Omaha, NE to Pierce, NE (September 20)

Distance covered today: 132 miles

Distance covered total: 1,916 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 2,118 miles (53% left to go)

“America is all about speed.  Hot, nasty, badass speed.”

-Eleanor Roosevelt, 1936 (except actually from Talladega Nights)

My time in Omaha passed as though I were on the Island of Calypso- not that I felt a sense of entrapment, but rather that my three-day wait for scooter parts (which had initially sounded like a long break from the road) flew by quickly.  It was nice to have the extra time to steep in Nebraska’s cultural hub, especially with Bikelock around, balancing his roles as host (providing an insider’s scoop on places to go and people to meet around town) and social commentator (as a recent transplant to the area, he could laugh alongside me at certain elements of Nebraska culture).  One such thing that never ceased to amaze/humor us was the masses’ rabid devotion to Cornhuskers football.  While the obsession with the ‘Huskers manifests itself in many forms, my favorite example was in the Five Day Forecast on the local news.  The weather guy had the typical screen with “partly cloudy” and “sunny” graphics for WED, THU, and FRI, but where the rest of the Western world observes the phenomenon known as Saturday (or “SAT” in this case), Nebraskans mark the occasion with a big, red N, proudly designating a home game that weekend.

There’s a saying that “when a man growns tired of London, he has grown tired of life.”  For all I know, the same applies to Omaha as well, ‘cause I hadn’t quite gotten my fill when, before I knew it, I received a call saying that the scooter’s new parts were in place and it was ready to go.  I promptly rounded up my stuff and bid farewell to my digs in Omaha, as I intended to leave straight from the Honda place and gun it as far as possible before sundown.

At the garage, I was given not only the keys to the revamped Metro, but also some words of warning from the mechanic responsible for nursing it back to health.  He asked where I was headed (based on my license plate he had guessed I was going back to New York), and when he heard of my intention to carry onward, he repeated an earlier warning about the precarious state of my well-worn tires.  He had a point- they did look kinda shabby, but they weren’t completely threadbare, and the scooter guys back in South Bend seemed to think that the tires wouldn’t be an issue.  I briefly considered his well-reasoned forecast of peril, but ultimately his words of warning went as unheeded as Starbuck’s plea to Ahab.  Nay, I answered.  For now, I decided I would take my chances.

And so, with the scooter restored to health- albeit on dangerously balding tires- I finally put Omaha in the rearview mirror and again headed boldly into the West (hopefully with better results this time around)!  As I pulled onto the road and joined the flow of traffic, out of habit I casually glanced at the speedometer and did a violent double-take that nearly caused me to swerve into oncoming traffic.  With only a slight turn of my wrist on the gas, it said I was going 35 mph!

Scooting through Northeast Nebraska- just like Lewis and Clark before me.

Impossible, I thought.  33 mph was firmly established as the scooter’s upper bound- it had maybe sniffed 35 mph before when I was flooring it downhill, but on level ground, without cranking back on the gas?  What was going on?

To make sure it wasn’t a fluke or some optical illusion, I hit the gas to see what the Metro’s terminal velocity would be.  To my astonishment, the needle kept going… 35, 38, 40 mph!!!  It could even touch a blistering 42 or so when gunning it down a slope.

I still couldn’t believe it.  In fact, one of the first explanations that popped into my head was the suspicion that the mechanics at the Honda place had tampered with my speedometer to make it look as though they were miracle-working alchemists who had turned tortoise to hare.  How else could I explain the scooter suddenly going almost 25% faster!?

But it did kind of feel like I could keep up with traffic better, so maybe I was clipping along at a white-hot 40 mph.  Could it have really been friction from those not-so-perfectly-circular bearings holding me back all along?

Whatever the reason, I wasn’t gonna ask questions.  I was just going to bask in the glow of the Metro’s heaven-sent newfound speed.  Like an uncaged bird or a tethered beast with its shackles severed- whatever your preferred metaphor for repression bubbling into liberation may be- can only begin to describe my sense of elation while rocketing across the sunny Nebraska countryside.  This was going to change scooting as I knew it.  A 5-7 mph spike in velocity might not sound like much to the average person, but to me it felt like warp speed.  And when you consider that I spend at least 6 hours a day driving, that adds up to an extra 30 or 40 miles of distance per day.  That extra ground will be worth its weight in gold, especially as I traverse the wide open Plains and deserts of the West.

Another salute to Meriwether and William.

Throughout the day I would look down and admire the beauty of seeing the speedometer needle at 35, 38, 40.  It looked so foreign (not to mention badass) to see the needle dangerously tilted at an extreme angle to the right, instead of the boring 30-33 to which I had grown accustomed.  Obviously, in my couple months of knowing the Metro, the “35”, “40”, and even a little notch that would suggest 45 had always been there, but they were just a cruel tease.  Impossibly unattainable.  Forbidden fruit.  And since the scooter had always gone 33, I foolishly dismissed the notion that those numbers were telling me all along that the motor wasn’t living up to its full potential.

Luckily, I was so enthralled with going 40 mph that I hardly even noticed the painfully uneventful day of driving.  The weather was nice, but except for an occasional small town like Tekamah, there wasn’t too much happening.  I did have one major landmark to look forward to though: the 98^th meridian.

The 98^th meridian is said to be the approximate demarcation line of where East meets West.  The land becomes a lot more arid west of the Meridian, giving rise to many iconic species of “Western” flora and fauna (think jackrabbits and sagebrush).  Though there was no indication of where exactly I crossed this threshold, one subtle clue hinting at my transition was that the cornfields which had unblinkingly served as my backdrop throughout the Midwest began to taper off and gave way to a greater number of feedlots and hay fields (which are much less water-intensive operations).

With the sun creeping lower and lower in the sky, I finally split from the day’s backroad highways for the even more lightly traveled roads that led to Willow Creek State Recreation Area, not far outside of the small town of Pierce, where I had chosen to camp for the night.

