The Road Less Traveled

Less than 12 hours after my mother left for Los Angeles, my friend Peter arrived from Los Angeles. (We figured out they were on the airport tarmac at the same time, but couldn’t have seen each other). He had spent a few weeks out West and was stopping in Philly to help me settle in and to make sure my new house met his stamp of approval before going back to Germany Tuesday night.

As soon as he arrived at the house, he decided to start helping me assemble my furniture. Now I could understand why Ikea had been so much cheaper than my first bedroom set in D.C.—the labor. The furniture I bought in D.C. had been pre-assembled. We did that work on our own. Well, Peter took charge of the project; I just made sure the pieces we were assembling matched the diagram.

We finished two pieces, and then tried to go out to that same local Italian restaurant. It was already after 10:30 p.m., though, and the bar was open but the restaurant was closed. I knew of a diner that would be open (Silk City) but it was at least 15 minutes away by car. We settled instead for me “cooking” dinner (i.e. opening the package of food from Trader Joe’s market) while Peter prepared the salad.

Monday was a holiday in America, Labor Day. Instead of celebrating time off from work or having a barbecue, we labored over putting together the remaining three pieces of furniture. We finished around 3:00 p.m. I suggested we walk to a restaurant at 40th and Spruce that I knew. I didn’t say it at the time, but I wanted something with sit-down service because I’d be paying for lunch to thank Peter for his help.

We walked into Copacabana. Peter ordered Mexican food (the last he would get for a while), and I ordered Buffalo wings (chicken wings in hot sauce). When I ran out of water, I asked for some more. The waiter said “sure”, then went off to do God knows what. I only know he was running in and out of the restaurant, and not stopping at any table he was serving in between. Let me add here that there were only three tables occupied at the restaurant at this time. It almost felt like our being there was interrupting their personal business.

I didn’t want my food to get cold, so I kept eating wings till my mouth was on fire. The guy at the next table said something to a second guy, but it took me asking a THIRD guy to finally get some relief. I’ve never been a demanding customer, and I’m usually religious about giving tips, but this time I only left a 10 percent tip where 15 percent would have been the minimum.

Manayunk

As with my mother, I didn’t want Peter to spend the whole weekend taking care of me; I wanted him to get some sightseeing in as well. But first we had to make one more Ikea/Lowe’s run to finish a mirror-hanging project, which involved drilling holes and measuring and leveling and everything that Peter hates in home improvement. I thought it was a fun adventure, but he says that’s only because the project ended with a properly hung mirror and not three giant, irreparable holes in the wall.

It was well after 9:00 p.m. He had never seen the boathouses lit up at night on the Schuylkill River, and neither one of us had ever been to Manayunk, a town outside of Philly with a reportedly hip Main Street. Anne agreed it would be a good place to go.

I didn’t realize it was 15 miles outside of Philadelphia; I must have confused signs for “Manayunk” with “Mann Music Center”. By the time we got to the exit it was after 10:00. Anne had said “you can’t miss it”, but of course I did and we lost another 15 minutes finding the interesting part of Main Street in Manayunk.

We parked and walked along Main Street looking for a place to eat. Many places were already closed, or had never opened because it was Labor Day. The streets seemed practically deserted. One place was busy but expensive. We found an Irish pub, but they weren’t serving food. We walked past a Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream that also had a hamburger stand, but I thought Peter should have a nicer dinner experience than that. We found a very divey bar where the bouncer said food was being served, but by the time we asked the woman tending bar for the menu, she said the cook had already taken off.

Just as Peter was saying “I hope we get back to Ben and Jerry’s before it closes”, we arrived in front of its window and saw that the chairs had already been put on the tables, a sign that the restaurant was closed.

We walked back towards the car. There was one more place we hadn’t tried yet, though—the U.S. Hotel. It looked pricey, but it seemed like our last hope. We walked in, and of course they weren’t serving food either. However, the nice people inside gave us driving directions to the Manayunk Diner. We had a lovely dinner of a Philly cheesesteak and a tuna melt—at 11:00 p.m. It was a lot of food to eat so late at night, and it wasn’t in the most interesting part of the city. I still had to be up and out of the house early for orientation. But, somehow I managed (and I think Peter managed too) to laugh at these little misadventures of life.

On the morning of Day 8 of the road trip (August 31), we drove into Philly. I picked up the keys and Mom started taking stuff out of the car and up the front steps while I carried it from the entryway to my third floor room. Our calves would be sore for the next few days after this adventure.

