The Great Mid­west­ern Road Trip 2018!

This was our view, the morn­ing of Day One of the Great Road Trip Exper­i­ment.  Dear, dear Jacque, hap­pi­ly beam­ing as he got down to work on the fence and gate, to be repaired dur­ing our absence.  “Have a great time, guys!  See you on the oth­er side of your big adventure…”

They said we were nuts!  They said we’d regret it.  “2500 miles in nine days?” “Sev­en states in nine days?”  My last “road trip home” was any­thing but a road trip — I think I end­ed up in six dif­fer­ent air­ports (but it was still great fun).

We drove away, the car packed with about 300 cans of fizzy water, just as many pod­cast episodes to lis­ten to.  We also had fresh fried egg, cheese and bacon sand­wich­es on my home­made pota­to rolls.

We got sev­er­al hun­dred miles into the trek across Con­necti­cut, New York, and Penn­syl­va­nia before we even ran out of things to talk about, such had been the busy-ness, social life, and fun of (not Red Gate) Farm before we embarked on our jour­ney.  Plus there was so much to antic­i­pate — the coal mine vis­it, the stop in The Greater Youngstown Met­ro­pol­i­tan Area overnight, the stay in Indi­ana, the trip to Iowa, the stay there, the LOOOONG trip back.  We talked and talked.  And then we came to the MINE.

I includ­ed the link above in the remote, remote chance you would ever want to go on a tour of said mine.  As we wait­ed in the Vis­i­tors’ Cen­ter for the tour to begin, we watched a har­row­ing film about the his­to­ry of said mine, and even a filmed bit of the tour.  At this point I began to ques­tion the wis­dom of don­ning a hard­hat and rid­ing a creepy met­al train down 250 feet under­ground to crawl around in an aban­doned mine.  But I felt one should face one’s fears.  Down we went.

I am def­i­nite­ly made of the wrong stuff.  I would not sur­vive one hour as one of those 19th cen­tu­ry men (and boys) sent down to hack at the damp walls under the light (the equal pow­er of a birth­day can­dle) attached to their hel­mets, reliev­ing them­selves dur­ing the long day in the fetid water that coat­ed the dirt floors.  Yuck!  The space was pos­i­tive­ly claustrophobic.

It was touch­ing to see the board of names, and to imag­ine (as the guide told us) the myr­i­ad ways in which they died down there.

It was a def­i­nite relief when the (very long) hour was over and we could con­tin­ue on our jour­ney.  But John had want­ed to vis­it a mine, and so we did.  Box ticked.

We began to lis­ten to a pod­cast called “In the Dark,” about an unsolved mur­der mys­tery in a remote part of Nor­way.  It got us through Penn­syl­va­nia.  Part of the sec­ond sea­son got us to Ohio, and our overnight stop.  But first, “din­ner,” at Jib Jab Hot Dog Shoppe!

It is pos­si­bly the most Amer­i­can thing we have ever done.

Hot dogs for $1.08!

We ate our hot dogs and perused the clien­tele, all look­ing intense­ly local, like they ate at Jib Jab (which has been in oper­a­tion for 40 years, we were told by our wait­ress Mary) every Tues­day night.  Mary was awesome.

To our equal­ly intense­ly Amer­i­can motel, with a relent­less­ly cheer­ful pair of young women behind the desk, to a sooth­ing cock­tail and sleep.

Up in the morn­ing for the final leg (7 hours!) to Indi­anapo­lis!  So won­der­ful to arrive and see Mom, Andy, and of course dear Maisie!

After tak­ing a tour of the beau­ti­ful new gar­den plant­i­ngs, the new porch dec­o­ra­tions, set­tling in, vis­it­ing for a bit and run­ning errands, we were off to a local Irish pub where I was sched­uled to sing — yes, SING — with my high school band.  I know, you’re ask­ing, how could we have known Kris­ten (in Lon­don, as a mat­ter of fact) for so many years and not know of her dark past as a Mid­west­ern songstress?

I did not cov­er myself in glo­ry, but it was­n’t a total embar­rass­ment, and you know what else?  It was FUN.  It was also won­der­ful to see Mom out and about enjoy­ing her­self, and see­ing so many old friends.  My child­hood best girl, Amy.

I absolute­ly love this pic­ture of Mom and me, how­ev­er pink with August Indi­ana hot I was!

And Andy!  He enjoyed lis­ten­ing so much that he’s joined a band himself.

Up ear­ly in the morn­ing to wave John off on his archi­tec­tur­al tour of Colum­bus, Indi­ana (clev­er­ly planned to coin­cide with my entire day in the kitchen cook­ing with Chef Jen­ny for the evening’s big bash).  I arrived fresh from the hotel, to see Mom’s smil­ing face, wel­com­ing me for the day.

