Further Adventures in Greater Nebraska

Saturday morning, after an organizational and political effort equalling that required for manned space flight, we headed to Norfolk, Nebraska.

"We" is my brother, his wife, their three kids, and me.  The purpose of our trip was to visit her parents and her sister's family who were visiting Norfolk from Ohio.  My brother and his family were staying through the New Year; I was coming back to Omaha on Sunday and therefore caravanned with them.

My 12-year-old nephew and a bunch of sleds joined me in the trusty Vue and the rest of the family packed into their van.  After only a couple of quick misstarts, we took off.

Immediately a minor crisis developed in the Vue:  the stereo system was dead.  (Foreshadowing:  the car started fine otherwise.)  Luckily my nephew is a resourceful young man, particularly when matters of audio electronics are involved, and he pulled out some portable speakers that he had brought - apparently for just such an occasion.  Lickety-split he had them hooked up to his iPod.  Also luckily, my nephew shares his father's eclectic and generally good taste in popular music so the iPod mix was enjoyable, featuring everything from Phillip Phillips to quasi-rap to Aerosmith.

Representatives of law enforcement will be pleased to know that the traffic education program recently provided by the State of Nebraska, County of Douglas, to my brother, was effective and we drove at exactly the speed limit for the entire two hour trip. Exactly. The. Speed. Limit.

Most of the trip looked like this:

If you put yourself in the right frame of mind, the brown/gray/black and white landscape of the midwestern winter can be pretty.  Whether this is an acquired taste, like scotch, or more along the lines of people getting better looking just before the bar closes, I will leave to your judgment, dedicated reader.

Highway 6 is the second-longest U.S. highway, running from Cape Cod to California.  My Hoosier friends will know that it runs across the top of Indiana, more or less parallel with the Indiana Toll Road (now owned by the Spanish, but only for another seventy years).  You can apparently drive Highway 6 from coast to coast, which might be a good trip sometime (although if I were doing the "old highway" theme I'd probably go old-school and follow Route 66 or Lincoln Highway), but the relevant point here is that Highway 6 runs through Omaha, where it is Dodge Street/West Dodge Road.  (Here's a city-planner-geek thing that has always fascinated me:  there is a Dodge Street and a Center Street in Omaha, each of which turns into West Dodge (or West Center) Road.  I've never known why and if anyone can clue me in, I'd appreciate it.) 

We took Highway 6 out of Omaha, which I think is sort of cool.  But the really cool thing - and yes, I understand that "cool" may be pushing it for people who aren't urban geeks - is that for this trip we also were briefly on Highway 30.  That is the third longest U.S. highway, and is the road one drives from Fort Wayne to points northwest.  (As a public service to you, my dedicated reader, I will reiterate the First Rule of Travel:  Never Take Highway 30 West of Merrillville, Indiana - and preferably not west of Valparaiso.  Despite your understandable and desparate desire to find a Better Way Around Chicago, and despite the fact that the map shows Highway 30 heading due west, appearing to avoid the Chicago spaghetti bowl, and emptying out nicely onto I-80 at Joliet, don't do it.  You're on a local street for about a thousand miles and no matter the season, the road is always under construction.  It's like meth:  it may seem like a good idea at the time, but the next thing you know you haven't slept in two weeks and your teeth have all rotted out.  Be advised.)

While we're discussing interesting infrastructure topics (look, buddy, it's interesting to ME and this is MY blog), let me jump in here with a short discussion of the correct pronounciation of Norfolk.  The town, population 24,000, is located at the North Fork of the Elkhorn River.  Its original name was submitted to whoever is in charge of these things in Washington, DC, as Norfork - sort of like North Fork, get it?  But somehow it was recorded as Norfolk.  This could have been a simple mistake, but most Nebraskans (including myself) subscribe to the theory that some pointy headed bureaucrat thought "those dumb country people certainly meant to name their town after Norfolk, Virginia, so I'll just correct their ignorance by changing the spelling."  Regardless, true Nebraskans say "Norfork."

On Highway 275 (which isn't nearly as cool as U.S. 6 or U.S. 30 - sorry), we passed through a number of small towns.  Each of these has its own post office and at least one (usually more) grain elevator.  There is also a BP or Sinclair station, and at least two bars.  (I believe there is a state law that sets out these requirements.)  Scribner, population 857, is illustrative:

As you can see, Scribner also has a nice welcome sign.

It seems inevitable that highways go through the least attractive parts of town.  For instance, what you see above is what Scribner looks like from 275.  Nothing to write home about.  But if you turn one block off the highway, you see some really pretty buildings:

Of course, if the highway went by the pretty buildings, they'd probably all end up torn down.  My point is that it's worth a couple of minutes to occasionally turn off the highway and see what the rest of the town looks like.

My nephew is a self-contained kid.  He is smart, funny, fun, and really sweet.  He is not, however, what you'd call a talker.  Our conversation consisted of my rambling and his politely acknowledging what I'd said.  For some people, such a situation might have felt like a problem.  As you know, I am not one of those people.

I even told him the urban legend I'd heard, which I choose to believe is true, about the Valley Irrigation company, based in Valley, Nebraska (just west of Omaha).  As I'd heard it told, the company was near bankruptcy at one point in the 1950's or 1960's, and several investors decided that it wasn't worth the broker's commission to sell the stock, so they held onto it.  The company turned around and these guys made a ton of cash.  The moral, I guess, is that once you've hit rock bottom, sometimes it makes sense to just hang on.  An alternate lesson is that some folks are simply lucky.  My nephew listened to all of this, even appearing interested, which is a tribute to his good upbringing and excellent parents.

Regardless of the truth of the story, Valley seems to be selling a lot of irrigation equipment.

After the terrible droughts of the 1970's in Nebraska, there were basically two types of farmers:  those who had invested in irrigation, and those who were no longer farming.  In Nebraska, you were a "dry land farmer" if you didn't irrigate.  That says it all.

