 29 2011
I like having meals with total strangers. You do it on train trips, too – you are arbitrarily seated with people for x number of minutes and then that’s it. So you make conversation, and I, for one, plunge right in. There’s something about the finiteness that makes it easy. No risk, no commitment. Yours is a shared experience, being at that place at that time, and the place is very important and deliberate. You chose, as did they, to be at a B&B in a 400-year-old stone house built by Dutch settlers in the New York Catskills. Relax and enjoy.

The British proprietors had met online; he had sold his internet-provider business to a telecommunications company, apparently for a happy sum, and he and his speech therapist wife had moved to NY from Bristol and London respectively to open a B&B. What is it about this trip – we keep meeting people who are living a dream. It’s either inspiring or depressing as hell. But it’s such pretty country and we are half a country and weeks away from our own lives, so what the heck, let’s just be inspired.

The B&B, the Stone House in Hurley NY, had cut fresh flowers and fresh homemade scones and fresh oat bread, still warm, and freshly whipped cream for your coffee and freshly scrambled eggs and ham. There were several of us at the table, a family from Arizona, a couple from the Netherlands via Atlanta. The proprietor, Sam, had a headful of history of the area he was delighted to share; there were cabinets of artifacts found in the house during its renovation. It was all very pretty but not too, not overwrought as B&Bs can be. And if that’s all too much for you, you can go sit in the cutting garden and access wireless internet.

But so much for that. We decided to burn through to Cleveland in one day, so back on the road we were. 9 hours. I must admit, I was actually refraining from screaming much of the time. I experienced waves of clenching where I felt like I would rather empty my skull with a melon baller than spend any more time in this car. But if you ever wondered what I would look like not complaining (in case you think I can’t), much less screaming, there I was. Sucking it up. Nothing would be gained by me pummeling the car window with my fists hollering “for the sake of my long-term sanity you must let me out of this car”. Although I would like to have given it a shot, just for grins, see if anybody’s listening.

But no, no screaming, so on to our suite hotel in a suburb of Akron we go. It has a kitchen we won’t use but it’s nice to have the extra room. No frills but it’s cheap and clean, although it is deodorized to within an inch of its life and exudes artificial fragrance from every polyester fiber. It doesn’t really matter though – it’s another night of falling into bed, oh so glad to be out of the car for a while.

NY: Just enough room in their front yards for a Madonna

It’s hard leaving home, again. We all went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel (my mother loves the place. They do have real maple syrup, and their eggs taste really fresh, and Jon thought their breakfast potatoes were great, and breakfast is not something he takes lightly. I like that you can completely invent what you want from here and there on the menu, including ordering off the children’s menu even if you are 56).

First, we were greeted warmly by Marianne the hostess, then our waitress (who you can find in the encyclopedia under Q, for “Quintessential people from New Jersey”) showed us a photo of her grandson (all those newborns look like aliens, I’m sorry, even mine), then another waitress who had a laugh that could break glass stopped by our table to say hello. My mother is well liked, if you judge it by the welcome she gets at Cracker Barrel.

Then back to Ellen’s house. Put the stuff in the car and say our goodbyes. My mother cries every time; it’s particularly poignant since she’s a widow now, and it’s tough driving away and leaving her there all alone. Although she cried when she was married too. It’s part of the deal now; if she didn’t cry I would worry why not.

We had a shortish drive to Woodstock ahead of us – 3 something hours. Although I have to remember to write to Google and give them what for, because they sent us via Route 206 through the heart of Trenton, much of it working class rowhouses single lane residential neighborhood creeping along, for over an hour and a half, though Google said it would be a perky 20 minutes. So 3+ hours became 5+ hours, which when you factor it into a 2500 mile road trip is annoying as hell. It was a testament to our relationship and our respective maturity that neither Jon nor I whined. Really. I’m surprised too.

So up through New Jersey and across the Hudson to New York, to the Catskills to Woodstock to the bassmaker’s place. I. Want. His. Life. Or his wife’s life – that would work also. She’s a bowmaker – they met at a string instrument convention, how perfect is that. They sit in their studios and work with their hands and gaze out at the hummingbirds on the monarda and coneflowers – take a nosh to the screened-in back porch and sit on pleasantly worn cushions on the wicker chairs and watch the deer, close enough to touch– 7 of them, that I saw – and two fawns, too. They stopped chewing when my camera shutter clicked and would stare at me through the screen. They looked healthy, not like the starving deer that invade suburbia in winter. I know deer are nuisance to many people, who I'm sure are sorry about that killing-off-all-their-natural-predators glitch - but I feel a certain privilege to be so close to such strong beautiful and gentle animals.