Puttering into the park, I found that the entrance booth was unattended and a sign indicated that the nightly camping fee should be placed in an envelope and dropped in a lock-box.  Tempting though it was to ignore the sign and/or pretend that I didn’t have exact change, like an honest native of the Heartland, I paid up.  You’re welcome, Nebraska.

Wallet lighter and conscience satisfied, I drove further into the park to find a suitable campsite.  Sure it was the middle of the week, and it wasn’t really the summer travel season anymore, but I expected to round a corner and find at least a couple tents and trailers and some Nebraskan father tending to a grill of burgers and brats.  But just like at the park’s entrance booth, there was no one to be found.  Pretty soon it began to feel like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone rather than a state park, and I finally accepted that the place was completely deserted.

Occupy Willow Creek.

Though intrigued by the haunting emptiness of the place, there wasn’t time to dwell on that for now, as I needed to set up my tent with darkness closing in fast.  I picked a patch of ground only a few yards away from the shoreline of Willow Creek Reservoir (a surprisingly large body of water) and then dug the tent out from the belly of the Metro.  Like summoning a seldom-used relief pitcher from the dregs of the bullpen, I didn’t really know what to expect from the tent.  A couple weeks ago I had successfully practiced pitching it, but I didn’t know how things would go in this high-pressure game situation.

Luckily, my concern was much ado about nothing, as the tent was delightfully user-friendly and went up in a flash.  After soaking in a moment of triumph (and snapping the above photo to document the historic occasion), the loneliness of my surroundings crept back into my bones and consciousness.  To be frank, it was a little eerie to be all alone on this lake in the middle of the prairie.  Willow Creek was a beautiful place, offering prime waterfront real estate and a stunning view of the sunset, but I could only focus on those things peripherally.  I was distracted and on edge due to my solitude, as my imagination loved nothing more than to remind me of the creepy vacuum I’d call home for the night.

As much as I would’ve liked to have friends or neighbors for a little company, it occurred to me that the only thing scarier than having the park all to myself might have been sharing it with just one other person.  Initially it might seem comforting, but there would be that lingering mistrust (What was their story? Were they an axe murderer on the lam?), and an uncomfortable tension, as I waited for a Most Dangerous Game scenario to play out.  But alas, there was no such stranger around to personify my fear.  Instead, my homemade brand of paranoia was my own worst enemy, and I passed the time peering around nervously for prowling cougars and whatever other deadly forces stalked the countryside of Pierce, NE.

Sunset over Willow Creek Reservoir.

The sun was really my only companion, so I had bittersweet feelings about watching it set over the reservoir as I ate my dinner.  Shortly thereafter I was alone under an impressively clear night sky (not surprisingly, Pierce isn’t very guilty of light pollution).  At that point, there really wasn’t much else to do except gaze into the heavens, but my time doing that was short-lived, as it was getting chilly and I was still a bit spooked by the desolate blackness in which I stood immersed.  Retreating into my safe cocoon of a tent, I typed a few notes for a future blog entry but called it a night pretty soon, electing to preserve both my computer and biological batteries.

Now, I didn’t want to admit this ‘cause it makes me sound like an idiot, but I didn’t really pack a sleeping bag… I mean, hey, it was September, a supposedly balmy summer month!  In my effort to skimp on cargo at all costs, I felt as though a wafer-thin sleeping bag liner, used in tandem with articles of clothing, would suffice.  Temperatures on this fine September night were gonna dip into the low 40s, so I called all hands to the front, with even my travel towel and raincoat getting incorporated into my still-disappointingly-thin heap of bedding.

But no matter how cold or uncomfortable, after a day on the road, falling asleep is pretty easy.  Without a single noise from human civilization within earshot, I dozed off and eventually reawakened later in the night.  It was still dark outside, but I guessed I had spent several hours asnooze as I rolled over and checked my phone for the time.  Nope.  It wasn’t even midnight.

Crap.  It was gonna be a long, cold night.

Town(s) of the Day:

-Norfolk, NE

Shoutouts:

-Mr. Carson back in The ‘Ville. Thanks again for lending me the tent!

-Teenage kid at a gas station in the quiet town of West Point.  Upon seeing my license plate and going through the customary “Did you ride that thing all the way from New York?!” exchange, he gave me a sarcastic “Welcome to Nebraska!” that suggested he was bored with his home state and probably thought it was lame compared to the bright lights of New York.  I wish he had more Nebraska pride, as I had rather enjoyed my time living “The Good Life” down in Omaha and was in no hurry to leave.  Maybe someday he’ll go to New York and in absentia come to appreciate the subtle beauty of small-town life on the Plains.

 

 

Omaha, NE to Tekamah, NE… and then back to Omaha, NE (September 17)

Distance covered today: 50 miles

Distance covered total: 1,784 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 2,266 miles (55% left to go)

Warning: No pictures to document this abbreviated day of scooting.

“The adventure doesn’t start until something goes wrong.”

-Yvon Chouinard

I spent a day off in Omaha, living “The Good Life” as advertised on the Nebraska welcome sign.  Mostly, that entailed blogging and planning the next week of my trip.  I called up Dan, the professor who ran the buffalo ranch, to tell him my story and he told me a) that I was crazy, and b) that I’d be more than welcome to stop by the ranch.  And just like that, I was going to South Dakota!  Except the actual going to South Dakota would not happen “just like that.”  Omaha might mark the approximate half-way point of my journey, but it signals completion of the easy half.  I knew that Part Two of my trip would entail a new level of difficulty, altogether (yes, that’s an Airplane reference).

Making my way across the emptiness of the Plains was just the first test in the gauntlet of obstacles remaining. After that, who knew how the Metro and its 4.5 horsepower engine would fare in the Rockies, or across hundreds of miles of desert, or if it could hurdle the 10,000-foot Sierra Nevadas in the home stretch.  Clearly the Metro and I still had a lot to prove out in the Wild West.