It may take you nearly as long to read this post as it took to drive to Norfolk, and I apologize for that.  Once we got to my in-laws' house (yeah, I know, they're not really my in-laws but just humor me), the kids went sledding on a nearby dam.  There's a funny story about my brother and his wife being featured on the front page of the Norfolk Daily News wiping out on this sled run a few years ago, but unfortunately I don't have that picture.  So you'll have to enjoy this shot instead:

After a wonderful afternoon of cooking and wine tasting, and then a delicious dinner followed by the guys doing the dishes, and a couple of episodes of Downton Abbey Sunday morning, I got in the Vue to return to Omaha.

The good news was that my stereo wasn't dead.  The battery was.  My brother and his father-in-law gave me a good jump and I promised not to stop until I got a new battery in Omaha.

My promise notwithstanding, I did make a quick stop (not turning off the engine) at a historic marker just west of Fremont, erected in 1928.  The marker both commemorated historic events and was also, apparently, historic in itself, as it was old and surrounded by a chain link fence for protection.  Regardless, the marker pointed out that this route was "An Old Indian Trail, East to West - Route of Major S.H. Long, June 7, 1820 - Part of Mormon Migration 1847 to 1864 And California Gold Rush 1849."  Some people may not know that the Mormons crossed the country through Nebraska but had to use a separate route to avoid conflict with other settlers.  They spent a terrible winter just north of Omaha, and Omaha has a Mormon Bridge across the Missouri River near where their winter encampment was located.  But I hadn't realized that, at least according to this marker, the Mormons took the same route as the Gold Rush.  That must have made for some interesting campfires.

Oh, if you're ever in Omaha in need of car service on a Sunday, I highly recommend the BP station at 79th and West Dodge Road.  Quick, friendly service and they even washed the Vue.  This place has been there since Henry Ford, I think, although it used to be an Amoco station back in the day.  The Service Center is open until 5.

The Perils of Pauline

It's hard both to live life and to chronicle it, unless you are a lot more disciplined than I am.  I've spent the past ten days on two major projects:  a surgical strike visit to Fort Wayne, and Christmas.

First, the trip.  Although I originally hadn't planned to go back to the Fort until next spring, I decided to return for a day to see several people.  That meant a 10-hour drive one day, a day of visiting, and then driving back the third day.  Given predicted winter weather conditions, I left early the Wednesday before Christmas to get ahead of the snowstorm.  That worked, and I arrived in Fort Wayne in time for dinner Wednesday night.  My plan was to let the blizzard come through on Thursday, and return to Omaha on Friday when the interstate was clear.  That was my plan, and everything was going well on Friday until I hit western Illinois.  Although it had been overcast with some snow in Fort Wayne, Chicago was clear and dry, and I had my sunglasses on.  Yeah, the future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

The first sign of potential trouble - what some might call a "clue" - was when I stopped for lunch about 45 miles east of the Iowa border at 2-ish.  West Branch, Iowa (about 50 miles west of the Illinois line), is home to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library which my parents had recommended as worth the stop.  So I thought, hey, I should easily be able to get to West Branch before 4 and could swing by for a quick inspection.  Consulting the Google, just to see how far off the exit it is, I was told 140 miles, 4 hours.  Confused at this obvious mistake, I mapped the distance to my brother's house - that time should have been in the range of 6 or 7 hours, and it was showing more like 9.  Darn Google Maps and their trying to be like Apple, I thought, and pressed on.

It didn't take long to encounter ice and packed snow on Interstate 80.  Nice. The weather itself was dry, but the snow hadn't all been cleared from the day before.  There was about 3/4 of an inch, and usually just in one lane, and that was scary enough.  Of course, Interstate 80 is dominated by tractor-trailer traffic, and the only thing that makes driving on ice more fun is doing so in proximity to extremely large vehicles that bend in the middle.  I started counting cars off the road, and kept a separate tally of semis.

At the Iowa border the condition of the road stopped being frightening, because I was no longer driving.  "Driving" implies movement, and that just wasn't happening.  Obviously I wasn't getting to the Hoover Museum that day (it was about 6 by the time I passed West Branch, although honestly I'd stopped paying attention to the clock at that point).  I hit a couple of rest stops, thoughtfully provided by the taxpayers of Iowa, or someone, every 30 to 40 miles.  (Seriously, the only good thing you can say about driving I-80 across Iowa, even in good weather, is that there are lots of convenient and clean rest stops, with wifi provided by a Fort Wayne company, as a matter of fact.)  One of the stops was staffed by a Very Nice Lady who could only deliver bad news - that the road conditions were no better throughout Iowa.  It was cold, and with no sun (initially from clouds, then from pre-Solistice nightfall), things weren't going to get better for a while.

But I've never been a person to let facts get in the way of a Good Plan.  Sure, I wasn't going to make Omaha by 8 p.m., which had been my original goal, but there was no reason that I couldn't get back that night.  After all, I wasn't drowsy and every mile of progress was, well, a mile of progress, and who wants to spend money on a motel room anyway?  So I pressed on.

Perhaps it was the experience of being stopped on I-80 in Des Moines behind a truck driver putting chains on his tires at 9:15 p.m. - still 140 miles from Omaha - that caused me to decide that discretion was the better part of valor.  In any event, it was around that time that I decided that even though I was two hours from Omaha under optimal conditions, I had no way of knowing the actual road conditions - and so far, "optimal" hadn't been in the cards.  Plus, driving on roads partially covered with snow is worse when you can't see more than 25 feet ahead.  So I stopped at a lovely Hilton Gardens Inn in Johnson or Urbandale or some such place, just outside Des Moines.  (Of course, I had missed the exit with all the cheap motels; such was my punishment for stubbornness.)  My knuckles soon returned to their normal color.

