The Great American Road Trip

When I talk to my friends in Aberystwyth about America, some conversations turn to the enormity of this country. 3,500 miles stretch from the northwestern tip of Washington state to the southeastern edge of Florida (and 3,400 from Maine to California). To put this in perspective, there are 3700 miles between Aberystwyth and Chicago. There are only 2,600 miles from Cadiz in southwestern Spain, to Utsjoki in northwestern Finland (at least according to distancefromto.net). In short, America at it's widest is 1,000 miles wider than all of Europe. [For more on scale, read an older post of mine.]

Because of this, and the impressive American highway system that connects the 48 lower states, America has developed a culture of car travel. Though there is a decent rail system and a network of airports in most major cities, Americans have a soft spot for the car trip, particularly when settling in a new place. This was the case on New Year's Eve, when my brother's girlfriend moved from Smithtown, New York, to Jefferson City, Missouri. The brunt of the trip was done before Christmas when Kiernan and Courtney came in for a visit. On New Year's Day, we packed up Kiernan's Jeep Compass and a 2010 Chevy Express Cargo Van and set out for Missouri. Kiernan and Courtney took off in the Compass and I followed in the van.

The Chevy Express cargo van is, simply put, spartan. There are two seats, and that's about it. The model had no back seats, leaving 239.7 cubic feet of storage space (which we used most of). There is no paneling or upholstery in the back, making for an echoy, loud ride. It sits pretty high and has industrial strength shocks, making the noise box bumpy as well. Though the website suggests that the standard model comes with a lot of accoutrement, this particular van came with just an AM/FM clock radio. No CD player, no extra ports, not even a tape deck. It didn't even have the standard power windows or locks. That said, it was not the most uncomfortable vehicle I have ever driven.

When I was in college, and for some time immediately following graduation, I drove a 16 foot box truck for both Phillips Interior Plants and Services and Marie's Off-site Catering. Over the course of several moves for both me and my friends, I have driven vehicles as large as a 22 foot diesel truck. For a while I toyed with the idea of getting my CDL license just to say that there was nothing I couldn't drive. Oddly enough, while the van itself was fairly comfortable, driving a cargo van is a little more difficult than a bigger truck. The key is the mirrors.

While the cargo van does have the added benefit of allowing the driver to see out the back, the rear-view mirrors, or wing mirrors as the British say, leave a lot to be desired. On the larger trucks, there is a massive, rectangular, flat mirror and a smaller, circular convex mirror on both sides. The convex mirror is the most useful, giving the driver a clear shot of both blind spots and the curb. Good blind-spot mirrors are circular, but on a cargo van, the blind-spot mirror is rectangular, which forces the driver to chose between the blind spot or the curb. This makes either backing up and taking corners difficult. Regardless, after picking up the van in Bolingbrook, IL, and driving to Sauk Village, IL, I had a pretty good feel for the controls. The wind proved problematic, and most of the drive was fraught with sudden shifts in steering due to some explosive gusts.

Courtney had everything shipped from Smithtown to Sauk Village in a Cube, and we packed that moveable storage cube into the back of the van. The next day, we finished packing the van with some new IKEA furniture, and took off on the 366 mile journey from Bolingbrook to Jefferson City. If taken without stops, it was meant to take about six hours, give or take. But because a car can only hold so much gas and a person can go for only so long without peeing and/or eating, the trip was likely to take closer to seven. Once there, we would unpack the van and settle the apartment. Nicely, the van was surprisingly fuel efficient and had a massive forty gallon tank. Most of the times we needed to stop, it was not because of the van. It could have made it quite a bit further than I could without stopping.

We left the suburban Chicago area around 10:30 in the morning. I was alone in the van, and one problem became immediately apparent: music was going to be an issue. On long car trips, I generally like to play my iPod through an FM transponder (even better if I can plug directly in through either a USB or AUX port). My transponder was locked in a car that broke down and was towed to a mechanic, so I was stuck with radio. When I was in college, I didn't mind the radio, but the iPod providing my music when I want it and without commercial interruption, has spoiled me, but thinking about this blog, I was excited to see how radio might supply me with an interesting story to relate.

Radio in central and southern Illinois is a lot like the scenery: a lot of country, and not a lot else. Generally, there is one pop station and a maybe a few classic rock stations. If lucky, there will be some college radio stations on the low end of the FM dial playing something interesting. The DJs are generally terrible: vapid chatter, thick with the southern accent. Larger cities have a larger pool of potential DJs; a benefit that smaller, rural stations lack. Couple that disadvantage with the lack of talent that most radio stations have for Saturday morning shifts, and I was bracing for a pretty horrible radio experience.

