Urban Ag

If you're confused about why this seemingly off-topic entry is the top story on my blog, check out my recent post covering Cleveland to Ann Arbor.  This is meant to be an appendix to that post...

The bane of Carleton College students is a comprehensive senior thesis project, not-so-affectionately known as “comps.”  Though neither came to fruition (I ended up examining farmer vulnerability to climate change in Tanzania), these were my original proposals for comps research, which I think help to outline the maelstrom of controversy surrounding urban agriculture.  Maybe someday I’ll get around to addressing these heavy-hittin’ research questions.

Statement of Individual Research Interest:

Economic Feasibility of Urban Agriculture in the Rust Belt

With the world’s population soaring, this generation is faced with a textbook Malthusian crunch as it scrambles to find more swaths of arable land necessary to feed itself.  Over the last half-century, food production has managed to keep pace with population growth, but at a steep cost to the environment.  In the present, we are faced with the challenge of sustaining growth in agricultural production, though we cannot afford to continue our tradition of destroying valuable wilderness to create new farmland.  With half of the world’s people now crowding into cities and the rate of urban migration accelerating, an appealing solution to feeding our growing and increasingly urban population while not disturbing existing ecosystems is to promote urban agriculture within cities.  I hope to examine the economic viability of urban farms in Midwestern cities such as Cleveland and Detroit, which have experienced depopulation to a much greater extent than similarly sized cities throughout the region, and as such, are better suited for widespread implementation of urban farming.

Implementation of urban agriculture on a massive scale is hampered by a multitude of factors that span economic and environmental concerns, as well as hot-button social issues.  Before a spade can even be laid into the concrete-strewn soil of any vacant lot, a number of obstacles exist that make a discussion of urban agriculture’s economic viability worthwhile.

Firstly, there is the issue of obtaining land in cities that, although “depopulated”, still contain hundreds of thousands of residents, many of whom probably do not wish to see their neighborhood put under the plow.  How much money would be required to buy tracts of land suitable for farming?  What would the costs be in relocating some residents to accommodate large urban farms?  In places like Detroit, where the city owns 60,000 of the 103,000 vacant lots, would the city retain ownership of farmland or sell it to private landowners?  If urban farmers are only able to farm on small lots that may not even be one acre in size, how can they compete with other farms that enjoy much greater economies of scale?

Then, once the farming begins, myriad other questions await.  To what extent (if any) can pesticides and fertilizers be used in such a densely populated area?  What is the cost to each farmer of remedying compromised and potentially toxic urban soil?

An aerial view of "America's largest contiguous urban farm" on Cleveland's West Side.

How many people will urban farms be able to employ?  If urban agriculture is to truly succeed and win the hearts of Detroit and Cleveland residents, then it must be able to help alleviate unemployment to some extent.  But it remains to be seen just how many people could find work on urban farms, and what the quality of that work would be like.  If the farming jobs created even remotely mirror the minimum-wage, dead-end jobs held by so many laborers in modern agribusiness, then I’d say that these projects are most ill-fated.  Workers need to be as enamored with the philosophy of urban agriculture as the policymakers themselves for the system to succeed.

Additionally, urban agriculture must be able to mesh with the culture of the inner city and cannot be perceived as a corporate intruder within the city limits that exists simply to provide wealthy suburbanites with food.  While vandalism and hostility directed towards urban farms will always exist in some capacity, it is essential that urban farms be recognized as entities that exist primarily to serve the residents of the cities that they occupy and with whom they share space.  If urban agriculture is going to be intensified in these cities, it is crucial that it retain its grass-roots character and is perceived as something to help the city first and foremost, rather than exploiting available space and having its benefits leached elsewhere.

Overall, I’m interested to see if the Jeffersonian small farmer can experience a renaissance amidst city streets, or if large commercial or communal farms would come to dominate these urban frontiers.

Later I scrapped the economic component and came up with this slightly more refined (and feasible) research interest:

Adhering to my initial interest in pursuing subject matter related to urban agriculture in the Midwest, I’d now like to limit the focus of my study to address the question, “what are the primary impulses that the urban agriculture movement is responding to?”  Though urban agriculture is often lauded as a silver-bullet solution that can help cities attain food independence (or at least inch closer to it), it is readily apparent that initiatives to promote urban farming often are not striving to meet this grandiose goal, but instead are oriented around campaigns with much different agendas.  For instance, many urban farms exist for the main purpose of educating urbanites about growing vegetables or to stress the importance of eating locally grown produce from both an environmental and a health perspective.  While education represents one key pillar of the urban agriculture movement that certainly warrants further investigation, other farms originate from the impulse for chic downtown restaurants to take advantage of heightened consumer preferences for regional produce, and make a political/environmental statement with their menu.  Still more farms exist primarily to beautify dilapidated neighborhoods, and others are run by community-oriented institutions such as churches and schools.  Some urban farms are even the product of city planners or neighborhood development agencies seeking to do something constructive with vacant space (while making the same political/environmental statement mentioned earlier).  And somewhere out there in the concrete jungle, some bold pioneers are farming independently for a profit.  I would like to assess (and hopefully quantify) the percentage of urban farms that have stemmed mainly from these impulses as well as identify other unforeseen or unexpected sources of inspiration.  My focus would likely cover farms currently in existence as well as ones that are still on the drawing board.

Cleveland, OH to Ann Arbor, MI (September 8)

Distance covered today: 203 miles

Distance covered total: 898 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 2,602 miles (74% left to go)

The drive from Cleveland to Ann Arbor would combine the best and worst elements of life on the road.  The day’s highlights included a couple of very worthwhile stops along the way, but those sightseeing detours (coupled with some frustrating navigational hiccups) made an already long and dreary day of scooting even longer.

My nearly twelve-hour day of travel began much the way the previous one had, with rain in the forecast but not yet on the pavement by the time I got up in the morning.  Once again unsure of how long the dry spell would last, I hit the road with a heightened sense of urgency.  Besides the threat of rain, I had some business to tend to before leaving Cleveland.