Turns out to have been a good decision.  The rest of Metro Des Moines was as bad as the first part had been, even in daylight - but it was easier to take after a good night's sleep.  Even better, much of the rest of I-80 was clear (and since I could see it, I could take advantage of the good conditions - had I been driving in the dark I would still have been terrified to go a normal highway speed).  It took three hours to get to Omaha (normal conditions would have been under two), and I returned in time to watch one of my nephews play a couple of basketball games in a tournament at Bellevue East High School.

Oh, and the final tally?  Although I stopped keeping a solid count, in the 350 or so miles from western Illinois to Des Moines, there were more than 50 cars and about two dozen semis off the road.  From Des Moines to Omaha, there was about half again that number - including a car on Saturday morning that still had two occupants in it when I saw it in the median.  (I called 911 and they'd already been notified.)

Well, that is harrowing enough for one post.  Stay safe on the roads out there, and I'll fill you in on Christmas later.

Untitled

Part I:

Last Thursday night I was at my 9-year-old nephew's elementary school, doing what a person is supposed to do in December at an elementary school:  watching an adorable music pageant.  (This one was about a snowman and featured my nephew in a Significant Speaking Role as a TV anchor.  He was excellent, of course!)  My phone wouldn't let me e-mail the video file to my sisters, his other aunts, because it was too big, so there wasn't a lot of media coverage of this event.  I was at the school with my brother and his wife, her parents, my nephew who is 12, and my niece who is nearly seven.

Nearly seven.  Her birthday is next month.

Twelve hours later, everyone on earth with access to electronic media was hearing about another person at another school, and about twenty other children who were nearly seven as well.  These children will never celebrate their next birthdays, not next month, not next year.  And six women, educators who had probably planned to spend that Friday trying to keep holiday-frazzled kids focused on learning, instead gave their lives trying to protect their children.

There are not words to describe this tragedy further.

Part II:

I am not a gun person.

There were no guns in my home growing up.  My dad didn't hunt.  If any of my friends had guns in their homes, I didn't know about it.  I shot at a camping program a couple of times as an adult, and it was fun, but it's not like I had any urge to go buy a gun.

So I don't get the whole being passionate about guns thing, although I do get that lots of people are.  I pay enough attention to know that the Second Amendment has begun being interpreted by the Supreme Court to mean that certain types of gun restrictions are not Constitutional.  And I also understand that the existence of a law doesn't ensure strict compliance with that law.

(On a strictly practical level, however, I don't understand why anyone whose home is lived in or visited by children, or by adults with bad tempers and access to alcohol or other drugs, or anyone who hasn't completed SEAL firearms training and who is always home [i.e., they can prevent a criminal from breaking into their house and stealing the gun] - I don't get why anyone like that even WANTS a gun.  I've never understood how one balances keeping the gun safe [i.e., relatively inaccessible] with having it available when an intruder breaks in.)

But I respect that many passionate pro-gun people (some of whom are my friends) are very sincere and well-intentioned in their beliefs.

Same as me.

There has been a lot written and said in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook School shooting, some of it actually productive discussion.  The most interesting to me are the statements that are political - that is, people talking about the policy implications of this terrible crime:  the sense that this shouldn't have to happen again so maybe THIS TIME our country should do more than just talk, that perhaps President Obama and the Democratic leadership will take on a weakened-NRA and work with Republicans on policies (gun control, mental health, maybe others) that can reduce the likelihood that another community will have to face the same nightmare.  This conversation gives me more hope than I've had on the issue for a long time.

Gun control proponents have been narrowing their goals for years - I don't know that anyone in any sort of position of power talks about a handgun ban anymore, for instance - but now it seems that gun control opponents are beginning to see the danger in continuing to cling (yes, I said "cling") to an absolutist stance that the Second Amendment lets anyone own any weapon he or she could possibly dream up.

Rights aren't absolute.  Yelling "fire" in a crowded theater?  Not protected speech.  Apparently freedom of religion isn't absolute, either, since pastors in my faith (Unitarian Universalism) cannot perform legal marriage rites for same sex couples, despite the fact that we believe such marriages are the same as marrying opposite sex couples.  But that, as they say, is a topic for another day.  My point is that people can (and, in a democratic society, SHOULD) discuss what are reasonable limits on rights while still protecting the intent of our Founding Fathers.

So let's do that.

I hope people post thoughtful comments here.  And by "thoughtful" I mean written with the assumption that no one is in favor of policies that allow heavily armed crazy people to murder children and teachers in their school, regardless of one's position on gun control.  Personally, I believe that an assault weapons ban is absolutely a must and I hope that Congress works up the courage to pass such a law.  But I also believe that no good legislation can be passed until we can get past the shouting (either actual or metaphorical) and name-calling - and that begins with each of us.

Rocky Mountain High

There was a time when it would have been inconceivable for my college buddy Plotts and me to be in a state that had just legalized marijuana use without being in, well, a state of marijuana use.  But such days are, apparently, behind us, which is proven by the fact that I was in Colorado visiting Plotts the day after Governor Hickenlooper declared their voter-approved legalization to be part of the State Constitution and consumed nothing stronger than sugar-free lemonade and some good barbecue.  (And if Colorado weren't enough, I was also in Seattle this week, following the voters' approval of Initiative 502, - and limited my use of mood-altering chemicals to wine and an ibuprofen)  My point here is that college was a long time ago.

Still, it was great to see Plotts as well as a couple of my cousins in Denver, one of whom made me a sign:

 

She gave it to me along with a couple of Sharpies so that people can autograph it.  Isn't it a cool memento?

Wednesday morning I left Denver for points north*, going through Golden first (before you ask:  no tours were available, plus noon is a bit early for me to start drinking beer when I have a 500+ mile drive ahead of me).  Plotts said that Golden is a cute town and he was right.  Then, as contrast, I drove through Rocky Flats which appears to consist solely of the Rocky Flats Closure Project (a federal environmental remediation project), a roadhouse called Rocky Flats Lounge (its appearance was not nearly as classy as the Interlude Lounge), and three windmills that were not turning.

