Tales of a vagrant ant

Alright, this is the “long awaited” road trip post… It’s been a friggin month since my road trip, and I’ve been trying to write it down in my paper journal for posterity.. Partly to just keep writing when I’ve got some time on the bus or whatnot… But it has just taken a while to chronicle.
But at last, I’m done… This is going to be a mofo of a post… Epic, perhaps, and definitely photo intensive… dial up connections beware!

edit: I’m just going to break this down into smaller chunks… I think 2-3 day pieces

July 14 Arrival

I took a night flight to Cleveland, and for once, I found it impossible to fall asleep. I think I ended up watching Fantastic 4 or something. Night flights are always so peculiar, when it’s so hard to appreciate the distance you cover while careening through the darkened sky at almost 900km/h. The barely perceptible movement across the landscape reminds me of the vastness of the planet.

Morning came, and Katie and her mom Sue picked me up at the Cleveland airport, and back we went to Erie, and I talked to Sue about Net neutrality, about how there is the possibility of tiers of internet service, depending on what kind of network you were on. I always think it’s so cool that I’m able to talk about that kind of stuff with her… I know my mom wouldn’t have the least interest in something like that.

We took it easy for the evening, having shrimp and vegetable kebabs for dinner, followed by some delicious ice cream from brewster’s, and ending the night watching close encounters of the third kind I was pooped at this point, and was drifting in and out of sleep, and in some ways, it made the movie freakier, especially since Katie and I were planning on visiting Devil’s Tower on this trip. Then came a bit of last-minute packing, before passing out for the night.

July 15 Departure

We started the morning at Eat’n Park, where I was soundly defeated by the enormous American Portions. Returning to the house, we slowly began to move Katie’s stuff into the car, and trying to fit it together to maximize the space we had in Ezra, Katie’s 2001 dodge stratus. It reminded me of the simpsons episode where Homer uses his tetris skills to pack the car

Although really, it pretty much was…

After a tearful farewell, we hit the road shortly after lunch… drove through Ohio, and reached the 123 ft tall Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore by evening. Our first tourist stop really, but a nice one.

It was a beautiful place, and we were able to watch the sunset together, the fiery oranges smattering together with the mesmerizing blues. We tried looking for the green flash that you can see with certain sunsets, but no cigar. Creepy was the nuclear power plant smokestack imposing itself on the otherwise beautiful landscape. We hurried back to the car and hit the road, eager to get to our stop for the night. 40 minutes later, we were driving on a dark forsaken highway abounding in construction, so we were naturally elated when we finally saw the lights of civilization, and a sign proclaiming “The People of Gary Welcome You!”
We were quite starving at this point, and we had a few choices: Fast food, an all-night all-you-can-eat chinese buffet located conveniently beside a sketchy “Gentleman’s Club”, complete with pickup trucks in their dirt parking lot. And then there was Arman’s…

I was sold! How can one resist a sign that offering “Jolly good food”. It ended up being delish… A mean Seafood Gumbo, and roasted corn with chili butter. The owner was this frank, gruff yet admirable fellow, who seemed a bit like he had once wanted more in life, but was resigned to what he had, and was honest and proud of in what he did. It just really seemed like he gavea damn about his workers. We could see that he was about to close up, but when we offered to eat on the picnic benches outside, he declined, and said “No, when you pay me, it’s also to be able to sit here and enjoy your meal”. Maybe it’s just that I’ve never worked/managed food establishments, but to me, he seemed to take pride in what he did, and wasn’t just apathetic, even though he knew we were tourists we would likely never come back again.

The fiasco began after dinner, when we drove out the parking lot without our headlights, and was promptly stopped by a passing police cruiser. At first we were worried we had ran a red light or stop sign, but he just gave us a warning. Two warnings, actually. The written warning telling us to turn on our lights, and a spoken warning, that we shouldn’t stick around for the night, as the area was a high drug area. Sketched out, we followed his advice and drove to the next town, except when we got there, pretty much ALL the hotels were booked up, as if there was some bible conference or something. We drove around to 3 or 4 places, and were freaked out by the high security… All the front desks having glass panes at the counter (like movie theatres). Eventually, we got a room at the Economy Inn of America for $67, so snagged it, snuck Katie’s rat Elly into the room, and hit the sack.

Okay, that’s all for now. Stay tuned for more!