My parents wanted absolutely nothing to do with this crazy plan, and eventually backed off to where they wouldn't mind if I just found somebody to share the ride. Fair enough. I actually put a lot of effort into trying to find somebody to go along, but the people who wanted to go were busy, since it was graduation time at Princeton. The other Princeton folks working at Microsoft were either flying out or were driving their own cars, with their own weird itineraries. No luck. Finally, I just decided to just do it, so I joined AAA, got enough maps to account for acres of global deforestation, and I even got a cellular phone.
The first day was easily my hardest. I had to figure out how to stretch
my legs and back while driving, and I had to stop about every hour and a half
because I just wasn't used to the whole business. My goal was to make it all
the way to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I'd spend two days hanging out with
my friend Linda. Linda took a leave of absence from Princeton grad school
because it just wasn't meeting her expectations, she missed home, and various
other personal reasons.
Anyway, Pennsylvania was annoyingly slow because they still had the 55 m.p.h. speed limit with obnoxious ``Pennsylvania is still 55!'' signs. At least Pennsylvania has beautiful scenery. Ohio was basically long, straight, flat, and boring. I-80 becomes a toll-road, but it only costs $5.50 or so to cross the state. Somebody with lots of forethought spaced out the rest stops every 50 miles or so, which is just enough that if you're thinking ``maybe I'll take a break soon,'' you'll pull over when you see the sign that says ``Rest Stop, 1 Mile. Next stop 54 miles.'' Ohio rest stops are nice because they have gas, food, everything. They're also relics from the Twilight Zone because they're all precisely the same building with precisely the same landscaping. You start wondering if Ohio will ever end.
Still, I made it to Linda's place by about 10:30pm and I was
completely beat. I went to grab my bag of clothes... to discover it
wasn't in my car! Oy vey! Turns out I left it back in my apartment.
I called my Princeton roommate and we decided to ship my bag to California
where I'd be next staying for more than a day. Linda and I then made
an emergency trip to the Gap where I bought a pile of clothes in record
time (since I'd just bought Gap stuff the week before and I knew my size).
``Gee, you're easy to shop for,'' she remarked.
Part of my motivation for going to Michigan was to visit the Holland
Tulip Festival. Why? Because it was there. As it happens, Michigan
has a large Dutch population who stage a yearly festival where they
wear traditional Dutch costumes, including wooden shoes, and plant tulips
everywhere throughout the city. Apparently, it's specifically
against the law to pick a city-owned tulip.
In full tourist mode, I stumbled into the Holland city mayor and his wife
and I made sure to get my picture with them. In the background, you can
see a float for the street parade with children wearing traditional dress
from around the world, which demonstrates Holland is a nice multicultural
harmonious kind of place. Not pictured is the Toys 'R Us float,
which demonstrates they're just as commercialized as anywhere else, and
the Michigan For Life float, which didn't have any pro-choice
counterpart. It's the little things that remind you you're in the boonies.
Michigan was still a cool experience, overall, and it was good to see
Linda again. Back on the road, my next goal was to meet Stanley, a
cousin of my father, who's an accountant in Chicago. We would be
meeting for lunch and Stanley asked me, over the phone, what I'd like
to eat. ``Pizza!'' I respond. Stanley said we'd then be eating at
the original Pizzeria Uno. Sure, there's plenty of better
deep-dish pizza in Chicago, but Uno's is still the first.
I was driving into downtown Chicago on a Sunday morning, which was
probably a zillion times better than Monday, but the traffic was still
pretty tight. Once I got into the city itself, I had no trouble
finding a parking meter a block from the restaurant, and Stanley was
right there inside. I thought it would be awkward having lunch with
somebody who I didn't really know at all, but we hit it off fine,
talking about the net, cellular phones, vacations, various family
stories, and other random stuff. The pizza was pretty good, too.
After the pizza, we spent a few hours wandering around the waterfront.
Here's a picture of me sitting by this water canon which erupts once
an hour. It's fun to watch the folks boating down the river get
drenched by the water.
As you can see, the weather was just absolutely beautiful. Sunny and
maybe 75 degrees with a cool, but not freezing, breeze off the lake.
Lake Michigan is big enough that you can't see across it, which you
just can't appreciate from a plane or a map, but which is quite impressive
when you're standing on the shore looking out.
I took one of the Chicago arteries southwest and eventually reconnected with I-80 West. Away we go!
Iowa isn't much to describe, really. It's got rolling hills which were generally dark brown because the corn hadn't been planted yet. Generally, the highest places you can see while driving along the road are the overpasses. It's pretty dull.
I got as far as Des Moines, Iowa when I was just pooped and ready to crash for the night. I was going to just pull into a Holiday Inn, but downtown was just a mile or two away, and there was this gleaming Marriot tower. It would cost more than Microsoft would reimburse, but I liked the idea of room service, followed directly by crashing.
My goal for the next two days was to reach Salt Lake City, Utah, where I was meeting an old Berkeley friend who's now a grad student at the University of Utah. I figured I could get as far as Wyoming by nightfall if I was lucky. Bright and early I was back in the car and heading west again, into Nebraska.
One of the initially strange things about Nebraska is that you can't
buy normal gasoline. Everything is lower octane (super unleaded is 91
instead of the usual 93 or 94) and has ethanol in it. Aside from
that, eastern Nebraska is about as exciting as Iowa. Anyway, it was
getting to be lunchtime, and I was passing Lincoln. In search of
munchies, I turn off the road and head into the city. As I passed the
football stadium, I read ``U. Nebraska - Lincoln'' and the gears start
churning in my head. Wait a minute, I know somebody here! As
it happens,
Paul
Marxhausen maintains the U. Nebraska-Lincoln
R.S.I. Page, which covers much of the same material as my own
Typing Injury FAQ. We'd exchanged
e-mail now and again, but I was right there. I pulled up to
the campus bookstore, threw on my coat because it was pouring down rain,
and went in to search out a campus phone directory.
Apparently, Nebraska is a really good football school, and the store was plastered with posters, pictures, framed Sports Illustrated issues, and just about anything else you could imagine might remind you that the Cornhuskers play really good football.
I asked one of the folks working there where I could find a directory. She hunted around, found one, and stared at me funny.
``Where'd you get that cool jacket?''``Oh, a hiking and climbing store. It's your basic Gore-Tex shell.''
``You're not from around here, huh?''
I managed to get Paul on the phone. He's naturally surprised to be hearing from me, and even more surprised when he finds out I'm nearby. We agreed to meet for lunch at the student center, which has a food court with a variety of fast food chain restaurants.
After lunch, I asked Paul where exactly I could get a picture of us
that would be clearly recognizable as being on the UNL campus. The picture
you see is the two of us standing in front of Richard Serra's Greenpoint,
which is neat because you can make a bunch of noise inside it and it all
reflects back at you. Apparently it's somewhat controversial because the
school spent a large chunk of money on it, and not everybody sees it as
a good investment.