So I pressed on.  Through Boulder, Lyons, and Roosevelt National Forest until, finally, Estes Park - which has an elevation (7,522) that is larger than its population (5,858).  The point of Estes Park, of course, is that it is the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.  And even if that's your only reason for existence, that would be good enough.  But Estes Park is also home to the Stanley Hotel, one of those beautiful early 20th Century railroad hotels.  The Stanley is also famous because it is A) haunted and B) was the site of Stephen King's The Shining.  I didn't stop in.  (I know that if Mitch had been with me, I would have had the nerve to walk in like I owned the place.  I'll have to start channelling her.)

Also while in Estes Park, although not at the Stanley, I saw three moose wandering along a driveway at some condos.  No one seemed concerned.  I guess the moose were there first, after all.

Driving down from Estes Park to Loveland is gorgeous, but which unfortunately for you, dedicated reader, was a bit too harrowing for me to stop and photograph.  Luckily, others are braver.  Here's a picture I found online which gives you a sense of the Big Thompson River, which runs along Highway 34 all the way down the mountains and is incredibly beautiful.  The river's beauty (and good fishing) have apparently overcome the fear people have of its annoying tendency to flood because there are homes built right up against the water.  Or maybe it's because it's called the Big Thompson, which has got to be the best name of a river that I've ever heard.


This photo of River Spruce is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Once you get past Loveland, there's very little between you and Omaha.  I know, that's a prejudiced statement - people going to Chicago might say "there's very little between you and Chicago" which of course would just be wrong.  And it isn't true - there were a bunch of things that if I had started earlier in the day I would have stopped to see, not the least of which were the wide variety of Buffalo Bill attractions in North Platte and an original Pony Express station in Gothenburg.  However, I didn't feel like staying over in order to see them during the day, so I drove the eight and a half hours back to Base Camp (a.k.a. my brother's basement) in the dark, fortified by bad coffee and satellite radio.

*I had considered looking up Hunter S. Thompson's homestead, Woody Creek, but it was several hours west on the other side of the Rockies so I decided against it.

Fear of Flying

Five days in Seattle has been good. Not blogging for five days has also been good. I've thought about blogging for several days but haven't had a lot to say. And although it probably took me longer to learn this lesson than for most people, when I don't have anything to say I try not to say it.

And so now back on a plane, which serves as a reminder to me why most of this trip is about driving. There was a sign in the very long security line saying that 25% of TSA employees served in the U.S. military. I think the primary purpose of that statistic is to make people think twice before being rude to a TSA agent. It seems that it might be a good idea if such signs were everywhere. Something like "Support our troops? Then don't be a jerk, just in case you're talking to one." We could all use that reminder from time to time.

For instance, me, right now, as I wait for a Frontier gate agent to show up so I can get a seat assignment.

The one way that air travel is more enjoyable than driving is that you can read. I started reading Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon. The author lost his job and marriage and decided to drive around America on back highways. Luckily he was an English professor and is an excellent writer so the book is very good.  Lucky us: if he'd been an electrical engineer it might not have turned into a book.

Now the gate agent has arrived but they appear to be having IT problems. Maybe I was too quick to dismiss the value of electrical engineers. (Just joking; some of my favorite people are electrical engineers.)

Well, dedicated reader, I am going to sign off in the hope of getting a seat. I'll catch up with you later for a full report, when I have something interesting to say.

Breaking Bow

The interstate drive from Omaha to Denver, which goes through the southern part of Nebraska, takes about eight hours.  Not that I would know that first hand, however, because I took the scenic route.

North of I-80 is a geological phenomenon known as the Sandhills.  Yes, kids, these are hills made of sand and dirt and grass.  If you've ever heard of pioneers living in soddies, this is where it happened.  You can graze the land, and if you're the kind of person who cannot acquiesce in the face of continued failure and who doesn't need a lot to eat, you can try to farm it.  And if you're driving west from Omaha with no particular agenda, you can take Highway 2 northwest out of Grand Island through the Sandhills which adds considerable interest and, as it turns out, about four hours, to the trip.

[This has nothing to do with the Sandhills but I do not remember Omaha ever having the fog that it has had this past week.  Monday morning was "Maumee River/Old Highway 24 to Toledo/Highway of Death" fog, and it lasted for probably 15 miles, not clearing until I hit the Platte River.  Very weird.]

Anywho, Highway 2 follows a rail line pretty much the entire way to Alliance - originally the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad, now the BNSF.  You drive by places like Hazard (population 66) and Litchfield (population 257), and they look like this:

Just about every little town in western Nebraska has a Post Office, compliments of Virginia Smith, the longtime Congresswoman from Nebraska's 3rd District, who was notable primarily for getting a Post Office into just about every little town in western Nebraska.  Because of the responsibility I feel toward you, my dedicated reader, I did spot checks in several towns and yes, they nearly all had a Post Office although by 4:30 p.m. on a Monday some of them didn't look open.  (See also:  "Business Model Problems of the U.S. Postal Service.")

When I lived in Nebraska, back in the Dark Ages, we referred to everyplace west of Lincoln and north of Omaha as "outstate."  I never thought of this as pejorative - it was like "southpaw" or something that is a nickname but you don't mean anything bad by it.  However, two years ago when I was back visiting and used the phrase, I was quickly admonished by my family that this was not the type of language that civilized people used anymore in polite conversation, since it apparently implies (at least to the people outstate) that some Nebraskans are more "in" than others.  The preferred term is now "Greater Nebraska."  Honestly.  Look, I'm all in favor of calling people what they want to be called, so I will humor the folks from Greater Nebraska if that's the name they want.  But it's still outstate to me.

Before I forget, here's what the Sandhills look like:

Sometimes they're bumpier.  This picture really doesn't do them justice.