Up until this point, my route had sounded like a concert tour, making nightly stops in cities like Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, and Omaha, with other sizable towns like Syracuse, Ann Arbor and South Bend sprinkled in between.  But from here on out I’d be seeing a lot fewer people, with Nebraska towns like Pierce (pop. 1,767) and Valentine (pop. 2,820) as my destinations for the night.  I suspected that many people in these small Plains towns had never seen a moped before, and could only hope that they would take kindly to the city-slicker scootin’ type, like me.

With three very full days of driving separating me from the next roof I’d have over my head, some good weather would’ve been much appreciated.  But true to form, the weather was its usual depressing self, sending me off in a cold and drizzly haze.  I was pretty well saturated by the time I was only 20 miles outside of Omaha, and was resigning myself to endure a long, miserable three day push to the ranch.

Little did I know that this light rain was just a minor nuisance compared to the trouble lurking around the next turn in the road.  Only 50 miles into my day, it happened- The Little Engine That Could finally faltered, and I broke down.

I made it just past the small collection of houses known as Herman, NE (proudly advertised as having a population of 310), when suddenly the rhythm of the Metro’s engine was interrupted by a faint sound I would characterize as something between a click, a rattle, and a vibration.  With the scooter still chuggin’ along just fine, to an average driver the sound may have been imperceptible or easily dismissed.  But after 2,000 miles together, my ears and the rumble of the engine had become one, and although I couldn’t isolate exactly what was wrong, I knew that something was amiss.  After listening closely for a few more seconds, the half-click sound persisted and I pulled over for closer inspection.

Pretty soon it was clear that I had a big problem on my hands.  When I revved the gas, the engine would purr, but the wheels wouldn’t spin.  My hunch was that the belt had worn out- something my modest collection of wrenches couldn’t remedy.  Time to start pushing.

In the earlier stages of the trip, I had expected that a breakdown was inevitable and depending on where it happened, the gravity of the problem, and the cost of fixing it, I would calmly and rationally decide how to proceed.  Just because I had previously braced myself for a setback didn’t make it any easier to stomach now that the moment had come.  And after making it to Omaha (halfway along my originally intended route) in only two weeks, I had begun to think that just maybe I’d be able to make it all the way without any major snafu.  Fifty miles and one cold dose of reality later, my hubris was put in check as I walked the Metro towards the next town.

Four or five miles down the gray stretch of highway was Tekamah (pronounced tuh-kay-muh), where I hoped to find an auto garage and tow service or someone in a pickup headed back to Omaha.  I was closer to Herman, but I wasn’t likely to find help in a town that size.

I hadn’t pushed very far before a friendly Nebraskan stopped to see if I needed help.  He only had a small sedan though, so I politely declined his offer of help as I was holding out for something that could accommodate the Metro.  It wasn’t long before a good Samaritan in a pickup truck pulled over to lend a hand.  We tossed the scooter into the back and hauled it to an auto garage in (or maybe the auto garage was) downtown Tekamah.

Ideally, I was hoping to find another person in a pickup headed for Omaha whom I could persuade (along with $20) to take me back to Omaha, but on a Saturday afternoon such as this, there wasn’t the usual stream of commuters down to the Big O.  It looked as though I was gonna have to have the scooter towed (and by towed I mean having it thrown in the back of a company truck for a hefty sum).

At first, I was a little nervous about prying a Nebraska man away from the Cornhusker game, but it turned out that the tow driver, Jim, was an interesting character who I got along with pretty well.

Jim was a man of the Plains.  Born and raised in Tekamah, it was revealed in conversation that he’d been as far west as Chadron (a dot on the map in the western part of the state) and that he’d been to a NASCAR race in Kansas City (and it sounded as though that was roughly the extent of his travel).  He was interested in hearing details of my trip, and also shared details about life in Nebraska.  I was a fan of his gritty, country dialect and his expression “man, they’re thick through there” when describing places where prairie dogs and other critters were in abundance.

Jim dropped me off at a Honda motorcycle place in Omaha, where the Metro checked into rehab.  Sure enough, my initial diagnosis was confirmed when the mechanic in the shop showed me the disintegrated remains of what used to be the scooter’s belt. He also showed me the wear on these circular bearing parts that spin along with the belt.  Presumably they had been perfect circles to begin with, but now they were misshapen and didn’t look like something that would spin smoothly for 200 miles per day.  It was going to be a pretty easy fix but they’d need to order replacements for both, so I had a few days to better acquaint myself with The Pearl of The Big Muddy  (Omaha’s unofficial nickname).

I urge you not to feel sorry for me for breaking down- direct your sympathy instead to the poor soul who got stuck with me for three more nights than he bargained for.  That would be my former college roommate Tim (a.k.a. “Bikelock”) who had settled in Omaha to pursue his Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  Bikelock came through in the clutch, making me comfortable in his new apartment and adhering to life’s cardinal rule of helping friends in need, especially those in the midst of a motor scooter odyssey.

Another reason not to feel sorry for me is that by breaking down where I did, I caught a pretty fortuitous break.  Coincidentally (or perhaps by fate), before I had hit the road for South Dakota, Bikelock had bestowed upon me a laminated four-leaf clover for good luck.  Though not normally the superstitious type, when you’re attempting to ride a scooter from coast-to-coast, you’ll take all the help you can get.  Clover in hand (or wallet, rather), one of the first things that came to mind after I broke down was a bitterly sarcastic cry of “some lucky clover!”  But really, I shouldn’t have scoffed at its mystical powers, because after getting over my initial disappointment, I realized that really, my breakdown was not so unlucky after all.  Mechanically, it could’ve been a lot worse (the new parts would cost me more time than money), and logistically, it could’ve happened in a much worse location (I was lucky to be within towing range of Omaha, where I could find a certified Honda repair place and was afforded the luxury of staying with a friend, instead of being stranded in a speck of a town waiting to fall victim to Malachi and the Children of the Corn).  The Metro had survived its first scare and was gonna live to see another day.  Those buffalo and the Wild West would just have to wait.

Shout-outs:

-Bikelock.  Sorry to have doubted the power of the four-leaf clover.

-Jim.  Thanks again for the lift!

-The two people who pulled over to see if I needed a ride.