Scooting the familiar roads of Cleveland felt great.  I was probably experiencing the same excitement that salmon feel when they return to their native waters to spawn.  While I would’ve enjoyed a lengthier stay in town, I still managed to cobble together a pretty thorough drive-by tour of the city in my happy salmon-like state.

First, I cruised through the fun neighborhood of Coventry in Cleveland Heights, past the Garfield Monument at Lake View Cemetery, through Little Italy and University Circle, and down Euclid (essentially Cleveland’s Main Street).  Then I swirled around Public Square in the shadow of the downtown skyscrapers and cruised by The Stadiums Formerly Known As Gund Arena and Jacobs Field before crossing the Carnegie bridge over the Cuyahoga and the Flats and into the happenin’ Ohio City neighborhood on the city’s West Side.  This part of town is home to a bunch of cool restaurants, the West Side Market, Great Lakes Brewing Company, the Barber College (where you can get professional grade haircuts for $4 by barbers-in-training) and also the Ohio City Farm, which was my destination for the morning.  (I realize that all of these names probably don’t mean anything to most of you, but it’s basically a checklist of the places I’d recommend you check out if you’re ever in Cleveland.)

The Ohio City Farm is said to be the largest contiguous urban farm in the country, and is spread across six acres teeming with greenery.  I had arranged a last-minute visit to the farm to meet up with Shawn, my boss from the previous summer when I had interned with the Cleveland Botanical Garden’s urban agriculture program called Green Corps.  Since our time together with Green Corps, Shawn had accepted a new position as a farm manager at the Ohio City site, and showed me around the farm while talking about his new job.

Skyline view from Cleveland's Ohio City Farm.

It’s hard for me to articulate my feelings on the complex subject of urban agriculture, and even harder for me to do so concisely, but let me attempt to scratch the surface anyways.  “Urban ag” is increasingly being touted as a green way for depopulated cities like Cleveland and Detroit to put some of their tens of thousands of vacant lots to use while simultaneously promoting local, healthy eating and even creating some desperately needed jobs.  As someone who studied food and agriculture in college and who also has a strong emotional connection to the city of Cleveland, this concept certainly has a lot of appeal to me, but before large-scale urban ag can make the transition from the drawing board to the streets, there are many questions that need to be addressed (which I’ve outlined in a couple appendices that I wrote as tentative research proposals while at Carleton last year… feel free to read them if you’re interested, via the link at the bottom of this post).

As it exists now, urban ag is a far cry from being a silver bullet for granting self-sufficiency and “food independence” to a city, due to the compromised quality of the soil and due to the fact that places like Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee (where urban ag projects are most prevalent) are covered in snow for five months of the year!  I do think that the movement has a lot of promise though, but primarily as an educational tool that also serves to beautify the inner city and gives the surrounding community a reason to take pride in the health and appearance of their neighborhood.

But for urban ag to truly succeed, it needs to find some way to earn the popular support of inner city residents, many of whom, from my experience, view the movement with disdain and see it as an intrusion of mostly middle-class white people into their neighborhoods.  Borrowing some text from my aforementioned research proposals (again, see link at bottom), urban ag must be able to mesh with the culture of the inner city and cannot be perceived as a corporate intruder within the city limits that exists simply to provide wealthy suburbanites with food.  While vandalism and hostility directed towards urban farms will always exist in some capacity, it is essential that urban farms be recognized as entities that exist primarily to serve the residents of the cities that they occupy and with whom they share space.  If urban ag is going to be intensified in these cities, it is crucial that it retain its grass-roots character and is perceived as something to help the city first and foremost, rather than exploiting available space and having its benefits leached elsewhere.  (I’d like to elaborate further, as this topic is deserving of a book in itself, but for now I’ll resume the story of my day’s travel.)

I'll miss the Seaway Trail and its rich history.

After bidding Shawn and the Cleveland skyline farewell, I continued my westward push along the Seaway Trail, though today did not offer quite as much exposure to the lake.  Eventually I passed through Sandusky and then parted ways with Lake Erie for good, as I dipped south for another run on Highway 20.

I was set to pick up 20 again in a town called Fremont.  All morning I had been bothered by the familiar sound of Fremont, and then finally recalled its significance in a brilliant “Eureka” moment.  As I should’ve known from the start, Fremont, Ohio is home to Spiegel Grove, the estate and burial place of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, our nineteenth president!

If you weren’t aware, I’ve been a big time presidential trivia nerd ever since elementary school, and have made pilgrimages to a number of presidential birthplaces and burial sites over the years.  As a kid I had been to Spiegel Grove, but I was all too eager to pay another visit for a pleasant reprieve from scooting and for a lunch date with Rutherford while chomping down some Cleveland-grown road corn that Shawn had given me as a parting gift.

Rutherford B. Hayes.  Where to begin with his list of historic achievements?  Yes, he’s known by some for being credited with ending Reconstruction, and will be remembered by others for emerging victorious in the hotly disputed election of 1876 despite losing the popular vote to Samuel J. Tilden of New York.  But in my humble opinion, I think Rutherford is most distinguished by being the proud bearer of the most robust beard in presidential history.  Abraham Lincoln’s beard gets a lot of hoopla, but with all due respect to Abe, his scruff has got nothin’ on Rutherford’s fine facial follicles.  (I encourage you to look up Rutherford's beard with a Google image search. Not only will you find yourself in the presence of one bad beard, but you’ll also help Rutherford climb out of the cellar as “the least searched for U.S. president” online).

Spiegel Grove, Rutherford Hayes' estate in Fremont, OH.

Anyways, despite Rutherford’s rock-star status, I must admit that I was not drawn to Spiegel Grove by his fame alone, but also for a personal matter.  One of my most cherished possessions is a framed portrait of Rutherford that was the visual and emotional centerpiece of my dorm room, as I think anyone who visited would agree.  But in a horrible football-related accident (committed by a clumsy roommate whose identity will not be revealed), Rutherford’s frame was shattered along with the perpetrator’s hopes of ever having quarterbacking street cred again.  As he had done in Civil War battles before, Rutherford himself emerged OK, albeit with a couple scratches.  While I was in the neighborhood though, I figured it couldn’t hurt to pick up another portrait, just in case his luck runs out in the future.