A woman I know in Fort Wayne lived in Broken Bow whose population of 2,500 makes it the biggest town along Highway 2, and therefore something of a destination.  She told me to have lunch at the Arrow Hotel, and I'm glad she did.  The hotel was built in 1928 "with local capital," according to their brochure, and people seem very proud of that fact (which they should be - along with the fact that it is a very nice place that is still in business and has a terrific hamburger).  If you are ever in Broken Bow, you should definitely stop in.  Then, to prove what a ridiculously small world it is, she told me to go to the Eberle Boot and Saddle shop down the street and tell Bud Eberle "hello" so I did. 

Broken Bow is the county seat of Custer County (their courthouse is celebrating its centennial this year) and home to their county museum.  There are some interesting stories here, along with volunteers who want to do nothing more than tell you about them.  For instance, the oldest white community in the county is Westock.  Problem was when the railroad came through it was run a mile away (as the crow flies, three miles by road) and on the other side of the river from Westock, so the town fathers and mothers literally picked the town up and moved it to what is now called Comstock.  They did this while the river was frozen and moved buildings by rolling them on logs.  (Where they got the logs for this little undertaking is a good question but one I forgot to ask until after I had left Broken Bow.)  Another interesting thing about the museum is that they have a great collection of photographs by Solomon Butcher, an early photographer who documented 19th century sod houses; the museum worked with the Smithsonian on a study of the types of fencing used by settlers in Greater Nebraska.

West of Broken Bow is the Nebraska National Forest.  Yes, you read that correctly.  It is either the largest or only hand-planted national forest, depending on one's source of information.  It's not very big, but it's nice that Nebraska has its own national forest.

One thing you can say about the Sandhills:  there are a lot of them, and it takes a while to drive past them all.  My plan had been to see Carhenge, in Alliance.  (I will not tell you what Carhenge is so that you have to click on the link to see the picture.)  Around 4 p.m., when the sun was starting to wane and I was still two hours from Alliance (did I mention there are a lot of sandhills?), I realized that I was not going to make Alliance before sunset.  Still, I pressed on - partly because once I begin executing a plan very little can stop it, partly because by the time I came to that realization it looked like the best road south was out of Alliance, and partly because I really did want to see Carhenge since I was in the general vicinity.  It took me a couple of drives by the place to actually find it (thank goodness for my trusty Android and Google Maps) but I did, and luckily the parking lot was near the road and the monument was near the parking lot so I could see it in my headlights.  However, you will understand why I didn't get a picture!

It was a little discouraging to learn that I was still four hours from Denver, having already spent ten hours travelling (probably eight of that was driving).  Surprisingly, the last four hours went pretty fast, however, and I made it to my friend, Tom's, in the foothills of the Rockies safe and sound, thanks to the magic of mobile technology.

Leaving Omaha, Part I

Time moves at the strangest pace.  It seems both like only yesterday and a long, long time ago that I arrived in Omaha.  In objective terms, I have been here 20 days.  On Monday ("today" by the time I publish this little missive), the 21st day, I am driving to Denver via the Nebraska Sandhills. 

That is not the most direct route, but it's not very far out of the way, and I appreciate my brother suggesting it.  As he said, "when are you going to be driving that way again?" And I remembered my thought from the Mississippi River which probably should be the theme (or at least the subtitle) for this journey:  why wouldn't I do it?  And so I am.

While in Omaha, I have reconnected with a bunch of friends (one of whom I haven't seen since the Clinton Administration), attended a bridal shower for the first person in the next generation of cousins to be married off, enjoyed Thanksgiving with most of my nuclear family and their families [To be clear: one of my sisters and her family couldn't make it to Omaha for Thanksgiving. Thus my use of the word "most." It wasn't like I enjoyed only part of the family who was present. Just wanted to avoid any misunderstandings], and spent a lot of time with my brother and his family and my parents.  I'll be back in Omaha later in the month for Christmas (hence "Part I" of the title).

I had hoped to have a blog post entitled "Adventures in Babysitting" based on two consecutive nights of watching the kids.  They are 12, 10 and 6.  But the nights were entirely without incident and most pleasant, so there wasn't much to report.  It's fun to watch James Bond movies with 12-year-old boys (my nephew had a buddy over one night) because they are completely grossed out by the romance parts.  That really was the only item of note at all.  And that's a good thing - I leave the true babysitting adventures for my birth sister, Elisabeth Shue.

While here I also picked up a great phrase.  Sunday we went to Hot Shops, which is a very cool art facility downtown.  One of the artists (a painter named John Boro - credit where credit is due), who looked to be in his 40's or 50's, said that he had only been painting for a few years since he had "caught a second wind in my life."  I like that phrase a lot.

I do want to publish a couple of pictures.  The first is in my niece's room.  She's six, and has the best collection of tutus I've ever seen.  Plus a baseball cap.  This gives you a good, if incomplete, sense of my niece.

The second is a sign for a bar near the neighborhood I grew up.  This is a place I can never enter.

The Interlude Lounge has been on Pacific Street since at least 1969 (when we moved to Omaha).  It is how I learned the word ("interlude," not "lounge.")  It also gave me a permanent connotation for that word (either "interlude" or "lounge") as something both tawdry and fascinating.  I imagined red velvet booths, candles in red glass holders, and patrons with a sort of faded glamour (along the lines of Norma Desmond or Baby Jane - "Mad Men" meets Nighthawks).  The bar is about half a mile from my brother's house - in fact, I took this picture as I was walking by it to meet my mom for lunch at a liquor store (true - and not at all weird or pathetic although I will admit it sounds that way.)  A couple of years ago I thought about having a drink at the Interlude, but realized that it is highly unlikely the place would live up to my childhood expectations.  For instance, any women there would be unlikely to have big sixties hair and slightly soiled white gloves.  No one would be smoking (since Omaha has a ban).  They might not even have candles on the tables.  In fact, it is probably like any bar I've ever been in - which would bitterly disappoint.  So I will never go inside the Interlude Lounge in order to protect my one remaining childhood fantasy.