Town(s) of the Day:

-Tekamah, NE

Ames, IA to Omaha, NE (September 15)

Distance covered today: 183 miles

Distance covered total: 1,734 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 1,766 miles (50% left to go)

“On a long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha…”

-Bob Seger, Turn the Page

Originally, I was only going to employ the above Bob Seger quote in reference to my geographic location, as this next leg of the trip involved taking roads that matched the same description.

But then, once the song’s opening line danced across my mind, it was inevitably followed by those soul-searching sax riffs that are the ballad’s distinguishing feature.  Pretty soon, I was reliving the song in its entirety and realized that Bob’s raspy howl really resonated with my new life as a nomadic waif of the road.

So instead of boring you with a play-by-play description of me rolling slowly through 183 miles of cornfields, I’m going to exercise a little artistic license and expound upon the relevance of a few select lines from Turn the Page.

“You feel the eyes upon you as you’re shakin’ off the cold”

Man, was it cold…

I woke up to find that the seat of my scooter had been vandalized.  It was scarred with odd markings that had not been there the night before.  But this wasn’t the work of some minor league neighborhood delinquent- this was a sign of much graver danger.

It was the handiwork of the infamous Jack Frost, evidently out of the joint and back to terrorize the heartland earlier than expected.  Only halfway through September, and not even halfway to my destination, and I found myself facing 34-degree temperatures with the frost to prove it.  I just hoped that the cold-hearted Frost wouldn’t break his parole and stalk me for the remainder of my trip (a chilling prospect, indeed).

After shivering through yesterday’s frigid temperatures (which were downright balmy by comparison), I considered staying put in Ames for another day to wait for warmer weather to return.  This stall tactic would give me a chance to go back to the slaughterhouse and tackle The Sloppy Southerner.  But if the slaughterhouse had taught me anything, it was that I had entered the part of the country where nothin’ comes easy- including your heart’s ability to easily pump your blood through your veins.  In the bigger picture though, this meant that I just had to bite the bullet and hop in the saddle to head down the old dusty (or in this case, frosty) trail to Omaha, like hundreds of road-weary cowboys before me.

Summoning all hands to the front, I donned practically all of my clothing in a desperate effort to brave the cold (heaping five thin layers on my upper body and wearing basketball shorts under my pants).

Iowa and corn. Pretty much says it all, right here.

 

“You can listen to the engine moanin’ out its one-note song…

But your thoughts will soon be wandering the way they always do

When you’re riding sixteen hours and there’s nothing else to do”

OK, so I didn’t quite ride for sixteen hours, but these lines really capture the loneliness and solitude of long-distance scooting.  At this point, I was well accustomed to having only a couple stray thoughts rattling around in my head to keep me company, but the complete lack of stimuli between Ames and Omaha led to an even more introspective day than usual.  Farm after farm and cornfield after cornfield made me think that someday I might want to try my hand at farming and attempt to live off the fat of the land.  It would be tough to get started and brutally hard work, but food has to come from somewhere.  Something to consider if this writing thing doesn’t work out.

Alone with my thoughts, I also hatched a crazy plan for the road ahead.  Everyone I had talked to had warned me of how painfully boring my three-day push across Nebraska would be.  Initially I was determined to “stay the course” since I’m all about giving new places a fair chance without forming an opinion of a place solely through word-of-mouth (for instance, I love my hometowns of Voorheesville and Cleveland, but, let’s face it, they don’t generate too many rave reviews from outsiders).  Soon I began to think that maybe central Nebraska wasn’t the tourists’ delight I had been hoping for, and started considering alternatives.  I wanted to make the Plains chapter of my trip something to be enjoyed and not merely something to be endured.

Fortunately, I had an ace up my sleeve that could help make for a memorable Great Plains experience.  Back at Carleton, I had taken a course called “Writing the Great Plains” taught by a visiting professor who ran a buffalo ranch in southwestern South Dakota.  I decided that I’d call him up once I reached Omaha to see if he would be willing to accommodate a visitor/ranch-hand on short notice.  I felt like a visit to a buffalo ranch would inject a much welcome dose of adventure into my trip (and into this blog), thereby justifying a 400-mile and two- or three-day detour.  Besides, does a trip across the Plains even count if you don’t see a buffalo?

Another sign that says it all.  Those four words are the official slogan of my trip.

“And you don’t feel much like riding, you just wish the trip was through”

I’ll beg to differ with Bob on this one.  Scooting through the cold for hours on end does get pretty tiresome, and my straight line through Iowa had been less than action-packed, but by no means was I hoping for the trip to be finished.

With another disaster-free day of travel and another state crossed off the list, I felt my typical glow of satisfaction for reaching my destination for the night, but my pride in pulling up to my friend Tim’s apartment in Omaha was even more pronounced than usual.  Reaching Omaha represented a major milestone, as the aptly nicknamed “Gate to the West” almost perfectly marked the halfway-point of my trip (check out the mileage at the top of the post… obviously the percentage would change if I followed through with the “Wild Idea” to visit Wild Idea Buffalo Ranch in South Dakota).

So, to borrow Bob’s term, Omaha marked a “turning of the page” as the first half of my trip came to a close, with the second half about to begin.  It was hard to believe that my chain of hosts had come to an end, and while I would miss having a friendly face greeting me each night, I was really excited to unearth the tent from beneath the seat and tame the West mano-a-mano.  With National Parks, the Rockies, the stark beauty of the Plains, and maybe even real-life buffalo dotting the road ahead, there was a lot to look forward to.

*For a drive that was considerably lacking in action (or perhaps because I was looking for something to do), I ended up with a decent collection of photos to show for my day...

The Boone River proves that Iowa is not entirely corn.

The Eli to the Continental Divide's Peyton.

Map of the Lincoln Highway at an info center near the Missouri River. It looked as though I'd come so far (roughly 10 feet)!

My first ever visit to the Home of Arbor Day.

Towns of the Day:

Boone, IA; Glidden, IA

Shout-outs:

-Girl about my age with Texas plates who slowed down to yell out the window that she had the same type of scooter back home.