The car was quickly unloaded, so we took off for Brothers Furniture on 40th and Market. We ordered a bed for me, then we went to Lee’s Hoagie House (on Walnut between 40th and 41st) for the first hoagie of the school year. The woman at the cash register, whom I had seen over the years but had never known for sure was the owner, recognized me and asked if I was visiting. I said I was back for my Ph.D. She congratulated me, and told me to make sure I tell the employees whenever I call for delivery that the owner said they deliver to my address. It was good to be back in Philly, and better to feel welcomed rather than spit on.

After the bed was delivered and Mom had figured out how to assemble the bed frame, we had a quick dinner at Penang in Chinatown and made our first run to Ikea, the Swedish furniture wonder store. As in, I wonder how they are able to sell this furniture so cheaply, I wonder how in the world I was able to fit it in my car, and I wonder how my mother found the strength to lift nearly 100 pounds of dresser out of the car (with my help of course).

Saturday, September 1: Valley Forge

I was determined that my mother not spend the whole weekend helping me buy furniture in Philly. She was determined to keep the priority on helping me settle in. I convinced her that if we went to Valley Forge on Saturday, which was only half an hour west of the city, we could then go to the nearby Target discount store afterwards for more supplies.

We got to Valley Forge just in time to join an hour-and-a-half trolley tour. The guide explained the significance of Valley Forge, a training ground where the troops of the 13 colonies truly unified into a single army against the British. We saw a typical encampment, Washington’s headquarters, and a cathedral built in the 20th century as a memorial to Washington.

After an informative tour, we drove to the Oaks and had lunch at Max and Erma’s, a Chili’s or TGI-Friday’s-like restaurant with less “flair” (and I mean that in a good way). The waitress asked if we wanted to order cookies up front. Sure, why not? After our large lunch, we were brought a PAN of six cookies (3 chocolate chip, 3 macadamia nut)–soft, hot and fresh from the oven. Only at your own mother’s house can you get better cookies in America.

After lunch, we had one more exhausting round of shopping (Target, Walmart, and Ikea again). We had dinner with my roommate Anne at an Italian bar and restaurant 3 blocks from my new home. It was delicious.

Sundy morning came too soon, and my mother caught her flight to L.A.

Distance driven: 427 mi
Time including all stops:10 hours 8 minutes

The hotel deal we had gotten at the Radisson did not include breakfast. I was hoping we would have time to walk to Public Square and grab a bite at a coffee shop like the workers in downtown Cleveland tend to do, but it seemed too time consuming. Instead, we had a buffet breakfast at the Library Grille, the restaurant inside the hotel. It was okay, but the best hotel breakfast was definitely at the Comfort Inn in Cody, Wyoming. Their waffles were the fluffiest, and the hardboiled eggs were pre-peeled. The atmosphere was a winner, too.

We left the hotel (with all of my possessions as far as I could tell) at about 8:50 a.m. It was remarkably easy to get onto the freeway and out of Cleveland. The drive through Ohio and into Pennsylvania was largely uneventful except for two personal things. First, once we crossed into Pennsyvlania, I realized I was home. Even though Philadelphia was still a few hundred miles away, Western Pennsylvania’s roads and scenery were as familiar to me as the rock walls on Interstate 76 West towards Valley Forge. I realized this would be the last state I’d be crossing into for a while.

Turning 100

The second thing that happened is that Baby (my car) had a milestone—she turned 100,000 miles. At first I felt bad that I had not been behind the wheel at that historic moment. Since the road we were on was narrow, slow, and windy, though, my mother and I concluded that if I had been behind the wheel I would have ended up focusing on the odometer instead of the road, or vice versa. Either way the results would not have been good.

There was no time to get out of the car and celebrate or light a candle, let alone bake a cake. All of that celebrating happened inside my soul. And while it may seem silly to make such a fuss about a machine, it is important to note that devotion to automobiles is one of the few aspects of my personality that is Californian (love of decent Mexican food and caring about who wins awards for television and movies are the other two). Baby is also one of the few things in my life that has remained constant over the past 10 years. And she has been dependable for all but two days in those 10 years. Who doesn’t need to celebrate a friend like that?

Fallingwater

At mile 100,001 on my car, we pulled into the parking lot of Fallingwater. This was a home that the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright built for the Kaufmanns, a family of department store owners from Pittsburgh. The tour guide explained the system of cantilevers that were used to balance the house over a waterfall. She showed how Wright made use of natural light, the sound of the waterfall, windows, ceilings, and space to direct people’s attention to nature. She also pointed out the parts of the house design or decoration that were chosen by the Kaufmanns, sometimes over Wright’s objection. We took a short walk to an area with a view of the house and the waterfall together. Then we returned to the Visitors Center.

