Driving to the End of the Rainbow

A rocky start, to our next fugue. 

Our original plan was to replicate our European fugue either in South America or Europe again, so much to still see https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2020/06/we-will-always-have-frankfurt.html . We still rented out our house with the goal to begin a year-long meandering trek through the US/Canada to meet up with our daughter /son-in-law/granddaughter who were relocating to Amherst, MA from Saarbrücken, Germany.  

Unfortunately, we are living in (hopefully the last vestiges of) a Trump America where nothing is normal. Plans just can’t exist. Sur-reality has taken over.

For the returning ex-pats, it was a good-bye to a great German preschool (holding a bag of sand from the sand-box) and low Covid rates  (a final maskless walk around her block)

and hello to long flight with inconsistent masked passengers, although the 3 year old had it right. And, a dog in need of a tree.

 

So, in June, we successfully rented out our house, put everything we owned in our converted garage, 

bought a car, loaded the car with everything else for daughters 1 and 3,

locked the door and left Eugene, Oregon- although a week later than planned.

The road trip dictated that the wine bag hold bleach and wipes and no stopping for food or drink.  

Unfortunately we did not head to the majestic vistas of Glacier National Park and Yellowstone as hoped, but to the Best Western in Salem OR.  Fortunately, since our goal was to spend the year traveling and seeing America, our first stop essentially was Anywhere, USA. 

From our hotel window, we could gaze at the Costco across the street and the Denny’s in our shared parking lot. A little more than a stone’s throw but still within walking distance was a Walmart, we did the walk to get oak-barrel vanilla Talente gelato-one can pretend they are elsewhere eating gelato.   After a vigorous Chlorox-wipe down of every surface in the hotel and replacing the hotel sheets with our own, we were ready for our first meal of the American Adventure: a tin of red chile flavored smoked oysters for dinner with goat cheese plus zucchini, snap peas and basil from our left-behind garden.   

And that Denny’s, for seven mornings, armed with a mask, shield and hotel vouchers,

we crossed the parking lot to pick up our breakfast. The cashier was shocked that we were willing to pay an extra dollar for take out rather than eat in with a diner full of unmasked patrons. 

Despite the (lack of ) attraction of a Best Western-Denny’s-Costco-Walmart ; why were we in Salem? With no previous history, a kidney stone attack in mid-June took Nick down. A work up revealed 4 stones (Mick, Charlie, Keith and Ronnie) that needed to be removed. This  was worrisome since Nick only weighs 10 stones.  Laser treatment was performed 7/1 to end the Stones one city tour, but an additional 9 days were required for post op care and stent removal.  This must be the place? Salem Hospital Surgery Department. Good to see everyone got the memo on pre-op dress code.

Since we had already rented out our house, we needed a place to wait out the stones, so we split our time between  Salem and  Portland-Hillsboro. Portland-Hillsboro also had it's lack of charm, this time the hotel was set in an business park, a stone's throw from every chain store in America but Oregon did send us off in style

Finally, on 7/10, we hit the road.  Trying to make up for lost time and concern of exposure, we barreled through Oregon, Washington, Idaho and 1/2 of  Montana, making it to Butte for the first night. 

We finished crossing Montana, to spend the second night in Jamestown, ND, birthplace of Nick’s father. Like all of ND, it was remote and sparsely populated. It’s understandable that his father never went back after leaving for college.  But again, we were graced with a very nice send-off (note tiny rainbow just under the cloud to the side of the sign). 

But Montana and North Dakota, were both quite beautiful from the highway. 

Montana:

North Dakota:

Based on our amateur sky observations we determined that North Dakota’s sky was almost as big if not equivalent to boastful Montana’s sky. As we passed towns with known names (Missoula, Billings, Butte, Bismarck) it was a bit remarkable how small they all were, and yet they all seemed to have a Walmart and a Denny’s.

We also began our train spotting as we entered Montana and we were really struck by the number of long trains in each state as we sailed across the country to Amherst. 

We rolled into Minneapolis  for 3 days to visit our youngest daughter Simona for a very enjoyable tour-break.  Our stay here was in the guest room of Simona’s building- an iconic Co-op apartment building (she rents) built in 1930 to be the fanciest apartment building in Minneapolis. It felt like a combination Del Coronado + Fountaingrove Lodge https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2019/10/living-lodge.html tempered with the faded glory of Sunset Boulevard (movie not street).

     

She was very pleased with her recent move here especially nice as she has rarely been able to leave her apartment since she moved in on the first night of lockdown. 

The Twin Cities is in a major state of flux and recovery.  Driving around the protest signs were uplifting and encouraging for change, yet the empty and boarded up buildings a reminder of how much needs to be done. 

Yet again, we were given a stellar send off, this time from outside of Simona's kitchen window

After the Twin Cities, we did a marathon 14 hour drive to Erie, PA  trying to quickly get through Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana,Ohio and Pennsylvania (just a sliver), with their confusing toll roads. As Californians,  we were raised on freeways and not used to toll roads/turnpikes. Considerable amount of high anxiety resulting from toll booth confusion and a sense of imprisonment with the toll road guard towers, well maybe they were actually tollbooths, at each exit. We raked up $43 in tolls while we were road-trapped.  Although the toll roads seem to skirt the cities, we did manage a brief side glimpse of Cleveland and the baseball stadium (Progressive Field). 

An overnight stop in a rural NY oasis to visit Patricia’s sister + brother-in-law and enjoy a room that did not need to be Chlorox-wiped/stripped down plus a meal which included greens from the garden and grilled haloumi- a better reminder of past travels then the ice cream at Walmart.  It is a pretty idyllic spot. 

     

Our only tourist stop on the journey was Watkins Glen in the Finger Lakes area. https://parks.ny.gov/parks/142/ A crazy naturally sculpted sandstone and limestone gorge, like a combination of Frank Lloyd Wright, Disneyland’s Swiss Family Robinson and Nirvana (the state of mind not the band, or both because it wasn't really hard rock). 

   

Unfortunately, it was tainted by crowds which included many unmasked people, despite signs stating masks required and presence of park rangers (although they did not seem to be enforcing). It felt like a big open bar, so we moved quickly.

After 10 to 14 hour drives, the last day's 3.5 hour sprint to Amherst went quickly.  More trains, more tollbooths, then Massachusetts and more tollbooths.

 

We drove up to our daughter's house, the end of the rainbow, dropped our remaining cargo  for them in their driveway and then drove off to wait for their 14 day quarantine to end.