-Iowa farm kid who faked swerving toward me in his truck.  Pretending to run over scooterists: classic rural Iowa fun right there.

-Tim “Bikelock”, my host in Omaha. We’ll be singing more of this guy’s praises in future posts…

Rock Island, IL to Ames, IA (September 14)

Distance covered today: 200 miles

Distance covered total: 1,551 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 1,949 miles (56% left to go)

When morning broke in Rock Island, I had been expecting to be greeted by more of the perfect weather that had helped make yesterday’s drive so enjoyable.  That was far from the case.  It was cold and damp, with a steady mist and light rain coming from dull gray skies.  Basically, it looked like I was back in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan again.

I had never been to Iowa before, a surprising fact considering that my college years were spent in southern Minnesota (then again, maybe that says something about Iowa).  To put it another way, if my life’s travels were documented on an antiqued-looking nautical map, Iowa would’ve been the place in some remote sea where the black and foreboding sea monster illustration is etched.  I had really been looking forward to finally seeing what all the fuss was about, and had envisioned a glorious introduction to the state, crossing over a sun-splashed Mississippi River on that towering arched bridge shown in the movie Sugar, and then taking a triumphant picture at a colorful “Welcome to Iowa” sign…

But none of my fantasized “Welcome to Iowa” scenarios played out, and what was supposed to be a symbolic river crossing amounted to an anticlimactic letdown.  The bad weather had a lot to do with it, but the route I had chosen took me across an ordinary, rusty bridge that had no “Iowa Welcomes You” sign on the other side.  It really wasn’t that big of a deal- on my only other drive out West, I remembered thinking that the Missouri River, not the Mississippi, unofficially heralded entrance into the West- but when you spend heaps of mostly uneventful hours on a scooter, you look forward to stupid little things like state welcome signs.  They provide a sense of gratification and the illusion of forward progress, clearly mark the start of a new chapter of the journey, and break up some of the monotony of driving through the Upper Midwest.

Getting over my disappointment, I motored through the bustling river town of Davenport, the largest of the Quad Cities.  Davenport was big enough to get slightly lost in, but it tapered off soon enough, and then I found myself surrounded by the world famous cornfields of Iowa.  Who would’ve suspected, but those tattered-map sea monsters I mentioned earlier weren’t anywhere to be found in The Hawkeye State.  There was however, an ocean of corn, churning tirelessly in winds that would make even the scurviest and most peg-legged sailors yearn for the safety of the harbor.  The ferocious crosswinds blew me around within my lane, making driving difficult and miserably cold, as I found myself yet a couple hundred miles from pulling into port in far-off Ames.

I spent the morning carving my way northward towards Highway 30, and then turned left once I got there.  And that just about concluded my turning for the day, as Route 30 would take me 130 miles in one long, straight, boring line all the way to Ames.

Davenport, IA, on the banks of the Mississippi.

Just a few miles down the road I pulled into the town of Mount Vernon, where I had a lunch engagement with a friend from Carleton named Alex.  Alex, a Mount Vernon native, had generously offered to treat me to lunch at a place called the Lincoln Café, on the town’s handsome main street.  Along with Cornell College, the Lincoln Café is Mount Vernon’s claim to fame, having garnered praise from a long list of newspapers, magazines, and cooking shows (and deservedly so, as I would attest after having eaten there).  Evidently management doesn’t let all the accolades get to their head, as the place retained a down-to-earth feel, and struck me as having perfectly captured the quintessential small-town diner ambiance.  It definitely gets my endorsement if you’re hungry and find yourself in east-central Iowa.

Shortly after my delightful lunch in Mount Vernon, I passed through Cedar Rapids, which is the kind of town that I would’ve half-jokingly made a big deal about if the movie Cedar Rapids (which I haven’t even seen) hadn’t beat me to the punch.  Apparently the movie comically portrays the bright lights and fast times that I’m sure characterize Iowa’s second largest city, which is notorious for living life on the edge.  I did my best to avoid the fun and craziness, remaining resolute about covering another hundred-plus miles to Ames.

After Cedar Rapids though, Route 30 turned into the very type of road that I had been trying all trip to avoid- an ugly divided highway with exits, billboards, litter, truck stops and traffic blowing past me in excess of 65 mph.  I was still legally allowed to drive on this stretch of highway, but it wasn’t very enjoyable, so I tried blazing my own path on country roads running parallel to Highway 30.  This experiment was short lived, as these country roads were almost all gravel or raw dirt, and were often marked with warning signs that read “Caution: Minimum Maintenance Road… Enter at Your Own Risk.”  I felt tough after conquering my first risky dirt road, but pretty soon I decided to get back on 30 and just gut it out all the way to Ames.

Life on the divided highway was bearable, but cold.  By this time, the skies had cleared up, but the cold persisted.  Temperatures were hovering around 50 degrees, but felt way more frigid with the relentless winds swirling about.  I hadn’t realized how cold I was until stopping for lunch back in Mount Vernon, where I experienced those shivers that start once you walk indoors, which lasted unabated for quite a while.  While exposed to the elements out on the road though, the most telltale sign of the penetrating cold were the stalactites of snot that would regularly issue from my nose in another graphic display of the gritty demands of transcontinental scooting.

As for the scenery, I found the claims of Iowa’s flatness and boringness to be overblown.  Corn is not necessarily synonymous with boring, especially when there are gently rolling hills, river valleys, and pockets of trees on hand to inject some variety and greenery into the landscape.  For the second consecutive day, the ride’s visual highlight was provided by another massive wind farm near Ames, with the white turbines glowing brightly in the setting sun.

The Metro doesn't back down from a challenge.

As that last sentence suggests, yet again, the sun was setting while I was still in transit.  Driving directly into its blinding rays I could scarcely see the road ahead of me (not that I really needed to, since it was so straight), but I was more concerned about the danger lurking behind me.  I was afraid that cars and trucks closing in on me from behind might not be able to make out my puny silhouette against the blazing sun, and would splatter me on their grill like a bug.  I kept a watchful eye on my rearview mirror, and there were a couple instances when semi-trucks barreling toward me swerved out of my lane at the last second.  I was proud of my awareness, but also glad that I never had to perform an emergency swerve over to the shoulder (where I would risk careening off of Iowa’s many sheer cliff faces).