Initially, I was a bit alarmed that the Spiegel Grove staff would be suspicious of my New York license plate, thinking perhaps that I was a vengeful descendent of Samuel Tilden’s coming to settle the score of a still-simmering feud, 135 years in the making.  But instead, I found the pair of old ladies behind the counter in the gift shop area to be very kind and helpful.  They were the kind of ladies who (due partially to their extremely generous nature and also due to a lack of other stimuli around Spiegel Grove) pounced on any opportunity to help a fellow admirer of Rutherford, and they doggedly placed phone calls and raided stock rooms in search of the portrait I described, which I had not found on my initial recon swoop of the place.  Despite the spirited efforts of those frail old ladies, as Mick Jagger famously crooned, you can’t always get what you want, and I left Spiegel Grove without the portrait I had been looking for (although I did manage to score a couple free Rutherford prints anyways that will make for a fine addition to a mantelpiece or a coveted stocking stuffer).

I also left Spiegel Grove knowing that the remainder of the voyage to Ann Arbor would be a race against the setting sun.  Therefore, it did me no favors to have a navigational mishap before I’d even left Fremont.  On the outskirts of town I found myself helplessly funneled onto a divided highway that scooters were clearly not supposed to be on.  Even if I had ignored the signs condemning the use of such feeble engines on that stretch of road and gutted it out, it would not have been enjoyable to have semi-trucks tearing past me at 70 mph.  So, as my only alternative, I decided to take the encompassing grid of country roads, going north, then west, then north, and so on, until I met up with a more scooter-compatible highway to Toledo.  At first it was kind of fun and exciting to have open farm roads to myself, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly, as it was annoying to have to adopt the “staircase” navigation method, instead of taking the smooth and efficient hypotenuse towards my destination.  Meanwhile, the prospect of having my day end after sundown only increased in likelihood every moment that I spent on country roads and not on my intended path.  My bypass of the scooter-unfriendly corridor was eventually complete, and I was back on a two-lane highway headed towards Toledo. 

Toledo, on this not-so-fine day, looked as though it could have doubled as the capital of Mordor.  With the smoldering spires of its steel mills set against charcoal colored rain clouds, the skyline made for one gloomy sight to behold.  The gloom made me realize that I had not seen the sun since Albany, save for a couple fleeting glimpses around Syracuse.  Since then, gray skies had been a fixture of my days though I had remarkably defied the weather predictions by avoiding rain (even though there was flooding and signs of recent severe weather all throughout Northwest Ohio).

Anywhere seems pure and wholesome after one escapes the smoggy haze enveloping Toledo.

A wrong turn spoiled my bid to minimize my time spent in Toledo, but with the help of some good old-fashioned gas station directions, at last I came to the Michigan border on the northern edge of the city and pulled over for my customary welcome sign photo.  For the second straight day, my ride marked a homecoming of sorts, as Ann Arbor is actually the place of my birth.  I lived there for the first five years of my life while my dad was wrapping up his lengthy stay at the U of M (sincerest apologies to the Minnesotans whom I lived amongst at Carleton, but there really is only one U of M). Unlike Cleveland though, I didn’t live there quite long enough (or rather when I was quite old enough) to develop a truly lasting connection to the place besides the dinosaur exhibit at the Natural History Museum.  Even so, with both sides of my family rooted in the Great Lakes State, I still harbor enough Michigan pride to fill The Big House.

Although happy to be in Michigan, I didn’t have long to revel in the glory of entering a new state as I still had a deceptively long ways to go, with no main road to do it (I was again forced to take some country roads which Google Maps had not indicated would be gravel), and with daylight waning.

Sure enough, as I approached Ann Arbor, nightfall enveloped the farmland around me, and soon I was tasked with handling the last 15-20 miles under cover of darkness.   While “Night Rider” sure has a nice ring to it, thus far I’d been careful to avoid earning the title for a handful of reasons.  Obviously, visibility is at the crux of the issue.  I’ve found protective eyewear to be a pretty essential component to scooting, as I regularly have pebbles are bugs hurled into my face along with the constant gust of a 30 mph headwind.

Unfortunately, in an effort to live frugally, pack lightly, and ride stylishly, I skimped on the clear goggles and am only toting some sunglasses with me.  Whatever that ‘80s ballad says about wearing sunglasses at night, it doesn’t really work while trying to operate a motor vehicle, so I had to pocket the shades for the sake of visibility.  This really wouldn’t have been a huge issue had it not been for a couple unfortunate and unforeseen twists.  First, there is a small airport just south of Ann Arbor that I drove past.  In doing so, my unprotected face was pelted by a veritable hailstorm of bugs, evidently drawn to the area by the landing lights, pointed like beacons to the skies above.  I had hit a fair share of bugs on my trip already, but not in such overwhelming numbers, and not in the absence of protective eyewear to buffer the collision.

The Metro got its first taste of gravel roads today, an indication that my directions led me horribly astray.

But bugs weren’t the only projectiles to collide with my vulnerable visage. After threatening to douse me for two full days, the skies finally brought on the rain.  Most of the populace likely would’ve described the precipitation as an innocent drizzle, but that perspective doesn’t take the night-riding scooterist demographic into account.  Riding at night while trying to decipher unfamiliar street signs is hard enough, and having raindrops hit your eyes in excess of 30 mph doesn’t help.

But no matter how much you’re squinting, it’s impossible to miss Michigan Stadium, which soon materialized before me.  I would’ve stopped for a picture had it not been for the rain, but I figured I could always get one the next morning (little did I know that it would be raining much, much harder then).  Just down the street from the stadium I arrived at the apartment of my friend Geoff, reaching my destination for the night.

