I, too, sing (middle) America
It began with a post I discovered this spring on Craig’s List. A few phone interviews and an accepted summer position later, I decided to drive 3,000 miles in seven days from Washington, D.C. to Santa Cruz, California in late June with my sister Katrina.
As I drove from my house in Charlottesville, Virginia to D.C., the sky became green and at first I eased on down the road feeling like Dorothy or Elphaba, but then I almost hydroplaned thrice and, although 6.6.06 had past, I knew I was driving into the apocalypse.
Day One: I slept four hours in the same clothes and we left Friday morning at 5:15, choosing The Fiery Furnaces to propel us through the first leg: wild and wonderful (industrial) West Virginia.
Quickly through the Daniel Boone National Forest, and we were blue Kentucky girls (noting the green grass) in Lexington, which, besides the wonderfully signed Parkette Drive In, had little appeal and we didn’t stay long enough to find out what receptacles the chicken and shrimp are delivered in.
Katrina cheered up once we found Lynn’s Paradise Cafe in Louisville and, as usual, met someone.
We then found fabulous vintage at Dot Fox on Bardstown and continued on to the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen (we like the strawberry-rhubarb pie and the hummingbird cake best).
Day Two: Blaming the mint juleps, we skipped our planned 5:30 a.m. Krispy Kreme challenge: 12 hot glazed in 12 minutes (Louisville fills almost every requirement for the perfect town, including a 24-hour Krispy Kreme) and drove through Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois to stop in St. Louis at MoKoBe’s, a coffee house near the park.
It was Pride Weekend in St. Louis, and the energy was great as we used the wireless connection and tried to superglue the antenna we had picked up in Kentucky back up.
I wished for a kitchen to cook the squid ink linguine and goat loin chops we saw at the Farmers’ Market and we decided to go see the Dale Chihuly “glass in the garden” exhibit at the botanical gardens.
The gardens feature a biosphere (think Epcot Center) and the Chihuly exhibit leads you from the entrance toward the biosphere.
Once inside, the organic shapes continued to complicate my notion of organic form. Fantastic pieces had been placed adjacent to, and sometimes within, the expected, placarded plants.
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You really feel, driving in the middle of this country, that anything could happen, that John Cougar Mellencamp songs can somehow unite us, that a curious lack of cell phone service might be a good thing.
At a gas station in Odessa, we were singing Gillian Welch when we met a rodeo clown who invited us to the rodeo; we politely declined, drove to Lawrence, Kansas, and stayed at the lovely 1885 Halcyon House, which is two blocks off Massachusetts, the main shopping district (the streets in Lawrence are named after states).
We stumbled upon Wild Man Vintage, the finest vintage clothing for men I’ve seen and met Tom, Abby, and a clerk so cool he rocked white orthopedics. They were preparing outfits for a jazz organ, bass, and drum session later that we dropped by at their friend Ben’s, who has a bench made out of skateboards on his front porch. The Lawrence kids were friendly, unpretentious hipsters and the town is much like other towns that redeem states: Ann Arbor, Madison, Austin, Carrboro, Asheville (NC has two since SC has none) and Athens, GA.
Day 3: Colorado couldn’t compete with Lawrence. Three things I remember: great muffins and coffee cake at Boulder’s Cafe Roma and BookEnds, being scolded by the server for not finishing my menudo at Denver’s La Fogata, supergluing the antenna again.
Day 4: Katrina steered with her knee while NPR and then Mice Parade played through Black Dragon, Eagon Canyon, and Ghost Rock on the way to Colorado’s Glenwood Canyon.
We stayed in Hurricane, Utah, and this is where the elements started rearing their ugly heads. Finally within range, Katrina checked her voicemail to discover that her basement apartment had flooded, as had all basements in D.C. with the apocalyptic storm that began the trip. We also felt we were tempting fate by staying the night in a town called Hurricane.
Day Five, Element Two: The National Park Service had closed the North Rim of the Grand Canyon due to the fires, so we decided to go to the South Rim. Later we heard the South Rim had been evacuated in the afternoon after our morning visit. As we drove out of the canyon, a small pebble hit my windshield and started a crack that continues to serpentine its way north. [I consider it the universe's gift of a GPS; it now points to somewhere in Western Canada.]
We also drove through Zion National Park in the morning; Edward Abbey was still mad at us for driving through, but we did refuse the tour bus and drove silently in the early morning light.
Day Six: The trains blow through all night in Flagstaff, Arizona and I woke up singing Dylan; we drove through Sedona and the Red Rocks in the morning, feeling the vibrations that set this place apart.
We felt the trip wouldn’t be complete without traversing Route 66, and we listened to the excellent 93.1FM disco lunch across the Mojave Desert.
We stopped at Murray Hill Farms for strawberries and were introduced to black raspberries, but the best part of this penultimate leg was smiling at the inspiring Telachapi turbines.
Day Seven: Highway 1 is always an adventure.
Near Monterey, we encountered zebras and other animals on the side of the road.
Across the highway, we watched the elephant seals pop their heads up (can you see the seal in the middle?)
And, in the last stretch, we were listening to Joan Baez and pulled off at Castroville, where we bought fried artichoke hearts and blissed out on a final gift of the road.
The complete image gallery from the trip is posted on Flickr.>>
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Posted Sunday, September 3rd, 2006, 6:05 pm | Filed in Food, Photography. Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 10th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
Fantastic pics! I love how you use food and music to narrate the journey. I never thought I could be tempted by Louisville and Lawrence, but now I am. The Food Network should have followed you and Kat–so much more interesting than Rachel Ray.