The onset of night didn’t make things any warmer, and I’d heard whispers of frost warnings being issued overnight (in mid-September no less!).  Fortunately I was spared the development of any Dumb and Dumber-esque snot icicles as Ames sprang suddenly from the all-encompassing cornfields, and not too long after sunset I had reached the apartment of my friend Josh, a Voorheesville native currently in grad school at Iowa State.

Almost immediately after rolling into Josh’s driveway and plopping my backpack inside his place, we went out for dinner.  So far on the trip, I’d been trying to get my hosts to take me to iconic places that came highly recommended by locals and were regarded as “can’t miss” dining destinations.  This doesn’t necessarily mean I was seeking high-falutin’ gourmet restaurants, but rather places that were unique, had character, and would be more than simply a place to ingest calories.  In food jargon, I wanted a cultural experience as my side dish (if not main course).  Josh really came through in this category, delivering a visit to a very memorable dining establishment.

We went to a restaurant called Hickory Park.  This dimly-lit place was a true Western saloon-style slaughterhouse (swinging doors and all), said to serve 20,000 pounds of meat a week!  Carefully perusing their menu of good old American heart-stopping meals, my attention was drawn to something called the Saucy Southerner, which Josh laughingly told me was all of the undesirable and throwaway cuts of meat lumped into a sandwich and disguised under a masking agent cloak of sauce (apparently only a slight step above the “Potted Ham” described in The Jungle by Upton Sinclair).

Though fascinated by the Sloppy Southerner (a fitting nickname that I gave it by accident), I bailed on it at the last minute, opting instead for a chicken entrée that came with better side dishes.  One could say that I chickened out.

As is the case in most college towns, Iowa State University is the lifeblood of the community, so it was fitting that my time in Ames ended with a tour of campus.  I knew very little about ISU prior to my visit, but I came away with a favorable impression of the place thanks to a combination of the aesthetically pleasing grounds, my behind the scenes look at “The Bone Room” in the geology/paleontology building, and the nice bunch of Cyclones who showed me a good time at the slaughterhouse.

Even in the face of gale-force winds and bitter cold, my first taste of the Hawkeye State was a good one- especially in a literal sense, given my stops at two memorable restaurants.  Although my digestive system was probably grateful I’d avoided it, I still felt pangs of regret for not grabbing the Sloppy Southerner by the horns (or more aptly, by the entrails!).

Shout-Outs:

-Alex, for treating me to a great lunch at the Lincoln Café in Mount Vernon.  I owe ya one!

-Josh and friends, for the fun introduction to Iowa State and the town of Ames.  You guys sure come up with some creative solutions for the fill-in-the-blank bunny faces on the slaughterhouse placemats.

Town(s) of the Day:

Mount Vernon, IA; Ames, IA

Chicago, IL to Rock Island, IL (September 13)

Distance covered today: 176 miles

Distance covered total: 1,351 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 2,149 miles (61% left to go)

I ended up spending a couple days in Chicago, where my big city livin’ didn’t get much wilder than riding on the El (their mass transit rail system) and eating some Mexican food.  Even so, I was glad to have taken advantage of at least a couple elements of urban life, since Chicago was the last major city that I’d encounter for the remainder of the trip (not to sell my upcoming stops in Omaha, NE and Ames, IA short, and technically I’d nick the outermost fringe of the Denver metropolitan area during my eventual stay in Boulder, but you get the point).

Chicago also marked the end of the road for my lengthy run along U.S. Highway 20.  I’d driven nine different swaths of Route 20 through six different states, and probably would not have as long a run on any other road the rest of the way.  I’d also be taking a slightly more southerly course along 20’s counterparts numbered in the 30s, which brings me to a quick tangent about highway numbers.  Before planning this trip, I had known the closely guarded secret that even-numbers denoted highways oriented east to west, while odd numbers marked those going north to south, but had never noticed that with U.S. Highways (not to be confused with interstates, U.S. Highways or “Routes” are the ones with the black and white signs) are given progressively higher numbers the farther south and west you go (the opposite pertains to the Interstate system: I-90 is in the north, I-10 is in the south, I-5 goes down the West Coast, I-95 goes down the East Coast).  So there is actually some semblance of order governing a well-disguised set of numbers that- until recently- had seemed almost random to me.  Good to know, in case all else fails and I ever need to navigate solely by highway number.

Setting out for the much more sparsely populated interior of the country, one thing I wouldn’t miss was Chicagoland’s obscene volume of traffic and layers upon layers of suburbs, which took me almost a couple hours to breach.  After passing through inner-ring suburbs and then middle-distance suburbs, I still had to hurdle satellite communities like Naperville and Aurora, once their own separate entities but long since engulfed by sprawl.  And beyond those come the “exurbs” such as Yorkville, where cookie-cutter McMansions and strip malls have been plopped onto recently developed farmland.  I find these exurbs, 50 miles beyond Chicago’s city limits, to be a hideous abomination of the times when developers acted (and in some cases are still acting) as though the price of gas would never go up and the price of homes would never diminish.  Those factors had made exurbs alluring in the first place, but since neither holds quite as true anymore, exurbs are falling on tough times (this point is echoed in the brief article, “The Curse of the Exurbs”, linked to at the bottom, if you’re interested).  Like I said back in my Cleveland entry, hopefully we’re learning the lesson that such diffuse settlement isn’t the way to go.

GPS? The only thing I need to navigate is the setting sun, like this one in Chicago.

There finally came a point though, when Chicagoland came to an end, yielding to archetypal scenes of the Midwestern farm life, made even more magnificent by the perfect weather.  While some people might have found cornfield after cornfield to get a bit monotonous, I didn’t mind it for the time being (although I wondered how sick I’d get of the agrarian landscape by the time central Nebraska rolled around).  The farmland was interrupted only by the occasional small town or some massive grain elevator, ethanol distillery, or canning/processing facility.  I had officially entered the cradle of big time American agribusiness.