We left Fallingwater at about 2:30. A mere four and a half hours later, we arrived in Pottstown, a town one hour west of Philadelphia. It’s not a historical site, though nearby Hopewell Furnace and French Creek State Park are worth a visit. We were there to spend a night at the home of Bob and Barbara Brown, our family friends and my home away from home

Mom took a tour of Bob’s postal museum while I chatted with Barbara. We finally got out of the house and headed towards dinner. Although Barbara is a fine cook, Mom had insisted on taking them out in exchange for putting us up. They drove us to the Brinton Lodge in Douglassville, a historic old house that was converted to a restaurant. Reportedly it is haunted, but the only strange noises and lights we noticed were from the cars and people heading to the bar out back.

The portions of chicken, pork, and veal were ample and delicious. We had no room for dessert. We went back to the house, where Barbara gave us some Wilbur Chocolates, a denser, less sugary version of Hershey’s kisses. Shortly after, we turned in for the night.

Distance driven:427 mi
Time including all stops:12 hours 5 minutes (includes one hour lost for
change from Central to Eastern Time)

I got up early and used the exercise equipment. We had breakfast and hit the road at about 8:30. It took us 1 hour 49 minutes to go the 85 miles into downtown Chicago, which is about what one expects when one drives in a big city. We drove past Mannheim Road (a delight since Peter is from Mannheim, Germany) and we got a glimpse of the water coming out of the Buckingham Fountain. If you have ever seen the opening of the TV show “Married with Children”, you have seen this fountain.

We pulled into a garage recommended by the Art Institute of Chicago Web site (www.artic.edu). Then we walked to the front entrance of the Art Institute of Chicago, a sandstone building from 1892 with names of famous artists carved into it and two copper lions outside.

We went in, paid, and went straight upstairs to the Impressionists. I had seen the Monets, Renoirs, and Manets in my mother’s calendars over the years, but up close it’s easier to appreciate the texture of the paint, the vividness of the color, and details that are easy to overlook. For example, Seurat’s famous painting “La Grande Jatte” has a red-blue border around it and a dog and monkey in the lower right corner.

We went downstairs to see the decorative arts (furniture) and the American art (including Grant Wood’s “American Gothic”). It was soon time for lunch. The Garden Restaurant had a long wait inside and out even though many tables were empty, so we ate in the café which was less expensive and still had a view of the garden through the window.

We left at around 2:00 pm, and managed to get a view of the entire Buckingham fountain as we were making our right turn onto Congress Street. We hit a little traffic again, but were fine once we got past the 90/94 split. Nothing like the horrific journey through the area when I went with my friend Christie three years ago. (See http://www.geocities.com/reisefrau/roadtripfour.html and scroll down to Day 9 to see what I mean.)

We arrived in downtown Cleveland at about 8:30 p.m. Jacobs Field, home of the Cleveland Indians baseball team, was lit up and filled to capacity with fans watching a game. We found the hotel and my mom went inside to check in and ask about parking. We were told that the only reasonably priced parking option was valet parking, which meant giving a hotel employee the keys to my car filled with my worldly possessions. I felt a little paranoid about that, and took a few extra bags out as a precaution.

Since we had had a light lunch, we were hungry for dinner. Mom wanted seafood. She asked the clerk to recommend a place, and she suggested Fat Fish Blue, a Cajun (New Orleans culture) restaurant and blues bar. She even gave us a map and directions. We took the short walk, and entered the restaurant to hear a blues band playing. These guys looked like they had been playing the blues their whole life. I wondered if they had become transplants to Cleveland after Hurricane Katrina.

Since we were in a New Orleans-style restaurant and catfish is the specialty down there, that’s what my mother and I ordered. She had it beer-battered (a kind of frying) and I had it blackened (covered in spices that burn while the fish is on the grill). I also had a Hurricane, a popular cocktail. By the time I got to the bottom of it, I understood how it got its name. Well, I didn’t have to do any more driving that night so it was okay. For dessert we had peach cobbler a la mode. There was more oatmeal topping than peach, but it was still good.

Distance driven:341 mi
Time including all stops: 8 hours 31 minutes

I woke up around 9. Lynette was up. My mother was up a few minutes later. Lynette asked what I thought of the thunderstorm. What thunderstorm, I said? They couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard it. The lightning and thunder had been practically right over house. The thunder had rolled continuously for several minutes. I had been in the basement with a small window and I had been dead tired. I told Lynette it must have been the comfortable bed.