It was time to don my apron and begin con­coct­ing slow-braised chick­en thighs, roast­ed salmon side, pota­to rolls…

Mom sat in the kitchen and gos­siped with us until she felt she’d be more com­fort­able in a liv­ing room chair, and then Jen­ny and I would plunge back into our duties.

Inter­mit­tent­ly I’d take a break and vis­it Mom in the liv­ing room, with her faith­ful Maisie by her side.

We made dev­illed eggs, chopped sal­ad, toma­to moz­zarel­la basil sal­ad, cold shrimp with Jen­ny’s horse­rad­ish sauce.  It was all such fun.

Final­ly every­one began arriv­ing!  Lin­da, all the way from Detroit, amaz­ing­ly!  The loveli­est singing teacher any high school group could ever wish for.

The two Amys!

I was hav­ing such fun that I took absolute­ly no pic­tures, so I relied on the kind­ness of strangers to send these to me.  I’m so sor­ry I don’t have more!

I wish I had one of our dar­ling French teacher Jody, who was hap­py to meet Lin­da for the first time — two of the biggest influ­ences of my entire life.  I told Jody how her teach­ing me French had led to my sum­mer there, my dis­ser­ta­tion on a French sub­ject, a career teach­ing in French art, meet­ing all my art stu­dents who lat­er joined my gallery.  Sim­ply amazing.

John, on a whim, reached out to a friend of 30 years ago, when they worked on the Rea­gan-Bush 1984 cam­paign, and she CAME to the par­ty!  Lesa, with her dar­ling hus­band Andy.  We sat on Mom’s beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed front porch and rem­i­nisced, and brought each oth­er up to date.  It won’t be anoth­er 30 years before we see them again.

And Janet — Mom’s best friend and the warmest com­pan­ion she could ask for, now that both Dad and Rich are gone.

Next time I promise to bring my cam­era… there were so many oth­er gor­geous friends there.

The next morn­ing I sat down at mom’s pho­to­graph cab­i­net and found some real gems.

So many pic­tures of young Mom look just like Avery.

I just love see­ing her vibrant young face in my child, now.  Cer­tain­ly their dra­mat­ic beau­ty skipped a gen­er­a­tion in blonde lit­tle me.

Din­ner — I was cooked out! — was a gor­geous ten­der­loin from the bar where we’d sung!  Indi­ana knows its ten­der­loins, that’s for darn sure.

Mon­day saw us cook­ing up a storm again, this time for the arrival of our Ken­tucky family!

We sat and vis­it­ed on Mom’s equal­ly beau­ti­ful back porch, such an Indi­ana tra­di­tion, fes­tooned with her care­ful­ly tend­ed ferns.  I love that porch.  So does Maisie.

Lunch was a very savoury affair of spaghet­ti and meat­balls, one of Aunt Mary Wayne’s and Uncle Ken­ny’s favourites.

You can see we were joined by gor­geous Julie, one of my mom’s clos­est friends, who had been kind enough to loan to me her pre­cious KitchenAid mix­er the Sat­ur­day, to con­coct the pota­to rolls.  She was such an addi­tion to the lunch par­ty!  And there is “lit­tle Ryan,” my first cousin once removed, who tow­ers over me now, of course, on his way to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cincin­nati.  Fam­i­ly.  There is noth­ing like it.

And then many tight hugs lat­er (the vis­its are always too short, no mat­ter who is vis­it­ing whom), John and I were on the road again, this time to reach Iowa by sunset.

In the morn­ing we prowled around John’s mom’s house, wait­ing for her to return from a doc­tor’s appoint­ment.  Like my moth­er’s beau­ti­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed house (but in two rather dif­fer­ent styles, such fun to see them both), every­thing is “curat­ed” into taste­ful and inven­tive arrange­ments of care­ful­ly col­lect­ed, pre­cious things.

I kept com­ing back to the incred­i­ble real­i­sa­tion that this sum­mer, I am exact­ly the age I was when I met Rose­mary, my moth­er-in-law.  How is that even pos­si­ble?  Thir­ty-five long, full years.

Iowa, of course, means corn and toma­toes, always.

What a won­der­ful vis­it to Iowa!  The Great Project of Sum­mer 2018 was… the attic.

My good­ness, is there any hot­ter place on earth than a Mid­west­ern attic!  We car­ried every­thing down­stairs to go through.  Untold trea­sures from John’s and his fam­i­ly’s past!

The things we found…

“Rus­sians for Rea­gan!”  Oh my.  My favourite isn’t in this pic­ture.  “Fem­i­nists for Rea­gan.”  Sure, why not?