One of the day’s most notable spectacles came just west of the town of La Moille, where I happened upon one of the largest wind farms that I’ve ever seen.  As a former salesman of wind energy credits (an odd job of mine back in high school), I’m a little biased in my wholehearted endorsement of wind power, but I can’t really understand the firestorm of controversy that these things incite.  I don’t think they’re unsightly at all, but instead find them majestic and awe-inspiring.  Some criticize them for killing birds, but I feel as though the alternatives (powerlines and unabated global warming) would kill even more.  Especially out here on the lonesome, windswept prairie, generating wind power amidst cornfields represents as good a form of land use as anything.

As smoothly as the breeze through the turbines, eventually I coasted into the town of Walnut, IL.  To call Walnut a “sleepy” town would overstate the level of activity there.  “Comatose” might be more like it.  Anyway, in Walnut I stopped to try to put some air in my tires, which had been a big priority ever since talking to the scooter guys in South Bend.  I’d tried to find air sooner, but the pumps at a lot of gas stations have nozzles that wouldn’t quite fit the Metro’s petite tires.  The gas station in Walnut was no exception, but they told me to try at an auto garage across the street.  At the garage, I met a friendly attendant who hooked me up with a free pressure check and some good banter to boot. When he found out that I had driven the scooter from New York (and beyond), he let out a holler of “gee whiz!”  It was the first time I’d heard someone less than 40 years old use “gee whiz” as a serious exclamation of surprise.  Maybe it hasn’t yet fallen out of favor in the lexicon of the good people of Walnut.  After finishing with the tires, the good-natured Gee Whiz Guy joked that he didn’t want me getting any speeding tickets since he’d feel guilty for having lent my scooter illegally blazing speed.

From the Windy City to a windy cornfield.

He needn’t have worried, ‘cause it was the same old 30 mph the rest of the way to the Quad Cites region, of which my destination of Rock Island is a part.  I got crossed up a little bit with my directions as I crept closer, and needed to take some more gravel roads to remedy the situation, at one point getting stuck at an automatic light that the scooter was too small to turn green.  I didn’t see the Mighty Mississipp’ on my way into town, but was looking forward to the highly symbolic river crossing in the morning.

In Rock Island I stayed with the parents of a friend from school and was treated to more of the top-notch hospitality that I was coming to expect from the Carleton network.  It was as if the cultural phenomenon known as “Minnesota Nice” gets swept down river and deposited in downstream towns along the banks.  Just as I had in Chicago, I felt another sense of accomplishment for having reached the Mississippi.  Gee whiz!

Shout-Outs:

-Gee Whiz Guy.

-The Noe family in Rock Island for hosting me for the night and outfitting me with maps for the next several states!  They were hugely helpful.

Town(s) of the Day:

-Mendota, IL

Further Reading: Curse of the Exurbs

South Bend, IN to Chicago, IL (September 10)

Distance covered today: 111 miles

Distance covered total: 1,175 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 2,325 miles (66% left to go)

My overnight charade as Henry David Thoreau was a very comfortable one, indeed.  While it was unfortunate that my visit to South Bend would be so abbreviated, I had a lot to look forward to in the next couple days.  For one, this was only going to be a half-day of scooting, as there were only about 100 miles separating the backyard cabin and my next stop in Chicago, where I planned on spending my first day off since Syracuse.

After spending many of my days racing against the setting sun and the occasional rainstorm, today’s shorter distance was going to allow me to adopt a more leisurely pace.  In fact my day would be made even “shorter” since I’d be crossing into the Central Time Zone somewhere out there (though I’m not sure anyone really knows exactly where… Time in Indiana has a dizzyingly complex and convoluted history, and even has its own looooooong Wikipedia page if you’re ever desperate for something to read.  It’s actually more interesting than it sounds.)

Another reason for slowing my roll was that the scooter guys from last night had said it was in the best interests of the engine to ease up on the gas a bit, instead of running the motor at full tilt all of the time.  I had asked if the engine could sustain day after day of white-knuckle action, and they said that it’s actually happiest when it’s running at 85-90% strength, noting that most wear occurs either at rest or when its starting up.  This was another piece of encouraging news, since I had feared that I been inviting disaster by piling 200 more miles onto the odometer each day.  Obviously the downside was that now I’d try my best to scoot along at 30 mph instead of 33, but if sacrificing 3 mph of speed would help to preserve the long-term health of the engine, then it would be well worth it.  One of those “one step back, two steps forward” kinda things.  Plus, I was well aware of the fact that I was fast approaching the sparsely populated, lonely stretches of the Midwest and the Great Plains where a breakdown could be potentially disastrous, and was trying to care for the Metro accordingly.

With this heightened sense of scooter-care in mind, I had a precautionary pit stop to make before leaving South Bend.  I went over to Michael’s house (one of the guys I had met last night) to pick up some emergency tire spray for motorcycle tires that he had generously offered to give me.  That fix-a-flat stuff is notoriously hit-or-miss, but as Michael pointed out, if I’ve got a flat in the middle of nowhere, it’s better to have a 60% chance of limping away from it than the 0% alternative.

Michael was the source of not only tire spray, but also interesting conversation.  He loved hearing about my scooting experiences and gushed about his own love of hitting the road on his motorcycle, saying how he finds strangers to be much more conversational and friendly with him than they’d ever be if he were just another motorist in a car.  He explained that obviously motorcycles have a lot of drawbacks and tradeoffs compared to the luxuries offered by a car, but even in the comfort of a car, there’s no substitute for the friendliness of other curious motorists who want to know about life on two wheels.  Michael and the other guys I had met were living proof of this, as I certainly wouldn’t have met such a colorful and helpful crowd in South Bend had I driven a more conventional vehicle.  One more reason why my love of scooting was growing steadily with each leg of the trip.