We ended up going out to breakfast. Lynette has exquisite taste in food, and Lucia’s Bakery did not disappoint. The pain au chocolat was nice and buttery. The fruit salad was the best I’d had in a long time. The coffee was good. After breakfast, Lynette drove us back along a couple of lakes and scenic highways. We decided to skip seeing where the bridge had collapsed.

We left Tim’s house around 11:30 a.m. Just after we crossed into Wisconsin, it started to rain. We had heard about the horrible rains and floods in the Midwest, and had been very lucky so far to avoid it. Here, though, it seemed our luck had run out. The rain started coming down so hard, I had to pull off the freeway. I bought gas and hit the restroom to make the time useful. By the time the gas tank was full, the rain had slowed enough to safely get on the road again.

We changed drivers in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Mom drove on through the newly found sunshine while I took a needed nap. We switched again at a rest area about 30 miles north of Madison. At the rest area, I got a map of Wisconsin which turned out to be very important, as somehow our Auto Club guidebook of Wisconsin was not in the car.

Following the map’s directions, we took the exit from I-39/90/94 for Highway 151 and wound our way around the State House to a parking space near State Street. It was now 4:30 p.m. My mother got a phone call from work, and while she talked I browsed the “Wines of the World” we had coincidentally parked in front of. I found two wines from Georgia (the former Soviet Republic, not the U.S. state), but they were marked “semi-sweet” so I was afraid they would be too sweet for me. I was shocked to see not only German beer, but authentic German beer glasses. My poor friend Peter had already been upset to find out that the Paulaner beer he had schlepped 8,000 miles was readily available in stores in the U.S. I wasn’t sure how I was going to break to him the news that the glasses he had brought could be found in Wisconsin. Maybe it would help to know that they would have been hard to find in L.A. or Philly.

Mom got off the phone and we walked down the street. We hadn’t stopped for lunch, and were hungry for dinner. We stumbled on two Afghan restaurants across the street from each other. We hadn’t had Afghan food for years; we had enjoyed it at a restaurant in Georgetown (a D.C. neighborhood) a couple of times, but it went out of business years ago. We decided it was worth eating again, and chose to eat at Maza. We started with bulani, a fried appetizer filled with what tasted like mashed potatoes. We dipped it in yogurt and a green sauce. Then we were given salads with a special dressing and naan (flatbread). Mom had the lamb kabuli palow—lamb with brown rice, carrots, almonds, and raisins. I had the chicken korma, chicken in a spicy red-brown sauce with green peppers. Everything was delicious and filling. The waiter nevertheless managed to talk us into dessert—baklava made from the owner’s special recipe. It wasn’t overly sweet. You could taste the nuts and the pastry as well as the honey. It was amazing.

The waiter also gave us advice on where to go to get Wisconsin souvenirs. In addition to getting two t-shirts for the price of one, we were able to get a map of downtown Madison, something that hadn’t been available at the rest area. We walked back to the car. After looking at the map, I concluded that if we went back exactly the way we came, it would put us very far north, and there was an alternate route that would keep us to the east and south.

We took off, and spent several frustrating minutes being turned around by one-way streets, road construction, and “No Left Turn” signs until we found John Nolen Highway along the lake and found our way to the Beltway, which led us to the 39/90. We made it to Rockford, IL by 8:30 p.m.

I changed and went downstairs to use the hotel pool. I was stunned to see that the Jacuzzi was not a regular hot tub but a whirlpool that seemed to have minerals in it. I did some exercises in the regular pool, then went back in to the whirlpool for a few minutes. I dragged myself out soonafter; I was afraid if I didn’t leave then, I never would leave.

Distance driven:641 mi
Time including all stops:14 hours 17 minutes (includes one hour lost
for change from Mountain to Central Time)

We got up for an early breakfast and were on the road by 7:20 a.m. We drove the 20 miles (30 km) to the Mount Rushmore National Monument. Mom decided not to look at the faces of the four presidents until we were well inside the park, because I had told her how disappointed I was in 2000 to see them from the road and then pay $8 for the same view.

We paid the entrance fee (shockingly, the same amount I had paid 7 years ago) and parked. We went up the elevator and through the hall of flags of the 50 United States. At the end of the hall were the faces of those four great presidents—Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln. My mother was deeply impressed. I don’t know why I’d never been impressed by it—maybe I’ve seen the image too many times and can’t wrap my head around the scale and magnitude of the job that was done to put those faces there.

We walked briefly on the Presidential trail to get a closer look, but when my mother saw the wooden suspension-like bridge, she would go no further. I was concerned about time at that point, and was happy to turn around. We had an impressive, closer look at Washington, and that was most important. He was the greatest president of the four, and that view helped me understand the phenomenal nature of this structure.