It was a joyous occasion to be reunited with Geoff, a former baseball and flag football teammate who had also been one of my companions on my only previous trip to the West, road-tripping from Minnesota to San Francisco after school ended a couple years back.  He informed me that I would be crashing on his newly purchased couch, which he warned was a certified “sleep monster”.  As I would soon discover, the new couch was indeed deserving of its “sleep monster” reputation.  Maybe it’s a sign that I’m becoming a boring adult, but I was excited by the thought of having my own nice couch someday soon.  Throughout my trip, seeing friends with apartments in fun neighborhoods and collapsing on their sleep monster couches has made me realize that I do have some cool things to look forward to in life after Carleton.

And so I had survived a bit of rain and my first night driving ordeal.  More importantly though, I had taken the extra time and gone the extra mile to get the most out of the colorful places I was going through.  Clearly, today shows that I’m still trying to find the right balance between stopping and going.  I’d like to avoid eleven and twelve-hour days if possible, but if that’s what it takes to get the most satisfying experiences out of surrounding communities, then so be it.  After all, one of the main purposes of the trip is to not simply pass through a whole continent’s worth of cities and towns, but to get a small taste of what distinguishes them from the next dot on the map.  All that rhetoric aside though, I do need to reach my next stop for the night, often a difficult and arduous task when on a scooter that creeps along at 30 mph.

The philosophy I’ve been adhering to is, quite simply, one of no regrets.  If I feel as though later I would regret not having stopped at a certain place along the way, then it’s probably a good idea to pull over or even worth going a few miles out of your way.  Such stops make your day interesting and memorable, while also providing a welcome break from scooting. Plus, you never know when you’ll next be leisurely passing through Fremont, OH, or for that matter, if Spiegel Grove will tragically fall victim to one of Samuel J. Tilden’s bitter arsonist descendents.

Shout-outs:

-Geoff for hosting me and hookin’ me up with some of his trademark peanut butter and cheese sandwiches for the road the next day.  Mmmmm!

-Ben and Max, some of the other Carls represented at Google in Ann Arbor.

-Shawn at the Ohio City Farm.  Thanks for the corn!

-Fremont natives I talked to who didn’t know that Rutherford had such dedicated fans that they would ride almost 1,000 miles on a scooter to see Spiegel Grove.

-Old ladies at the Spiegel Grove information and gift shop desk.

Town(s) of the Day:

-Cleveland, OH; Petersburg, MI

Further Reading:

-Urban Ag

Buffalo, NY to Cleveland, OH (September 7)

Distance traveled today: 193 miles

Distance traveled total: 695 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 2805 (80% left to go)

 

I woke up in Buffalo bracing for the worst.  Tropical Storm Lee had closed in on the city, and every forecast I had read predicted that I would be driving through rain for three straight days.  Before my trip, I had anticipated that I would take rainy days off from driving for fear that cars might not be able to see me as well through a haze of raindrops.  But riding out a storm for days seemed excessive, and after losing a day to rain in Syracuse, I felt a somewhat heightened sense of urgency to continue on.  Besides, my planned stay in Ann Arbor, MI was time-sensitive since my host would be out of town for the weekend, so I had decided that I would just have to endure a few days of misery.  After all, in a town where buffalo imagery runs rampant, I had to summon my own inner bison and recognize that the fastest way through the storm is through the storm.

Or maybe I wouldn’t need to kick it into buffalo mode just yet.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t raining when I woke up, which made my decision to go for it a bit easier.  Not knowing how long this dry window would last, I hurriedly hit the road for Cleveland.

After driving through downtown Buffalo, I was thrilled to finally lay eyes upon my beloved Great Lakes!  Even the cold, gray weather couldn’t dampen my spirits upon seeing Lake Erie stretch to the horizon.  I feel as though a lot of people who have never seen the Great Lakes vastly underestimate their splendor, but let me tell you- these lakes are Great for a reason.  As a native Michigander I might be biased, but I’ve always felt that the Great Lakes offer all of the benefits of the ocean (sandy beaches, sunrises/sunsets, big waves) with none of the drawbacks (disgusting salty taste, tacky boardwalks, overdevelopment, shark attacks).  But don’t take my word for it- go see them for yourself.

East Coast? West Coast? The North Coast is really the place to be.

Anyways, as I passed the Port of Buffalo, some quixotic part of me was tempted to go down to the docks in an effort to schmooze some ship captain into granting me (and the Metro) passage aboard his schooner in exchange for my services as a deckhand.  I could easily get to Cleveland or Chicago, or if I got really ambitious and wanted to throw a fork in my plans, I could go all the way up to Duluth and scoot away from there.  But, the landlubber that I am, I didn’t try it.  Just another idea that will have to wait ‘til a future adventure.

As the odometer rolled on, I was in no hurry to leave the shore of Lake Erie, so I called an audible and elected to take the “Seaway Trail” along the lakeshore for the day instead of subjecting myself to yet another day on Route 20 as I had originally planned.

I found it to be a pretty gratifying decision.  Instead of spending my day alongside semi-trucks and comparatively heavy traffic, much of my drive was spent with vineyards to my left and the lake on my right.  Though not much of a wine connoisseur, this enjoyable stretch of road led my imagination to envision someday buying one of these farmhouses on the lake if I can think of a good name for a winery.

There were other things of interest besides vineyards and that big lake.  At one point, I pulled over at a derelict drive-in movie place that had long since closed.  It looked like an ideal setting for an episode of Scooby Doo.  And I would’ve stopped there for lunch too if it weren’t for those meddlin’ nimbus clouds, so I kept pluggin’ along and eventually tried my luck at an old lighthouse, which to my misfortune was closed only on Wednesdays.  Bummer, ‘cause I’m guessing I won’t encounter too many more of those between here and California.

Grapes of my path.