Okay, it's probably not my only remaining childhood fantasy, since I still believe in things like justice and the good guy winning.  But it's the only one still clothed in red velvet, and that's the way it is going to stay.

And now for something completely different

If you haven't ever read "Bats Left/Throws Right" (check out my blog list), you should.  Doghouse Riley, whoever he is, writes some of the funniest, most insightful political commentary around.  Sort of like a Hoosier version of my literary hero, Hunter S. Thompson, only without the psychedelic drugs.

So today as I read Stuart Stevens op-ed piece in the Washington Post I felt myself starting to channel Mr. Doghouse.  And in a fit of sheer chutzpah I thought, "Hey, let me give this a try."

The article begins with the following biography:

Stuart Stevens was the chief strategist for the Romney presidential campaign.

Once I was at a large luncheon where a guy at my table bragged about how his company had done the sound system for the program.  As we were unable to hear speaker after speaker, he stopped bragging and slunk away.  Somehow that story came to mind here.  Who knows why.

I appreciate that Mitt Romney was never a favorite of D.C.’s green-room crowd or, frankly, of many politicians. That’s why, a year ago, so few of those people thought that he would win the Republican nomination.

Or maybe he won the nomination because he was the last man standing after all the candidates that grassroots Republicans actually liked shot each other.  Look, Stu, I'm a Democrat and I remember 2004.  I'm not criticizing here - we've all been there, but self-awareness is the first step toward self-improvement.

Stu goes on to point out how Romney raised more money for the Republican Party than the party itself did.  To which I would reply:

1.  Whatever.
2.  That's his job, dude - he's the party's Presidential candidate.
3.  It helps to do this if you've spent your career working with people who have more money than God.
4.  Congratulations.  He raised a lot of money.  And honestly, I'm sure that took a lot of hard work.  Raising money in politics is the least fun part of the job.

At this point I am reminded of pearls of wisdom that I have heard over the years (to be fair and balanced - both of these came from Old White Guys - credit where credit is due).  First, being rich means having more money than you spend - and there are two sides to that equation.  Second, just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you should waste it.

Hanging out as I am in Omaha, which functions as western Iowa's media market, I saw an interesting piece in the Omaha World-Herald about how much Obama was outspent by Romney.  If my math is correct, which it may not be because I'm doing this in my head and I'm just a girl, it was something like 20 to 1.  This is in an area where Romney was going to win - western Iowa is pretty Republican and for heaven's sake there is nowhere on earth more Republican than Nebraska.  The Democrats in Iowa live in areas where they don't get their TV from Omaha.  I'll grant you that Omaha is a bit more mixed than Nebraska overall (its single Electoral College vote went for Obama in 2008, creating my favorite made-up political word EVER, Obamaha).  Still, spending over $3 million on advertising in this media market is, IMHO, the act of someone with more money than brains.

Stuart continues:

...more than any figure in recent history, [Romney] drew attention to the moral case for free enterprise and conservative economics.

I'm having trouble understanding this, Stu, or getting it to fit with my observations of the events of the past twelve months, even though I really do want to give you the argument.  Didn't people like Paul Ryan (yeah, you picked him for Veep so that should count for something - I get that), Ron Paul - even Herman Cain seem to focus more on conservative economics?  And since Romney's "moral case for free enterprise" got awfully tangled up with his work at Bain Capital (see also:  "live by the sword, die by the sword") I'd say that the jury's still out on this.  Perhaps because they've already made their decision but are waiting to get their free government-provided lunch (47% of the jury being made up of "takers" after all), but let's agree that this may not be the best thing you can say about the Romney campaign.

And given the wastefulness of the Romney campaign, I'm not sure that I'd go too far out on the "moral case for conservative" limb here.  But that's just me.

As a Libra and the daughter of the Nicest Person on Earth, I have an often pathological compulsion to say something positive No Matter What.  So let me interject here that the Romney campaign seems to have avoided the kind of hideous back-biting that has plagued several Presidential campaigns (Clinton 08 and McCain 08 are the two that come quickest to mind).  Good work, Mitt and Stuart. 

Okay, the Pollyanna moment is over.  Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

...Romney brought the fight [about Medicare/Social Security] to the Democrats and made the rational, persuasive case for entitlement reform that conservatives have so desperately needed. The nation listened, thought about it — and on Election Day, Romney carried seniors by a wide margin. It’s safe to say that the entitlement discussion will never be the same.

Really?  Your "rational, persuasive case" included misstating your opponent's position on the issue, ignoring your running mate's position, and making sure that you told seniors that your changes weren't actually going to impact them.  Look, lying to the American people is a long and well established political tradition, so I'm not going to act like no one else has ever done that.  However, please don't insult our intelligence by then claiming that your case was "rational."  Except if by that you meant that it was rational for Romney to lie since it would help get him votes.

...Romney carried the majority of every economic group except those with less than $50,000 a year in household income.

Something like 50% of Americans have annual household income below $50,000.  We know that your candidate knows that it's at least 47%, right?  Maybe if you and your buddies, Stu, were spending less time taking your huge paychecks to the bank and more time talking with some of your rank-and-file voters, you'd have a better sense of this.

The Obama organization ran a great campaign.

Stu, that's darned white of you to say.  And there were a lot of things that got in your way which certainly I would not blame you or your candidate for - not the least of which is a party platform that makes people like Alan Simpson appear moderate and the unfortunate tendency of your primary voters to select Senatorial candidates who were, um, outside of the mainstream.  No question that this rubbed off on your candidate - as well it should, but I know that you had to have gotten queasy last May when Dick Mourdock beat Richard Lugar, for example, or whenever that Akin guy in Missouri opened his mouth.  You definitely were dealt some lousy cards.

Still, Jennifer Rubin summed it up well: 

But Stevens fails in precisely the way in which the campaign failed: a refusal to acknowledge real and material incompetence by himself and others on the campaign. The piece stubbornly refuses to express regrets or apologies for a campaign that, as evidence has come forth, makes “The Perils of Pauline” look like the Rockettes.