We went to the exhibit hall and read information about the four presidents represented, the founder of the project (Borglum), and the nature of the work itself. It was impressive to me to see how he had done so much work on the mountain with dynamite, especially without injury or death.

We left Mount Rushmore at 9:20 a.m. We wound our way out of the Black Hills and didn’t stop again until Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota. This is a huge drug store, restaurant, and gift shop that has advertisements as far as the eye can see. Every rolling hill between Rapid City and Wall on I-90 seemed to have a sign about Wall Drug: 5 cent coffee! Free ice water! New backyard! Kids love it! It was totally over the top, but it was also a convenient place to use the restrooms and change drivers. We bought a delicious homemade maple donut that was perfect. The cashier had a tag that said she was from Romania (probably here on a summer work program), so I said “Multumesc” (thank you) when she handed me my goods and change. Her face lit up, and I explained that I had lived in Moldova for a year and that I knew a few words in Romanian.

Soon we were on our merry way once again. I-90 has nothing to see but cows and silos, which gave us more time to get engrossed in *Portrait in Sepia*. In addition to being loaded with family intrigue, the novel delved into historical fiction, painting a tortured picture of the war between Peru and Chile as well as life in Chinatown in San Francisco before the turn of the 20th century. It was so good it overcame any sorrow at the thought that the only reason I had this tape was because my former mentor and Will’s wife, Kathy, had passed away in May and Will wanted me to have something of hers.

I studied the map while Mom drove and suggested that we stop for lunch in Oacoma/Chamberlain, SD. It was a convenient time to get gas for the car, and more importantly it was right on the Missouri River. We had seen signs for “Al’s Oasis” in this area, and decided to stop. I was a little afraid it would be cheesy (overly touristy), but it was fine. It had long tables and large windows with a view of the Missouri River. I got a buffalo burger (ironic after our joy of seeing buffalo in Yellowstone) and Mom got the fried chicken. The burger was pretty good, and the chicken was excellent. We also split a banana cream pie that had chunks of real banana in it. The coffee was only 5 cents and tasted like it on the first try, but the second cup of coffee went down better.

From Chamberlain, we didn’t stop again until we got to Albert Lea, MN, at the junction of I-90 and I-35. We called Paul and then Lynette to let them know we were getting close. Paul is a friend from high school who now works in marketing for a company in Minneapolis. Lynette is a friend of mine from college who is finishing her Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota.

We arrived at Lynette’s boyfriend Tim’s house at about 9:30 p.m. Not bad considering we had driven 640 miles from Mt. Rushmore and had lost an hour with the time change from Mountain to Central time. We visited with them briefly, then Paul showed up at 10:00. I admit it is an odd time to get together with a friend, but he was leaving at 7:00 a.m. on a business trip, and Mom and I would be in Illinois by the time he got back.

Paul and Lynette said there aren’t many places open at 10:00 p.m. in Minneapolis. Paul and I ended up at the bowling alley. It was much more upscale than the bowling alley in my hometown. It felt more like a nice restaurant. Lynette said later that it is a popular place for dates. I had noticed that there was a “date night” menu special. But Paul is happily married and I am happily single, so it was not a date. We each had a beer, and Paul recommended that I try walleye, the local fish. It is a soft, white fish. It came in slightly breaded and seasoned squares and rectangles on a plate. Paul said there are places with better walleye, but I thought it was good. Paul dropped me back at the house at about 12:30 a.m. I crawled down to the basement and into bed.

Distance driven:411 mi
Time including all stops:12 hours 21 minutes

We got up and took our tickets to the general store across the parking lot. It had a back room for Comfort Inn’s complimentary breakfast. It was essentially the same food that we had had in Utah, but the room was decorated like an old saloon. There was a hug wooden bar with a mirror behind it. The walls had mounted heads of buffalo and elk, and period posters and announcements. There was a wooden player piano, which an employee activated several times.

We sat at a long table covered with a red and white checkered table cloth, and chatted with a couple from Iowa that sat down near us. After eating breakfast and browsing the Indian and cowboy artifacts in the gift shop, we hit the road. We drove past rocks with signs explaining what pre-historic age they were from. Then we got on the “low road” to Buffalo, Wyoming. (The highway we were on split to the north and south to go around the mountains, so you have to choose your road). It still wound its way up into the hills of the Bighorn National Forest. I drove while my mother monitored the speed limit signs and read them out loud if she sensed from my speed that I hadn’t seen them.