At last, the roads of my Empire State came to an end and I entered the exotic land of Pennsylvania.  Driving only through its dinky panhandle, Pennsylvania is the state that I’ll be experiencing the least on my trip. Even so, I found that that stretch of William Penn’s land is not as insignificant as you might think, especially for those traveling by scooter.  You see, the Metro gets close to 100 miles to the gallon, but its gas tank only holds slightly more than that, necessitating frequent fuel stops.  Once the needle on the fuel gauge gets to 40% strength or so, I begin to look for a place to fill up, not knowing exactly when I’ll come across my next gas station.  Unfortunately for scooterists, not many gas stations plunk down the cash for lakefront property along the Seaway Trail, so I drove for mile after mile without coming across a place for petrol, the needle continuing its precipitous drop towards 'E' all the while.  Signs indicated that Erie, PA was less than 20 miles away, and doing the math in my head based on the mileage covered since my last visit to the pump, I knew I was going to be cutting it close.

And so, on the unforgiving roads in the suddenly expansive panhandle of Pennsylvania, I first dabbled in hypermiling, easing up on the gas and coasting whenever possible.  Luckily I puttered into a gas station right outside of Erie, where the Metro slaked its thirst for fuel.  It took over a gallon to fill, so I guessed that I had been only a matter of miles from running dry (someday out in the Nevada desert, once I’ve strapped a security gas can to the back of the scooter, I’ll see just how far the Metro can go on a full tank, but until that time I’d like to spare myself the suspense).  Lesson learned, I think I’m going to get gas even more frequently going forward.  Traveling backroads the way I do, you just never know when the next gas station will come along.

Entering the nub of Pennsylvania.

With crisis averted, I stuck with my tradition of eating lunch in town parks by stopping in the surprisingly bustling downtown square of Erie, PA for some vittles.  While bison are the undisputed mascot of Buffalo, frogs rule supreme down in Erie.  I noticed an unusual number of frog statues throughout the city as I continued my drive.  They were literally all over town, decoratively placed on street corners, and in front of schools and businesses.  Erie just can’t get enough of its frogs.

(As a quick aside in our discussion of cities and their spirit animals, I noticed that good old Dunkirk, NY only a few miles up the road refused to favor any one species and has a whole menagerie of critters immortalized by its street names.  At first I saw “Pangolin Street” and kind of laughed to myself about a street coincidentally sharing a name with an armored African mammal, but soon I passed Armadillo, Ermine, Zebra, and Beaver Streets, so I knew something was up.  And the animal names kept going.  There seemed to be some order to it as well, as the streets interestingly shifted from clumps of armored creature names to obscure weasel and cat type things to ungulates and finally birds.  Check it out on Google Maps if you feel so inclined.)

Thankful that it still hadn’t rained on me, I finally came to the Ohio state line (or as students at a certain institution riddled with NCAA violations would say, THE Ohio State Line).  It felt good to be able to hit three different states in one day- the only time on my trip when I’ll be able to do that (I was already leaning towards breaking up my 240-mile stretch from Ann Arbor to Chicago).  But reaching Ohio soil felt even better since I was entering a state universally described as Midwestern!  As if the Great Lakes hadn’t signified enough of a westward shift, being in Ohio meant that I was officially in a new part of the country.

THEEE Ohio State Border.

After spending a very full day crunched up on a scooter in 50-degree temperatures, I would be content to stop anywhere for the night, but I was especially excited about approaching my old hometown of Cleveland, where I spent a very happy chapter of my childhood from kindergarten to sixth grade.  The brunt of jokes across the nation, “The Mistake on The Lake” might be fairly blighted, but it gets an undeservingly bad wrap and holds a very dear place in my heart.

One of the many things I love about Cleveland is the way in which it’s a big city that occasionally has a small town feel to it.  For instance, while waiting in a coffee place for my host to get back to his apartment, who should I run into but one of my best friends from fifth and sixth grade!  Like in the Bruce Springsteen song “Glory Days”, we went back inside, sat down, had a few drinks, but differed from the song by not discussing glory days, but rather our uncertain plans for the future before wishing each other well and going our separate ways.

There was never a dull moment of conversation with my host Alex, a former little league teammate and a fellow diehard Cleveland sports fan.  Obviously we talked Indians for a bit, but our dialogue also touched on some serious stuff at times, including a discussion of the fate of our hometown.  We expressed optimism that its protracted, decades-long fall from glory was cyclical to some extent and that if Cleveland ever had competent and non-corrupt leadership in place, it could experience some type of renaissance.  After all, the city has practically hit rock bottom, and there’s only one way to go from there: up.  With literally almost nothing stretching from East 30^th Street to East 90^th Street, there is block after block of vacant lots and condemned or dilapidated buildings that can be yours for as little as $5,000 to $10,000 in some cases.  We mused about saving up some money and buying an entire city block or two, waiting for the day that Cleveland real estate would be a hot commodity again.

It’s really not such a crazy idea.  Someday metropolitan areas will no longer have the option of growing forever outward into surrounding hinterlands and will have to concentrate their populations, infrastructure, and other resources back in the long-forgotten urban core.  Back at Carleton, one of our professors (George, for you fellow Environmental Studies majors) once outlined the bleak situations in places like Detroit and Cleveland but concluded by saying that these places were “ripe for revolution” and fertile ground for positive change to take root.  I prefer taking that glass-half-full outlook and am hopeful that better days lie ahead for both cities.

This got me thinkin’ that maybe Cleveland needs a good spirit animal like Erie and Buffalo.  Perhaps it should adopt something like a phoenix, symbolizing its eventual rise from the ashes.  But fairy tale stuff like that isn’t well suited for a place like Cleveland.  I think something tough and resilient, like a honey badger, would nicely reflect the town’s gritty attitude.  Yeah, I’ll take the honey badger. 

(And if any of you aren’t familiar with the awesome power of honey badgers, type their name into Youtube when you get a chance.  Then sit back and enjoy the ride as it rips a cobra’s face off.)

Shout-Outs:

-Alex, who not only gave me good company and a place to stay for the night, but also shared some sage advice about blogging.

-Andrew, the aforementioned friend who I ran into in the coffee place.  Good luck with the LSAT!
-The baristas at the coffee place, who asked me questions about my trip.  They were disappointed that I was making the journey for a job and not for a girl.