And those who cannot learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.  Unfortunately, they take the rest of us along for the ride.

Nebraska Football

Fooled you! This isn't about the Cornhuskers, but about the REAL football game in Nebraska over the holiday weekend: the Goldner pick-up game.

(If you haven't already consulted The Rules for Thanksgiving football games, I'd advise you to do so. And thanks is due to Ken for sending them along.)

Sadly, our perennial rivals, the Kully Clan, were not in Omaha this Thanksgiving so we had to make do with just ourselves. Fortunately, my siblings have been fruitful and multiplied so we can populate two respectable teams for touch football without the need for second cousins - although they always added a lot of competitive spirit to the game.

We trekked over to Westside High School (Home of the Warriors and alma mater of Nick Nolte, if distant memory and institutional folklore may be relied upon - which according to Wikipedia, in this instance it may). (Interesting aside: Wikipedia also reports that Virginia Lamp Thomas, hyper-conservative wife of hyper-conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is a Westside alumna. And I had forgotten that Kurt Anderson, co-founder of Spy Magazine [kids, this was published back in the 90's, when we still had to buy our humor in hard copy - yeah, times were tough], was also an alum. But enough from memory lane.)

The official football field was occupied by two games, already in progress, so Uncle Dave (who maintained that he had not had any donuts - and if you haven't read The Rules referenced above, you're not going to get why that's a joke) scooted us over to the field field. No, not a typo - given the shot-put facilities, this is where the school holds field events (as in track and field). Either that or they've started a torture yard at Westside and while I agree with the proposition that today's teenagers can't get away with the stuff their elders used to get away with, I think we'd have heard about outdoor torture. Or at least the neighbors would have heard it, and surely SOMEONE would have called Nancy Grace by now.

So we picked teams and commenced to play.
I was the first injury.

A legitimate football injury, a jammed finger. I felt somewhat like an NFL player, really - sort of like Santonio Holmes or most of the Cleveland Browns. In order to curse outside of the earshot of the children, I sat out a few plays but my team needed me, lacking as they were someone who takes the concept of incomplete passes to the next level. I can miss the ball, drop it, or have it go right through my arms - and that was uninjured. But while recovering on the sidelines, I snapped a picture of the game - something that I don't think Santonio does, if I might brag a little.

We had one other injury: Nate the Great Who is Eight hurt his ankle. He recovered nicely and after an injury time-out, was able to return to his positions of starting center and replacement quarterback - he had the Andrew Luck jersey, after all.

And a confession:  we broke one of The Rules (still haven't read them?  For crying out loud, son, just click on the link!) by switching sports to kickball once we had reached the required level of crying.  And Uncle Matt was on both winning teams, which fact he generously shared with everyone the rest of the day.

It was so much fun that we might just try it again tomorrow.

Nah, the Huskers play at 11.
 

Giving Thanks

It has become something of a tradition - to the extent that one can classify Facebook behavior as "traditional" - for many of my friends to post each day in November about something they are grateful for. Last year you could even use the alphabet as your guide, although with Thanksgiving on November 22, that would have been tougher this year. (I guess you could take out a few letters, such as X - x-rays, x-rated movies and xylophones being stipulated as Good Things without the need for their own special day.)

In my own rather jumbled up theology (Unitarian Universalism meets Al-Anon), gratitude is the most important spiritual practice. (I believe that prayers should always be either those of gratitude or asking for understanding and strength to handle difficult situations. To me, anything more specific is treating God like Santa Claus. But I digress.)

This year I wasn't mentally and emotionally organized enough to participate in the daily Facebook exercise, although I think it is a wonderful activity. But on this day of Thanksgiving, I do have many, many things (and people) to be thankful for - and recognize even more of them now then I did a few weeks ago.

First off, there are the people and things that are easily taken for granted, and shouldn't be: health, enough to eat (and drink), a warm and hospitable place to live, fabulous friends and a wonderful, wonderful family: great parents, siblings, in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins and amazing nieces and nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews. These are the things that (thankfully!) don't change from year to year.

For me this year, however, there are a couple of these that need to be - as they say - drilled down. I am thankful for a brother and sister-in-law with a nice home and welcoming spirit, who are letting me stay with them for a couple of months. I am thankful for the health and resources to be able to go on this little adventure. And I am thankful for friends and family who are so incredibly supportive.

In the last few days, I have become thankful for something else. I'd been thinking of this trip as necessary to figure out who I am, having felt that I had lost my identity. Thanks to some really wonderful friends, I've realized that I do know who I am. Perhaps a bit like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I had to leave home to find that out. (Fortunately, I've avoided the flying monkeys so far.) So I am thankful for that, and for my friends (you know who you are) who have patiently guided me to that realization.

This journey is an adventure, a break from the mundane, and figuring out what I want to DO - but it's reassuring beyond words to realize that the trip is not about learning who I am.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. May your day be filled with whatever combination of family, friends, food and football you wish, and may your team win. If you are working, thank you for allowing the rest of society to function while some of us sloth around. I hope we can return the favor some day.

Home is where the heart is

Last night I washed my face for the first time in several days.

That isn’t as unhygienic as it sounds – I have been taking showers and all – but last night was the first time in most of a week that I did my previously normal “take off the eye make-up, put on the face cream” ritual. It is the sort of thing that I almost always did at home, and almost never did when travelling. Certainly delaying face cream for a week while on vacay will have no long-lasting effects on one’s beauty. But for those of us of, uh-hum, a certain age, we might not want to end washing and face cream altogether. And last night was the night I made myself return to the “at home” ritual even though I am not at home since I don’t have a home.