The drive to Buffalo took much longer than I had anticipated. As much as I wanted to change drivers at that point, there was no place of interest to eat in Buffalo and gas seemed expensive. So we drove on another hour to Gillette, Wyoming. We were about to get off at the first exit when we saw a sign for an A & W restaurant at the second Gillette exit.

A & W is a brand of root beer, a soft drink that is sweeter than regular soda in a way that apparently only Americans can love. All the foreigners I’ve met think it tastes like cough medicine or worse. My mother and I, however, were very happy to see this restaurant. There used to be one in Fillmore, CA but it closed years ago. This A & W didn’t have carports or women on roller skates delivering food on trays to hang on the car windows as we saw in other parts of Wyoming between Cody and Gillette, but it did have great root beer floats (root beer with ice cream) served in ice-cold glass mugs. Yum.

After lunch, we drove on I-90 and didn’t make any stops except for fuel and the bathroom until we arrived in Deadwood, South Dakota. We drove down the main street past Wild West saloons and gambling halls and parked at a meter near the Visitors Center. It was already about 4 p.m. We went directly to the Adams Museum, a treasure trove of items from the history of Deadwood and his personal collection of objects from around the world. We saw guns and photos of Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody not far from Chinese vases, Jewish yarmulkes, German history books, and African spears. Although the museum was only the size of a large house, we were there for an hour.

After the museum, we drove up a hilly road to Mt. Moriah Cemetery to see the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. We left shortly thereafter. We got on Highway 385 south, passing fir trees, lakes, rivers, campgrounds, and tourist traps of the Black Hills.

We had decided to go directly to Crazy Horse first, and then to see Mt. Rushmore the next morning on our way to Minneapolis. We got to Crazy Horse at about 6:30 p.m. We could see it plainly from the gate, the majestic face and lines of carvings which we hope one day will be honed into Crazy Horse’s hair and the head and mane of his horse.

We walked quickly through the Indian museum to the restaurant since it closes at 7:00. I had a Native American taco, an openface dish of meat, beans, lettuce, tomato, cheese, salsa, and guacamole on traditional Indian fry bread. Mom had a tuna salad. It was all tasty, reasonably priced, and in a room that Mom said was shaped like an Indian longhouse (meeting house). We also had a view of Crazy Horse through the window.

After dinner, we walked through an exhibit on Korczak Ziolkowski, the man who started the Crazy Horse project after seeing the Mount Rushmore project. There was also a lot about his wife, Ruth, who continued his work after he died until her death a few years ago. The museum was nearly empty, which made it feel even more quiet and spiritual than usual.

We barely saw one-fourth of the Indian museum before it was time to sit at the wooden benches outside to get ready for the “Legends in Light” show. Crazy Horse was illuminated in multiple colors while Lakota Indian music played. Then we saw laser lights projected onto Crazy Horse telling the story of Crazy Horse, Korczak Ziolkowski, and Native Americans in general. This too was set to music. I thought it was all beautiful; Mom thought it was just okay. We left around 9:00, drove 4 miles south to our third Comfort Inn for the night, and went to sleep.

Distance driven: 467 mi
Time including all stops: 13 hours 32 minutes

Mom and I got up at 7:00 a.m. and were immediately impressed by the complimentary, continental buffet breakfast at the Comfort Inn. Usually “continental” means juice, coffee, and bread. The Comfort Inn had all of that plus hardboiled eggs and make-it-yourself Belgian waffles.

After breakfast and check-out, we reloaded the car, which had been so completely packed by my brother we had to be careful to put our things back exactly where they were the day before to be able to see out the rear window. It was now nearly 9 a.m. We took I-15 to Brigham City, then took scenic Highway 89. We drove through Logan, a quaint town of red-brick buildings with storefront signs that looked 50 years old. We passed through a valley of farmland into an area of rocky hills dotted with evergreen trees. Along the road ran a small stream that glinted in the sunlight. On the other side of this range of hills was a valley which contained Bear Lake, a huge lake on the border of Utah and Idaho. It was surrounded by red-brown low hills. It reminded me of Lake Mead, Nevada.

Soon we crossed into Idaho. I didn’t take a picture of the “Welcome to Idaho” sign, or any of the state entrance signs. While it is a tradition to do so on road trips like this, I had been to all these states before and my mother doesn’t like having her picture taken. I did stop, however, to capture the “Welcome to Paris” sign. Unlike Paris, France, in Paris, Idaho we had to slow down and pass tractors on a two-lane highway.

