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.