What I surmised about bass makers not being Type A’s proved very true. We returned from shopping in Woodstock proper – an occasional nice gallery nestled in between head shops selling tie-dyed tshirts and statues of Buddha – at 6 as instructed for dinner at 6:30. 2 ½ hours later we were finally sitting down on those back porch cushions for burgers and corn. Luckily our hosts were gracious and personable individuals, and during the wait there was much wine flowing. I am much more amenable to killing time with a glass (and then another) of Syrah in my hand.

Finally, then, on to the B&B. We had to let ourselves in because of the late hour, as directed by a note replete with diagrams left by the proprietor. No a/c on, really? It is cooler there but not that much. A double bed with a footboard – people who live in TallLand like ourselves usually do without the footboard. Hot room, short bed. But still, a bit disappointing we didn’t arrive early enough to enjoy the place a little more - quintessential b&b flowered wallpaper, very nice sheets, big happy pillows. Little notes everywhere explaining things, such as the bathroom is down the hall. Late. Tired. Bed.

NY: 3 trips over 2 bridges later

Wednesday July 27, 2011

I like visiting my mother. She's spry, upbeat, and has a positive energy. I'm not allowed to tell you how old she is, but she is old enough that she ought to seem a lot older than she does. There are many people 20 years younger than her with half her energy and wit.

Anyhow, so here we are. We talked about mall walking and visiting the pool in her 50+ living community, but we really really wanted to go to Ikea so it won out. Breakfast at Panera, then we tackled Philly via the Walt Whitman as well as the Betsy Ross, with no help from confusing Google directions, and proceeded to get quite lost (Jon was navigating. That's all that needs to be said about that). Plus that PA/NJ border is confusing, since it's on a diagonal - there's even a little snip of NJ that is west of a little parcel of Philly, go figure. Anyway, it took us about 3x as long as it should, but we made it. Even if we went over the bridge(s) 3 times.

This is a big deal, you see. The closest Ikea is 7 hours away in Minneapolis, where I have been known to drive just to go to Ikea. So it was on our list, baby. The list of places I made a point of going to when in Philly used to be a lot longer - Crate and Barrel, Restoration Hardware, Trader Joes, Whole Foods - KC is deemed a large enough market now for all of these, but Ikea is holding out.

So, with store map and big blue plastic shopping bag in hand, we shopped and shopped, ate the obligatory Swedish meatballs, Caesar salad, and a strange but good shrimp sandwich, and shopped some more - was all excited about new curtains and a new lamp, neither of which turned out to be in stock, but we made do with a new table purchase for the office. Score!

Home for a glass of wine while we assembled Ellen's new Ikea coffee table...

To Carlucci's for dinner - right on the Rancocas Creek - pretty - memories of riding horses to the creek through Anderson's peach orchard, circa 1970 or so... Friendly and cute waitress, good sea bass risotto, too.

That's it, a nice day spent with Ellen, who incidentally showed no sign of lagging during the marathon Ikea expedition, although both Jon and I had our low blood sugar moments. Good to know that I have her aging-gracefully gene - thanks, mom.

NY: Rob and Laura eat at Bob Evan's

July 26, 2011

So after a good night’s sleep in a seedy motel, we stopped at Bob Evan’s for breakfast, since the continental breakfast at the motel was anything but. What does that mean, anyway, continental breakfast? I’ll have to look that up later. I’m actually writing this in the car and will upload it later; otherwise I’d google it now. I’ll get back to you on that. I also had an idea to list every river we crossed, but that might be a notion that has already lost its appeal.

So the mystery of the moment is how a restaurant can suck the joy out of a simple breakfast. A little fleck of crisp, a sneak of rich, a glimmer of spice, a wisp of tang.. but no, weak lukewarm coffee, an egg scrambled in the factory weeks ago, home fries - again, what does home have to do with these what-used-to-be potatoes? Couldn’t some of them be crispy, a little disheveled where they stuck to the pan, some bits of flavorful yum to indicate that this food was cooked by a human being? And how hard is it to make a good cup of coffee? It's breakfast, for crying out loud - have some pity. Anyway, remind me not to go there again.