Town(s) of the Day: Silver Creek, NY; Erie, PA

Syracuse, NY to Buffalo, NY (September 6)

Distance covered today: 166 miles

Distance covered total: 502 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 2998 miles (86% left to go)

An all-day rain kept me holed up in Syracuse for an extra day, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, as it gave me an opportunity to work on the blog as well as extended hangout time with my hosts.  After being bottled up though, the main agenda for the day of my departure was speed, and I succeeded in making pretty good time to Buffalo, arriving at about 4:30 PM even after running into a couple detours along Route 20.

I’m guessing that terrain had a lot to with the day’s good progress, as I didn’t have to contend with the same hills and mountains that lay between Boston and Syracuse.  The productive day and the slowly diminishing pain in my body further boosted my confidence that I’d be able to meet my goals of approximately 180-200 miles per day, especially across the topographically-challenged Midwest.

View of Seneca Lake from Geneva, NY.

Despite hurrying to Buffalo, the good thing about scooting is that you still get a pretty good peek at your surroundings, even when burning across the countryside at 33 mph.  For instance, I got to enjoy the ride as 20 passed through the towns skirting the northern tips of the scenic Finger Lakes.  The Finger Lakes are a handful of long “finger-like” lakes gouged from ancient river valleys by the advance of glaciers in the last ice age and are a popular tourist destination in upstate New York.

After skedaddling out of Skaneateles on my scooter (sorry, couldn’t resist dropping that alliteration), I passed the pretty Victorian homes and brick downtown buildings of places like Auburn, Seneca Falls, and Geneva, stopping to take a couple pictures of Seneca Lake, with which my sister shares a name.  My family made the pilgrimage to Seneca Lake on her behalf back in the day, but we’ve never made it to Bryce Canyon.  Maybe that will make its way onto my hit list when I reach Utah.

I'd rather eat lunch at parks like this one in Bloomfield, NY than at some rest area on the highway.

Besides terrain, the land is already beginning to change in other subtle ways, too.  In fact, this seemingly unremarkable leg from Syracuse to Buffalo marks passage across one of the most important demarcation lines in this great land, but one that will be shown on very few maps.  I am referring of course, to the point where carbonated beverages cease to be “soda” and start to be “pop”.

But alas, this much ballyhooed cultural divide was imperceptible.  I thought that I should’ve gone around accosting the citizenry by brandishing a can of Coke in their terrified faces and screaming “What is it!? What is it!?” in order to help pinpoint the isogloss boundary (an isogloss is the geographical area in which one word or term is used), but I resisted.  Maybe that would make for a good grant-funded research project someday.

Today I crossed into a whole new world.

My host in Buffalo was my friend Greg from home, except you probably only know him by his streetball alias, Dance-a-thon.  Anyways, upon my arrival, Dance-a-thon and I decided that we had no choice but to show some SUNY Buffalo kids know how we roll in The 518, and went to the gym to play some pick-up basketball.

After four predominantly sedentary days, it felt great to get some exercise and to reunite with Dance-a-thon on the hardwood.  Given our legendary status on the punishing courts back home, it should come as little surprise that highlight reel alley-oops and violent thunderdunks abounded.  Well, that’s a slight exaggeration, but the important thing is that we notched a couple victories and called it a day with an unblemished record intact.  That’s how we do it in The ‘Ville!

Shout-out:

-Dance-a-thon, for the hospitality in Buffalo.

Town(s) of the Day: Skaneateles, NY; Bloomfield, NY

Voorheesville, NY to Syracuse, NY (September 4)

Distance covered today: 131 miles

Distance covered total: 336 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 3164 miles (90% left to go)

“The second hole was the hardest.”

-Stanley Yelnats, Holes

The difference a day makes.  Specifically, a day spent almost entirely on a motor scooter.  Whereas 24 hours ago I had left Boston brimming with confidence, optimism and clear skies, by the morning of Day Two, the reality had set in- I was in for a long haul.  Previously, I had foolishly believed that after enduring the marathon process of finding, buying, registering, inspecting, and licensing my scooter while also planning a route and picking supplies to bring, hitting the road would be the easy part.  Day One had proven how wrong I was and revealed that my butt and back would be taxed for all they were worth.  I hoped that they would grow more accustomed to life on the Metro, but it was challenging to take that leap of faith knowing that my own home wouldn’t be my next destination as had been the case yesterday.  Climbing back on the bike meant that the trip was for real, and California had never seemed farther away.

It's hard to leave a place like The 'Ville behind.

As if the first day of travel hadn’t been physically demanding enough, I didn’t have a chance to process its emotional significance until I had reached home and was laying my weary bones to rest.  Mostly I’m sad to leave my dog Terpsi behind.  But it’s also tough to leave The ‘Ville itself.  I had thought over the summer that I would be hard-pressed to find somewhere to live that had as much beauty and awesomeness per capita as Voorheesville.  Cruising the country roads between Albany and home last night (I took 443 for those of you familiar with the area) had just reinforced how much I love the Helderberg Mountains and how much they’ll be missed.

The person I'll miss most of all.

After loading up the scooter and saying goodbyes, I hit the road for Syracuse in what would be one of the shortest legs of my trip (though there’s no such thing as a short leg of a scooter journey).  As if to remind me of the challenges ahead, I encountered rain before I had even reached the neighboring town of Altamont.  Precipitation was one nemesis with which I had obviously expected to clash, but I hadn’t known the time would come so soon.

As I sped through the rain to the nearest overhead shelter, I was reminded of a past conversation about the physics of rainfall with a friend from college (yes you, Jake).  We were discussing the validity of the old wives tale that someone running through rain actually becomes more wet than their badass counterpart who keeps his/her cool by just standing still and holding their ground against the storm’s fury. The reasoning behind this phenomenon is that someone speeding through rain will be struck by drops from above while also intercepting drops that would have spared them had they not gone charging into them.  Jake and I had decided that this urban legend held water and in my almost instantly saturated condition I felt as though I could lend further support to our assertion.