Wyoming and the Grand Tetons

Our next state was Wyoming. Here, bigger hills were dotted with red rock and fir trees. There were also many beautiful horses. I was STUNNED to see llamas. At one overlook, I saw a llama cross the road as one had crossed in front of me in Machu Picchu. Even funnier, the scenery of the overlook reminded me of the Sacred Valley in Peru. But then, I’d heard from Kitty that people in America were buying llamas as a kind of investment and it makes sense that they’d do best in a similar environment.

We continued on Highway 89 until we got to Afton, home of a natural spring drinking fountain and the world’s largest elk horn arch (so said the signs on the arch and the drinking fountain). We browsed the wooden furniture store and an expensive Native American crafts store, then had lunch at the Golden Café. We sat at the counter even though it was in the smoking section of the restaurant. Mom had a patty melt, a classic diner/café grilled sandwich with a hamburger patty and onions in the middle. I had roast beef with gravy on toast and homemade French fries. It wasn’t healthy, but it was tasty comfort food in an atmosphere of coziness and community you can’t get in Los Angeles.

We got back in the car and drove through the Targhee National Forest, where we got our first glimpse of the Snake River. It was a lovely bluish-green color, almost aqua. Many people were rafting on it. We went through Jackson and into the Teton National Park. When we made it to Jackson Lake, I was disappointed that the Grand Teton Mountains weren’t snow-capped. But I had been in that part of the world in June of 2000, and this was August 2007. I imagine the time of year and progression of global warming made the difference.

Yellowstone

We pressed on and crossed the South Entrance of Yellowstone National Park around 5 p.m. As we drove over the winding road with a beautiful river dozens of feet below us, my mother started getting nervous again. I tried to apply my social work training to minimize her fear, but soon I would learn that everyone, including me, simply has their own unique set of limits.

Shortly after we turned on the road towards Old Faithful, we saw cars pulled over. This is usually a sign there are animals nearby. We pulled over and saw four elk. We got out of the car and I started taking pictures. Suddenly, one elk turned its head, looked straight at us, and started trotting towards us.

We all ran into our cars as quickly as we could. I was out of breath even though I’d only run 10 feet. I had thought the elk was going to maul me or gore me. As the elk walked peacefully by our car to eat some more grass, my mother said with the excitement of a child, “Cool!”

We drove on. Half an hour later, we were at Old Faithful, the geyser whose eruptions of hot water can be predicted within about 10 minutes. The sign at the Visitors Center for Old Faithful said the next eruption would be around 7:07 p.m. It was only 6:00 p.m. My mother didn’t want to wait around. We still had a lot of driving ahead of us, and she didn’t want us driving through the park at night.

It turns out, though, there are several other geysers around Old Faithful. We looked at a trail map and my mother saw a short hike to one of them. However, we ended up spending nearly a whole hour walking around to see as many geysers as we could. They were bubbling cauldrons of clear blue water over holes that must go to the center of the earth. We saw one erupt briefly (probably the Beehive Geyser). We smelled others that had large sulfur deposits.

We walked back to the Visitors Center to buy postcards (which, ironically, I never got around to writing let alone sending). It was nearly 7:00 p.m. As we were leaving the gift shop and entering the lodge lobby, we saw Old Faithful erupting through the huge bay windows. We headed for the door, but by the time we were outside, the geyser had finished exploding. I felt bad that my mother had not had the full Old Faithful experience, but she insisted she didn’t care about it, and had seen many other wonders in that part of the park.

We got in the car and headed toward the East Entrance. On the way, I saw two deer on our side of the road. I stopped to take their picture, then watched them walk slowly across the road. I was relieved—a minute later and I would have been slamming on my brakes to avoid hitting them. Deer are very solid and heavy; if I had hit one, my mother and I as well as my car could have been seriously injured. We saw a car stopped again, and across the road we saw a wolf. There was no way I was stopping to take that picture.

As we drove on, we passed a huge brown animal on the side of the road—a buffalo. We had no place to stop and take a picture, though. No matter—there was a whole herd about a mile ahead. Several buffalo were crossing the road. Others were grunting and rolling around in the dirt. My mother, who has read “Centennial” by James Michener, knew a lot about buffalo. She said they were gentle creatures, and were merely amorous and demonstrating their masculinity to the females in that moment.

We took several minutes to take in the unbelievable scene, then got in the car so we could drive on. The buffalo walked around us so closely we could have rolled down the window and pet them. I felt like my car was part of the herd. It was surreal. And it was definitely the highlight of the day if not the whole trip for my mother.