Sure­ly, though, the most mem­o­rable finds were among the 1500+ slides we went relent­less­ly through, pro­ject­ed onto a bed­sheet, hung on the book­shelf, in the dark­ened library.  Incred­i­ble memories.

I remem­ber it so well — this was a dance where you came as a cou­ple, so we came as Pres­i­den­tial and Vice-Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates, 1984.  These col­lege friends of ours we wear­ing our “cam­paign but­tons.”  Priceless.

Then this gem from Fiesole, in about 1986.  Keep in mind it’s an iPhone pho­to of a SLIDE pro­ject­ed onto a bed­sheet.  We do look a bit like card­board cutouts, but very sweet.

My only con­so­la­tion for not being this adorable any­more is how much hap­pi­er I am now — my young self was such a bun­dle of doubts and inse­cu­ri­ties.  Now I am an old­er, wis­er, and much bet­ter-fed bun­dle of nos­tal­gia.  Which is appro­pri­ate at age 53, I suppose.

But just look at John, from the year before I met him.  Is it any sur­prise Avery is so stun­ning?  I can tell you, I saw this dude and I was not going to let go.

What fun.  We col­lect­ed, I think, six enor­mous garbage bags full of things for the land­fill, and kept one slide tray of images to digi­tise.  That will be fun.  I’ll keep you post­ed.  Rose­mary was very brave to let so many things go.

There was time to go to the cof­fee shop to meet up with Rose­mary’s friend Randy.  I love Cup of Joe.  The pro­pri­etress, Dawn, always remem­bers us!  This is her smil­ing face from my last vis­it, three sum­mers ago.

We stayed for­ev­er, chat­ting, catch­ing up on Iowa news, exchang­ing sto­ries from the past.

There was an after­noon, as always, to relax on the porch, while John and his mom put­tered around fix­ing var­i­ous bits of tech­nol­o­gy.  I lis­tened to bird­song and to the air con­di­tion­er switch­ing on and off.  Amer­i­can summer.

And there was a per­fect­ly mag­i­cal din­ner par­ty, giv­en for us by our great friends Den­nis and Camille, who had so recent­ly been our guests in Lon­don.  Their house is sim­ply stun­ning.  So quin­tes­sen­tial­ly Amer­i­can on the out­side, but filled with pre­cious things brought from for­eign lands, on the inside.

We were joined by John’s dar­ling sis­ter Cathy and her fam­i­ly, who had dri­ven all the way from Min­neapo­lis, and by the Brauns (all of whom have been our guests in Lon­don, as a mat­ter of fact — I kept say­ing dur­ing our whole Road Trip about this friend or that, “They’ve been to see us in Lon­don, of course.)

Sarah brought along her beau­ti­ful pho­tos of her engage­ment to Swedish Mikael (they’ve been to see us in Lon­don!  See what I mean?)

Ellen reclined in per­fect ath­let­ic splen­dour, as only a cham­pi­on swim­mer can do.  She regaled us with tales of her Scot­tish boyfriend.  Those Suss­man girls just don’t stay home!

Such a lux­u­ry, to be togeth­er.  It was a beau­ti­ful, icon­ic sum­mer Iowa night.

Din­ner was gor­geous, fat BLTs and grilled corn (which was a rev­e­la­tion to me, wrapped in foil in a but­tery bath), Kathy’s Key Lime Pie.  Con­ver­sa­tion was fast and furi­ous, with mem­o­ries and sto­ries flow­ing freely.

An ele­gant, warm, appre­cia­tive night.

The next morn­ing found us say­ing good­bye to Cathy and her family.

And we were back on the road, fly­ing through flat, flat Illi­nois, mile after peace­ful mile.

Felt Tacy was intrepid.

Nat­u­ral­ly, the one two-hour spell of dri­ving I took on, whilst John enjoyed a much-need­ed rest, turned out to be the out­skirts of Chica­go!  My dear, the traf­fic!  The con­struc­tion, the toll booths, the insane truck dri­vers glued to their phones!  I was hap­py to relin­quish again.

Jib Jab to the res­cue at the end of that very tir­ing day.

The home stretch to Con­necti­cut was unevent­ful, through hills and val­leys of Penn­syl­va­nia that are so lush with unend­ing trees that it’s very easy to for­get we’re cut­ting down too many of them.  We arrived mid-after­noon, very tired, to find this.  Red Gate Farm is Red Once More!

Jacque the mir­a­cle work­er had done his mag­ic.  It’s more beau­ti­ful than ever.

And that, dear read­ers, was our Road Trip.  So many friends, so much fam­i­ly, won­der­ful meals, bril­liant con­ver­sa­tions.  There will be much to keep in our thoughts these last few days of our Amer­i­can summer…