I shouldn’t complain about a little water though, because only a few miles later I passed into Schoharie County, one of the places that had been hit hardest by Hurricane Irene a week earlier.  It was one thing to see shots of the destruction on the news, but another to see it firsthand, especially so close to my own home.  Homes hundreds of yards from the still swollen and brown Schoharie Creek had mountains of rubble in their yards, evidently gutted from their lower floors. There were road closures on numerous side streets.  Mud and dirt still caked the main road that I was driving on.  Tons of grass and foliage were also stained gray-brown from being immersed in flood water only days before.  An unusually high percentage of people were outside, working on cleaning up their damaged homes and yards.  Out of respect for the storm victims, I refrained from taking any pictures.

Toppled trees and destruction along the Schoharie Creek in Esperance, NY.  This was a full week after Hurricane Irene passed through.

Although my march through the celebrated Leatherstocking Region of New York began on that somber note, the mood brightened soon enough as I began to revel in the beautiful scenery of the Cherry Valley.  Despite its proximity to Massachusetts, New York has a very different flavor and look about it.  Driving past farms replete with big red barns and farm animals, you really can’t help but use words like “pastoral” and “idyllic” to describe the scenery.  It’s too bad that when most people think of New York, some image of New York City probably comes to mind.  In reality though, most of the state is covered by the rolling hills and farms that I would spend my day traversing.

Besides the scenery, I was grateful for Highway 20’s relative degree of scooter friendliness, especially after snaking my way along roads with narrow shoulders the day before.  Route 20’s wide shoulders allowed me to give more comfortable berths to passing traffic, even though overall the road seemed refreshingly lightly traveled.

I eventually ate lunch on a jungle gym in the town park of quaint West Winfield, NY.  While there I saw a devoted dog owner taking his old dog for a walk. The dog walked really, really slowly and evidently had creaky old joints and leg problems because its owner needed to carry it down the gentle slope of a hill.  Not that Terpsi’s that old or anything, but watching this reminded me of how much I already missed my friend.

Driving on, I crested a hill to see dark clouds and a bolt of lightning awaiting me on the next hilltop.  Eager to avoid my third deluge of the day, I darted off of 20 at the next rural intersection and then pulled off that road in a wooded area in anticipation of an extreme weather event.  After waiting for a couple tense but uneventful minutes, I realized that somehow the storm clouds had missed me.  I was a little disappointed honestly, as I had thoroughly enjoyed the hobbit-style “get off the road!” adrenaline rush and the desperate scramble for shelter.  Furthermore, I was proud of the spot I had chosen.  Nestled in a grove of tall trees, I felt like I wasn’t as easy of a target for lightning as if I had perched beneath a single, lonely tree somewhere else.  Additionally, these trees were part of a state forest, so I wasn’t even trespassing on someone’s property.

Another perk of Highway 20 is how it makes seamless transitions from scenic country road to the main street of historic downtown sections of small towns all across the state.  It’s a genuinely rewarding experience to get to cruise the strip of the Morrisvilles of the world as they provide a welcome change of pace from the rural stretches separating towns.  This provides a flattering glimpse of towns that one is denied by taking the interstate only a few miles to the north.

Most of New York looks something like this.

As 20 morphed into the main street of pleasant Cazenovia, NY, I received a slight ego boost upon discovering that the street was actually named Albany Street- presumably acknowledging the distant city to which the road extends.  I felt quite proud to have traveled the length of “Albany Street” all the way from its namesake to Cazenovia, as people had probably done in olden times before I-90 was built and stole the show.

Not far after Cazenovia, I reached my destination in the student ghetto of Syracuse University, where Labor Day Weekend festivities were in full swing in rowdy apartments.  I was proud to have completed another day of safe scooting and had renewed confidence about the feasibility of my trip and the ability of my body to adjust to the demands of scooting.  I would just have to take things one day at a time, with stops thrown in on an as-needed basis to keep my body fresh.  I no longer feared that I was going to have to adopt the Stanley Yelnats mentality and tell myself that “the second day is the hardest” and then the third, and the fourth, and so on.

As I went to park the scooter behind my hosts’ apartment, disaster struck when I least suspected it.  In the process of locking it up, my forearm brushed against the sizzling-hot motor, resulting in a sizable second-degree burn.  Great.  So, that will be fun to keep an eye on as I hopefully stave off infection in the coming days.  Oh well, it’s not like a festering wound ever hurt anyone.  I suppose it’ll just add another exciting element to the trip, which is increasingly resembling the Oregon Trail computer game (one of Carleton’s most notable gifts to the world, might I add).  The grueling pace.  Bare-bones rations.  And now the possibility of Pa succumbing to an infection.  At least I’m looking forward to when my pixilated self gets to go hunting and slaughter 974 pounds of meat.

Shout-outs:

-A big thanks to the triumvirate of Voorheesville transplants, Jimbo, Laura, and Sarah for hosting me at their place for two nights

-Approximately 4-year-old girl who tickled my face with seagull feathers at a stop near the lake in Cazenovia

-Kind lady in West Winfield who asked if I needed anything while temporarily stranded in the rain (I didn’t ask about a ride to San Francisco)

-The pair of guys drunkenly riding a two-person bicycle through the student ghetto of Syracuse

Town(s) of the Day: Cazenovia, NY; West Winfield, NY

 

 

Boston, MA to Voorheesville, NY (September 3)

Distance covered today: 205 miles

Distance covered total: 205 miles

Estimated mileage remaining: 3,295 miles (94% left to go)

“Best case scenario is that he breaks down somewhere close, like Ohio, so that you don’t have to go so far to get him.” 

-Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers (a.k.a. the Car Talk guys) in a phone conversation with my dad prior to the trip

Car Talk is a weekly radio show on NPR, where people call in and ask car-related questions to a pair of MIT-educated auto mechanics.  The hosts, whose real names are Tom and Ray Magliozzi, have thick Boston accents and mostly just laugh while on the air, but they really do know cars.  My dad is an avid listener, and as I was in the process of planning this trip he couldn’t resist the temptation to cross off one of his own “Bucket List” items and give a call to his idols.