There was one gem as I approached Illinois State University. WGLT: News, Blues and All the Jazz had a show featuring Delta Frank. This very charming DJ with the sort of affected southern accent that makes him sound like a nice person, and genuinely American, instead of slow in the head. The show itself was amazing. Delta Frank played a range of blues across several decades, some deep cuts from lost albums including a live version of Elvis Presley's "Are You Lonesome Tonight", and several local artists with whom he seemed personally connected. He gave some detailed and interesting information about all the songs, as well as managing several calls from blues fans. He seemed to know everyone who called and had something nice and specific to say about several callers: "There's a call on line 2 from Marjory who makes the best peanut brittle I've eaten." Delta Frank made my drive through the larger part of central Illinois tolerable.

Unfortunately, most of the trip was on I-55, a massive four-lane, interstate highway taking up nearly two-hundred yards from left to right. After a short jaunt down I-72, which was like a smaller version of I-55. Generally, I hate driving on the expressways in the plain states (plain, as in expansive fields, and plain as in uninteresting). I-55 and I-72 are wide expanses of concrete that run through the flattest parts of the countryside and leveling any interesting hills or valleys. If given an option, I would rather take the smaller, two-lane, nationally numbered highways. Luckily, the last third of the drive was on just such a road: US 52.

See, there are two types of highways in America: the very efficient, wide interstate highways that avoid going through towns, and smaller national highways that cut through small town America. Bill Bryson wrote a book where he set out down these smaller highways, and eventually decided that he hates America. When I read The Lost Continent I was really frustrated because Bryson set out to see America, and became annoyed when it wasn't Britain. I felt he was being a little unfair to the small towns, some of which I had lived in, judging their limited options. He also tended to see the parts of town that are built on these smaller, two-lane national highways, which tend to be riddled with Wal-Marts and McDonalds. Once off these connecting roads, small towns have a lot to offer.

For one, the view from the smaller highways is generally more representative of the landscape. Interstate highways tend to mold to the land to their purposes: leveling hills, flattening out fields, cutting through mountains and so on. The smaller numbered highways tend to stick to the land, rising and falling, tumbling over the hills and spilling out along the rivers. As you cut across Illinois towards the Mississippi river, the flat, farm lands of Illinois give way to gentle hills of Eastern Missouri. The highway was really pretty, dotted with forests and small river towns.

Interestingly, there is town in northeastern Missouri called Mexico. It gave me no end of joy to continue seeing signs: Mexico 67 miles. US 54 East to Mexico. Mexico, MO, was nothing like the real Mexico, though.

We reached Jefferson, Missouri in the dark, moved Courtney in, and then I made my way to a Holiday Inn. A friend of mine, Jemma, referred to Holiday Inns as "Neverneverlands of Emptiness," places that compel the patrons toward navel-gazing tendencies. Agreeing, I like to compare Holiday Inns, any hotels really, to airports: places where people go to wait. This is why people tend to think inwardly: you are forced to wait, which leads you to think about where you are, where you've been and where you are going. Naturally, I thought a lot about my journey, where I was headed and where I have been in every sense of meaning that is attached to that phrase.

The next day, after getting Courtney settled in the daylight, Kiernan and I took off for Chicago. Yes, we drove 300+ miles in one day, just to turn around and do it again. This time the truck was empty, and I can say that I learned this: I like driving a truck that is filled rather than a truck that is empty. The shocks on these things are meant for a loaded van, so a much lighter van was much, much bouncier. It also was far more affected by the winds, which thankfully had died down from the previous night.

Kiernan, who purchased a satellite radio some years ago as well as a car with an AUX port, hates radio even more than I do. But, because it was Sunday, we managed to pick up the Bears V Packers game. Surprisingly, we managed to get the game on AM 780 WBBM in Jefferson, MO. This was a Chicago station, and because the night was clear, the sky was empty, the AM waves managed to make it the 300+ miles, allowing the two of us to listen to the last regular season game of our favorite football team. Once that game was done, we picked up a national broadcast of the St. Louis V Seattle game, and that took us to nearly home. Once that game ended, we scanned for about ten minutes before we caught a classic rock station outside of Joliet.

Most of this drive was made in the dark, and a good chunk of it was spent on a two-lane highway jammed behind a truck in a very unpassable stretch of road. As Kiernan said, "Great. I can look at darkness on either side of me or a truck's ass. This is great scenery." And it was dark. Chicago never really gets dark because of all the street lights, buildings and cars. The whole city glows orange. Central Illinois, like Aberystwyth, is shrouded in complete and total darkness. A stifling blackness that can feel claustrophobic.

Once on the interstate highway, we went through a wind farm. These fields of windmills are not unusual, and we had gone through the same field the day before in the sunlight. At night, though, the lights that are meant to warn approaching planes can become very disturbing. For miles, hundreds of red light blinked on and off in complete synchronization. It was both lulling and troubling, as if the windmills had come together to do this of their own according, warning the cars and planes that traveled near by.

It was a long ride, and it was not particularly pretty, but it was one I was happy to have made. Jefferson City was a nice place, and the ride, while at times boring, was not horrible. And really, when you are doing anything in life, that's about what you'd like to say about it: It wasn't horrible.