Steak and Shake works for me, incidentally – I’ll stop there once (but only once) every roadtrip. We stopped there yesterday in Indianapolis. I enjoyed the crisp onion slices on my single burger with cheese (albeit cheese of an unidentifiable nature). The fries are crispy, and I like places that use those squirty red bottles of ketchup that they refill, thank you. I hate the small plastic bottles of, say, Heinz that you know they are going to toss when empty. How hard is it to refill the squirt bottles, and think of the plastic you keep out of a landfill. I’m just sayin. Their ice tea was cloudy and bitter, though, but several lemon squeezes made it drinkable.

Did you know you can cross the state of West Virginia in about 20 minutes, across its panhandle that is squeezed up between Ohio and Pennsylvania? The second half of Ohio starts getting quite pretty, as it gets hillier as you go along (I disparaged Ohio in the last post, along with IN and IL. Blame the corn lobbyists. My apologies to the eastern half of Ohio). Some of it is downright picturesque, rolling hills becoming mountains, and increasingly more lush as you head east. There’s the strange billboard phenomenon, though. I personally vote for outlawing them altogether, but nobody asked me. Along most highways it seems that there is a frontage area along the highway where the billboards are – all equidistant from the highway, like somebody sat down and made up some rules about it. In the hills of Ohio, though, all bets are off – it seems that the private landowner succumbs to the temptation of some easy money, and puts a billboard up on their otherwise stunningly pristine homestead. Breathtakingly beautiful rolling hills, lush woodlands, fog in the low valleys, crisply painted barns and outbuildings, and smack dap in the middle of it, a board for an XXX Adult Toys store. Or McDonalds. Or adding insult to literal injury, the coal industry.

Then into Pennsylvania and the Allegheny Mountains. Tunnels going right through ‘em. I love tunnels, no idea why, I think it's a childhood going from NJ to NY memory. Exciting if fleeting drama. The Turnpike was odd though. Posted speed limit of 45 much of the time, orange cones blocking off the shoulder, and absolutely no construction workers in sight. After a while you get cocky and, like everyone else who has been passing you up till now, you damn the torpedos and barrel through at 87 mph.

Then, maneuvering highways white-knuckled through Philly. There’s Billy Penn on top of City Hall - there was a law for decades that you couldn’t build anything taller than Billy, but commerce won out and the poor little fellow is dwarfed by the skyscrapers around him, but there he is, holding his own nonetheless. Over the Betsy Ross into south Jersey, gingerly following the google directions to my mama’s house. Hugs, welcomes, fresh linguini with fresh clam sauce at Red Lion. Rob and Laura finally say good night across the gap between the twin beds.

NY: 11 hours and 3 states later...

Monday, July 25 2011

Ok, so we’re back on the road after a pleasantly uneventful stay at the Country Inn (which is part of a family of hotels; Country being the family-oriented sibling; Country describes the décor, more than anything else more genuine). Crossed the Mississippi into Illinois, Land of Lincoln. Forever on the horizon looms midwestern farm land, most of it evidently owned by corporate farms, judging by the monoculture of miles and miles of corn fields. Miles and miles, forever miles. Not much evidence of any other crop, aside from the very occasional soybean field. No orchards, grains, tomatoes, blueberries, nothing else. If you think the gun lobbyists are scary, then you don’t know enough about corn.

Illinois, Indiana, Ohio. The Missouri, Mississippi, the Susquehanna, and a dozen less reputable rivers inbetween. Once in a while, a picturesque farm – barns, silos, outbuildings , many pristine and tidy - contrasts with the occasional abandoned farm, its house and barns crumbling slowly. How sad that must’ve been, to be happily entrenched in your family farm life, likely for generations, only to gradually face the fact that your home is too close to the highway, although it wasn’t too close 10, 20, 50 years ago.

So last night, we decided we were going to stay half way between St Charles and New Jersey, and Expedia’d a hotel for about the price we Named Our Own Price for the bland-in-a-good-way Country Inn. Turns out not to be a good method – if you take the bidding process out of it, you take what you get: A room that was a smoking room for decades, in a one-level motel which is kind of quaint, except you can’t open your blinds or step outside except onto the parking lot. Nice people, cleanish room, dripping sink, rumbling white noise air-conditioning unit that’s either off or blasting frigid air, smelling of very old cigarettes.

But you know what? After 11 hours in a car and 3 states, you’re really tired, and you sleep really well. They did have lots of pillows. And good water pressure. And free wireless in the room. And what the heck, turns out that weak coffee, non-dairy creamer, stale pastries and relentless smoke smell are good motivation to get up early and hit the road.