By the time we got past the herd, it was about 8:30 p.m. The full moon was starting to shine brightly in the sky, reflecting on Yellowstone Lake. By the time we got to the part of the East Entrance road that was under construction, it was totally dark. With our headlights, though, we were able to make out the sign “end pavement.” We panicked, but it turned out to be 7 miles of very smooth gravel road.

We finally made it to the East Entrance at 9:00 p.m. There was a sign saying that Cody was still 52 miles (83 km) off. It seemed a long way off so late at night, but we had to get there. We had hotel reservations, and if we cancelled we would still be charged for one night. Plus, we had a long drive the next day and couldn’t afford to lose the extra hour.

I had assumed that once we got out of the park, the drive to Cody would be easy. But in 2000 I did the drive from Cody to Yellowstone in the morning. It’s a different story from Yellowstone to Cody at night. The road was smooth, but it was a two-lane road. There were no streetlights, only thin rods with reflectors on them on the sides of the road. I drove with a very tight grip on the wheel while irritated South Dakotans sped around me.

Finally, we could see the city lights of Cody. We drove past the rodeo arena and the historic Irma Hotel to the Comfort Inn. It had taken us 3 hours to drive 116 miles (186 km). We climbed into our very comfortable beds for a good night’s sleep.

Distance driven: 694 mi
Time including all stops: 13 hours 59 minutes (includes one hour lost
for transition from Pacific to Mountain Time)

Miraculously, we left my mother’s house at 9:00 a.m. as planned. My mother took the first driving shift, because she knew a back road to the 14 Freeway. The alternate route may have been a little slower than the freeway, but there were fewer stoplights and no traffic. It was also amazing to see how close to L.A. one can see rural ranches with horses.

Not long after we got on the 14, we got off again at Pearblossom Highway. We drove past Hungarian sausage stands, Latin American artisan shops, date shake stands, and other oddities on the road. We got on Interstate 15 (I-15) in Victorville around 11:00 a.m. and enjoyed the endless desert horizon on the way to Las Vegas.

We stopped for lunch 8 miles (12.8 km) south of Las Vegas at the Silverton Casino and Lodge. We stopped there for a number of reasons. Las Vegas is a reasonable midway point between L.A. and Salt Lake City. It is also famous for massive buffet lunches at low prices. My friend Christie, who is a huge fan of the band Hootie and the Blowfish, had recommended it because it has a lounge filled with Hootie memorabilia. I had been there in June and found that it wasn’t as tacky or busy as the hotels on the Vegas strip.

My mother agreed to break her strict diet to enjoy the casino’s Seasons Buffet. It was an overwhelming all-you-can-eat feast of salads, pasta, carved meats, turkey with all of the Thanksgiving dinner trimmings, and seafood which, after all the fresh fish in Peru, made me decide to avoid eating fish in the desert in the future. The desserts were to die for, especially the blueberry pie with fresh blueberries and vanilla ice cream with bits of vanilla bean (a sign of authentic vanilla flavor).

We waddled out of the restaurant clutching our expanded stomachs and hit the road again. Once we got out of Vegas, there was nothing but open desert highway with not even a gas station for miles around. We were grateful that our friend Will had given us Isabel Allende’s novel *Portrait in Sepia* on tape to help keep us awake.

In the sliver of land of Arizona between Nevada and Utah, the landscape changed. There were hills of red rocks and roads winding through canyons that panicked my mother but to me seemed tiny compared to Machu Picchu. As dusk fell over Utah, the mountains in the distance took on a purple hue. I felt I was truly seeing purple mountain majesties that before I had believed were only part of the “America the Beautiful” songwriter’s imagination.

We drove on into the night, arriving at the hotel finally at 11:00 p.m. I called my friend Nicole, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Moldova who is now getting her Ph.D. at the University of Utah. I was too tired to drive back to downtown Salt Lake City, but she agreed to drive up to the hotel and hang out in the lounge to catch up. We had a nice visit, but I was ready to sleep when I crawled into bed at 12:30 a.m.

Once again, I’ve been on the move. It was time at the end of August to move to Philadelphia to start a Ph.D. program. Baby (my Honda) still had less than 100,000 miles on it, so I decided to take it with me. My mom decided to come along as well, to make sure her baby got to Philly safely.

Some statistics for the trip:
Days on the Road: 7 plus one morning
Distance Driven: 3458mi (5533 km)
Gallons of Gas Purchased: 98.48
Total Cost of Gas for the Trip: $282.78
Average Cost of Gas: $2.85 per gallon

Full descriptions of each day of the trip can be found in subsequent entries. Pictures are on my Photobucket web site.

Enjoy!

Bridget