After passing the initial screening of their incoming calls, he was able to ask their opinion of the trip and discuss some of its technical aspects (like whether to use synthetic oil or not, among other things), but didn’t end up making the final round of editing for the show, so his conversation never hit the airwaves.  Even so, he still chatted with Click and Clack long enough for them to deliver some bad news.  Bottom line, they don’t think I’ll make it.  They explained that Honda Metropolitan engines just aren’t designed to withstand such rigor.  They also expressed surprise that a parent would knowingly allow their child to attempt such a journey of almost certain doom.

Normally nay-sayers paradoxically motivate people rather than deterring them, but these weren’t your average trash-talkers.  I readily acknowledge their expertise and deeply respect their opinions, so news of their skepticism sowed a seed of doubt in my head.  But honor-bound to go for it, I will try to defy the Car Talk guys much the way the tragic heroes of Greek mythology tried in vain to evade their fates as foretold by the Oracle at Delphi!  Only hopefully with different results.

Appropriately, I would be starting my journey from the Tappet Brothers’ home turf in Boston, MA which begs the logical question, why start this journey in Boston, which is further east than my native Voorheesville, NY?

Well, I certainly could’ve hit the road in Voorheesville and had an exhilarating ride that would have covered about 95% of the country’s girth.  But if you’re gonna be covering that much ground, why not bump it up a notch to achieve the more fulfilling 100% stretch from sea to shining sea (or in this case, from the snarled knot of traffic called Boston to the snarled knot of traffic in The Bay).  In addition to making the trip a true coast-to-coast endeavor, by starting in Boston and driving home, I would be afforded a valuable “dress-rehearsal” run to test out how much ground I can cover in a day, how long I can stand being on the bike, if this is even going to be possible, etc.

The trip began from my friend Rob’s apartment in Brookline, MA, practically in the shadow of the Prudential Center, and soon I passed through Kenmore Square, the eastern terminus of U.S. Route 20, which stretches all the way to the Oregon coast.  In the coming days I would become intimately familiar with 20, as it would be my principal means of transit as far as Cleveland, OH.

Cruising the streets of Boston not only marked the start of my journey, but also my first time driving the Metro in the heart of any city.  Initially I had regarded city driving with some trepidation as I wasn’t looking forward to the task of jockeying for position against other motorists, but I guess it’s called the Honda Metropolitan for a reason- this thing is at its best on city streets.  The Metro can keep the pace in the lower speed limit environment, and weighing in at just 180 or so pounds, its acceleration is ideal for zipping from light to light.  (Not to mention that parking- the bane of most urban drivers the world over- is the easiest part with a scooter.  Forget circling the block like a bird of prey waiting for a spot that never materializes.  All the Metro requires is about 4 square feet of road or sidewalk and you’re set.)  All in all, it was love at first ride with city streets, and I knew I’d be looking forward to each urban oasis on the trip going forward.

As I climbed away from sea level, Boston blurred into its web of suburbs with delightfully English sounding names, and I broke away from 20 to take Massachusetts State Highway 9 for much of the afternoon.  After Worcester (pronounced wuh-stah by the locals), 9 snakes its way through some of the most sparsely populated swaths of The Bay State before eventually rejoining 20 on the extreme western edge of the state.

I stopped for lunch just east of Ware, MA in what I would describe as the first pocket of true wilderness that I encountered.  Already, the initial thrill of hitting the open road was beginning to wear off, and in its place my butt and back were beginning to hurt. This pain would only increase throughout the afternoon, as the miles piled up and crawled by at the snail’s pace of 35 mph.

The Quabbin. Weird to think that the water in my water bottle had come full circle, after being filled in Boston a couple hours earlier.

Maybe it was my interest in municipal water supplies or maybe I was just thirsty, but whatever the reason, shortly after lunch I couldn’t resist a quick detour to see the Quabbin Reservoir with my own eyes, or as it’s known colloquially, “The Watering Hole of The Commonwealth” (just kidding, I made that up).  The Quabbin is nestled in central Massachusetts and is the primary source of Boston’s drinking water, 65 miles away.  Back in the late 1930s, the Reservoir was formed via damming, forcing the permanent closure of four towns that were flooded in the process.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to be from a town that was flooded and forever submerged under someone else’s drinking water by the construction of a dam.  I suppose you’d be able to empathize with Spock, who had his home planet blown up.  Damn.  (Pun kind of intended).

The detour to the Quabbin only temporarily relieved my back and rump, both unaccustomed to the world of extreme scooting.  Winding up and down through the Berkshire Mountains on the remote stretch of road to Pittsfield, my body really began to ache.

The hours dragged on, but mercifully the New York border appeared before me at long last.  I stopped for a quick picture of the welcoming sign, and felt a true sense of accomplishment to have one state and one mountain range behind me.  Passage into my home state and hitting the familiar roads of the Capital Region provided a much-needed morale boost as I entered the home stretch for Day One.  The ultimate reward came as I descended into Rensselaer, which offers a stunning view of the Albany skyline on the opposite banks of the Hudson.

One state down, a dirty dozen left to go.

I have seldom been as happy to return home to Terpsi’s Acres as I was after completing my 10-hour marathon on the scooter.  My joy to be back however, was eclipsed mostly by my debilitating fatigue, but also by the sadness of having to leave again so soon and the revelation that this was going to be a challenge several orders of magnitude beyond what I had expected.  Maybe the Car Talk guys are right.  Maybe there’s a reason you don’t hear about people scooting from coast to coast.

Shout-outs:
-Rob for generously welcoming me into his Boston home on the eve of my departure.
-Family crammed in a van in the Berkshires who honked for me to pull over so that they could ask directions. Sadly, I couldn't help them.
-The hundreds of Massachusetts residents having garage sales (or "tag" sales as they're apparently called).  I would've stopped if I had more cargo room.


Town(s) of the Day: Dalton, MA; Albany, NY