Tossing the tire spray under the seat, I resumed the push to Chicago.  After driving for a ways, I ate lunch at a park in Michigan City, IN, and then shortly thereafter came to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.  I was tempted to stop, but not for your typical beach visit.  Legend has it that a long-lost stash of Al Capone’s Prohibition era whiskey is hidden somewhere near the Dunes and remains undiscovered, reportedly worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.  While some treasure hunters are drawn to the call of “there’s gold in them hills” others respond to “there’s whiskey in them dunes”, and though I count myself among the latter, I wasn’t feeling quite adventurous enough to go for it.  Maybe next time, I told myself.

Boarded up homes. A familiar sight throughout the Rust Belt in general.

The pleasant, forested dunes abruptly gave way to the industrial wasteland of Gary, IN, home of several floundering steel mills, and Michael Jackson, who (like Steve Martin) was “born a poor black child” here back in 1958.  Dominated by heavy industry and boarded up buildings, Gary is about as blighted an eyesore as cities come.  My drive-by tour of the Rust Belt certainly wouldn’t have been complete without hitting Gary, one of its most corroded nodes of all.

Since my time in the Rust Belt is drawing to a close and I’ve spent so much time talking about it, here are a couple concluding thoughts on the place.  Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, South Bend, and Gary (among other towns) might not be the most glamorous parts of the country, but it’s important to see them nonetheless.  You can’t just sweep ugly and depressing places under the rug.  It’s important to see that America isn’t all shuttered houses with white picket fences (which, come to think of it, aren’t really anywhere) and to use your exposure to the hard-knock Garys of the world as inspiration to reduce the number of Garys in the world, if that makes sense.  I don’t have any brilliant cure-all solutions for Gary’s plight, other than the modest proposal of donating 0.5% of all future proceeds from Thriller to the cash-strapped city.  I think Michael Jackson would be proud to posthumously help resuscitate the city in which he was born, and if the best-selling album of all-time can’t help Gary moonwalk its way to a brighter future, then I don’t know what can.  Just a thought.

Even though it’s practically on the beaches of Lake Michigan, I don’t think the twenty miles of road from Gary to Chicago will ever be listed as a scenic route on any map.  There isn’t a blade of grass along the way, only barren shipyards, chemical plants, and rough, rundown neighborhoods.  This corridor is also characterized by insanely dense traffic, which made me feel like a guppy in a billowing school of fish.  That is, a school of crazy fish with wanton disregard for traffic law that liked to flip me off occasionally.

So, clearly this wasn’t the most enjoyable stretch of road.  Matters were made worse when Illinois had no official state welcome sign proudly demarcating the transition from Lincoln’s Boyhood Home to his Land!  While disappointed in Illinois for their lack of a sign (which broke my streak of taking pictures at each state border along the way), the Chicago skyline visible in the distance didn’t make for a bad consolation prize.

Took this on a Sunday in the park, but was reminded of the song "Saturdays in the Park" by Chicago.

Chicago is one of my favorite major cities.  It’s clean, on a Great Lake, offers good public transportation, home to a lot of my friends and relatives… the list goes on.  But before I could get to those good parts, I was a little unsure of how to weave my way through the city’s infamous South Side.  I had a hunch that scooting might not be the most optimal means of transit through the ‘hood, but by sticking to arterial roads I was fine, though the traffic was inescapable and probably more dangerous.

There were only a couple saving graces of my slog through city traffic.  First, while stopped at a light by Midway airport, I had a true Wayne’s World moment as planes came roaring onto the runway, seemingly just feet overhead.  The drive’s other highlight was being serenaded by the salsa music of surrounding Latino neighborhoods and passing cars.  With only the wind between my helmet’s earflaps to listen to out on the open road, a little musica made for a welcome change of background noise.

After methodically inching my way northward through Chicago’s numbered grid of streets, I finally pulled into the back alley of my cousins’ place in the Logan Square neighborhood, capping a hugely successful week on the road.

So there you have it- a pretty ordinary and uneventful day of travel, but one that carried a lot of gravitas in terms of milestones and geographical significance.  I was in a new state, and a new time zone, but most importantly, the Windy City almost exactly marked the completion of one-third of my trip, and I’d done it in only a week!  Not to count my proverbial poultry prior to hatching, but at this rate of travel I was on pace to reach California in 2.5 or 3 more weeks (safely assuming that the Rockies will slow me down a bit).

But making it to Chicago also meant that my journey had passed the threshold to true respectability.  Scooting from Boston to South Bend is crazy and all, but Boston to Chicago just has a superior air of accomplishment to it.  Even if the Metro were to blow up the next day, with my dying gasp I’d be proud to say that I made it this far.

Good times awaited in Chicago, home of Bubble Guy.

This feeling of having attained respectability was further supported when my cousins told me that there were bets circulating within the family regarding how far I’d make it.  Evidently some people had wagered that Chicago would be the end of the road and that I wouldn’t make it any farther.  Others said my last hurrah would come in my attempt to scale the Rockies.  It didn’t sound like anyone expected me to get to California.

And I can’t really blame ‘em, ‘cause honestly, I’m not sure I thought I’d make it that far, either.  There was just no way of knowing how my engine would respond with a couple thousand miles and a couple formidable mountain ranges left to tackle.  But one thing I was sure about by this point was that after 1,200 miles, I knew that my own resolve would not be my undoing.  Just the way that Ahab went down with the Pequod, I was in this for the long haul, for better or worse.

Shout-Outs:

-Once again, I need to thank Michael (whom I’d met at the scooter shindig) for the fix-a-flat emergency tire spray.  Hopefully what they say is true- “60% of the time it works every time.”

-My kin, Brian and Kevin in Chicago.  Fantastic hosts as always.

-Carleton chums David and Rachel for meeting up with me during my stay in The Chi.

-Girl on South 95^th street who was part of a group asking cars for change as a fundraiser for their cheerleading squad or whatever.  Approaching me, she tried to be all business at first, but soon broke into laughter at my ridiculous appearance.  I guess I looked a little out of place riding my scooter on the South Side.

Town(s) of the Day: Chicago, IL