There are a lot of things that one does at home but not when away. It’s weird how conscious I’ve become of these things, focusing on the most unimportant. For instance, my bathroom cup and toothbrush caddy ended up in my car rather than in Jessica’s basement. These are not family heirlooms – I’ve owned neither for more than six months – but I needed them with me. Such items are what you use in a home, and I guess no matter how much my lifestyle rejects the concept of home, there is something in my psyche that craves creating one.

It is not normal to be homeless.

Before anyone thinks I am complaining, I am not using the word “homeless” in the traditional sense of the word where a person lives on the street with no resources and with generally no protection from the hostile elements. People in such situations deserve sympathy and help. I don’t. My voluntary homelessness is, as they say, a First World Problem and I would add that it really isn’t a problem at all. But it’s not a normal condition and as a result there are some odd questions that it begs.

To start with, the world wants you to have an address. You must have a place to forward your mail. And I must have an address for my bank and my insurance, even though I really don’t live there. The mail problem is much less of an issue than it would have been a decade ago, thanks to that marvelous invention, online bill-pay. I’m not sure whether Al Gore saw that one coming when he invented the Internet but my hats off to him and anyone else involved with its development.

It’s a little disconcerting to have only one key on one’s keychain.

Then there is the matter of separating your stuff into what you keep with you (in your Saturn Vue, which is a vehicle pretty well designed for this purpose) and what you put in your friend Jessica’s basement. I have trouble imagining a 49-year-old middle-class American woman with less stuff than I have, and it’s still a lot. Over the past three days I have already started to discover a few miscalculations. But hey, it’s the first time I’ve ever done this so I’m going to give myself a break. That is a new concept I am grappling with: giving myself a break. I'll let you know how that works out.

And in the meantime, it’s the best kind of fall day in Omaha: mid-50’s and beautiful sunshine. Life is good, even away from home.

Baseline

This morning was D-Day. After a beautiful weekend which was spent saying goodbye to friends, separating stuff into Take, Keep, Give Away, and Throw Away, packing and moving the Keep stuff to Jessica's, and having too much to eat at Casa's, this morning I loaded up the Vue in between raindrops and snowdrops (they weren't really flakes) and got ready to hit the road.

 

But the journey of a thousand miles begins at the Firefly, so Mitch and I first had some sustenance. I had the last Sugar-Free Vanilla Chai, Skinny, which I am likely to have for a while. Mitch and I talked about everything but my impending departure (see also, "Denial"). The precipitation subsided. A quick hug because otherwise we'd both have become blubbering fools, and I was off.

Donna, with whom I was on the Omaha Westside Debate Team before Al Gore invented the Internet (kids, we had index cards and used pens to hand write facts on them that we had found in books...crazy!) posted this on Facebook for me. It sums up the experience completely.

 

The drive away from Fort Wayne was in a way very normal - I've driven Highway 30 dozens of times, maybe more - and in a way very weird. I will admit that I shrieked a little between Sweetwater and Columbia City, and a little bit more west of Warsaw (Orthopedic Capital of the World). I don't know that I really am fully processing what's happening. I'll keep you posted about how that works out.

First stop, Chicago, to see Beth. We got caught up, had an early dinner, and I fell asleep during Monday Night Football. In my own defense, so did the Chiefs, and I woke up in time to watch the Steelers win. Still, it was not exactly a late evening because perhaps this is all starting to catch up with me.

More later, of course, but I felt obligated to issue a report on Day One.  Yes, I said obligated - this is a Character Flaw the cure of which is one of the things I hope to accomplish on this little journey.  I'll keep you posted about how that works out, too.

Lost and Found in the Whale Room

Sure, people talk about Travels with Charley and Blue Highways, but for me the Definitive Travel Book is Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  “We were almost out of Barstow when the bats descended” paraphrases a paragraph in Thompson’s ode to the road trip that frequently comes to mind in all sorts of situations – often involving my buddy Plotts, but not always.  Thompson also had a keen political insight (at least up until the point in his life where decades of serious drug use seemed to prove Nancy Reagan correct) but his description of driving through the desert with his attorney, a giant Samoan man who would say things like, “as your attorney, I advise you to drink heavily,” has always stayed with me as his Classic American Story.

Therefore, when my friend Mitch (“Jeanne Michelle” is just too long) and I decided that she should blow off a couple of days and get some R&R before I left town, and wound up in an Indian casino in western Michigan, Fear and Loathing seemed an appropriate theme.

(I feel obligated to clarify that there were no psychotropic drugs involved in the making of this story, and the fact that I feel obliged to make that statement illustrates a key difference between Our Age and Thompson’s.  You can decide for yourself whether that constitutes progress.)

To begin, it was a beautiful day.  High 70’s in late October is something to be treasured, so we started with lunch on the deck at El Azteca, everybody’s favorite Fort Wayne Mexican restaurant.  To my own surprise, I ordered a Diet Pepsi rather than a margarita, but it was early and I wanted to pace myself.  After the significant logistical undertaking of letting Mitch’s dogs out (she has a Newfoundland which is larger than all of my brother’s children combined, and that’s just one of her dogs), we hit the highway.

Perhaps we should have taken a back road, but out of habit we jumped on I-69 to Satek Winery in Angola.  I’d never been, and despite their lack of Triscuits, our little wine tasting was productive.  The wine was good and the wine guy (sommelier?  proprietor?  vino-master?) had lots of interesting things to tell us.  He talked fast and I drink fast, so the experience felt a bit like a quickie, but not in a bad way.  To no one's surprise, Mitch and I bought enough wine to easily qualify for their volume discount.  (Our host was polite enough not to suggest that we apply for distributor status with his company.)  And in my own defense, I was buying to take to Omaha for my family - a combination of hostess gift and what I have learned to be standard Hoosier defensiveness that yes, there are good things here.

With the back of the Vue loaded down with the fruits of Indiana agriculture, I suggested that it might be fun to hit the Firekeepers Casino in Battle Creek (or maybe it's Marshall -  one of those Michigan towns along I-94 that all sort of run together).  Mitch was up for nearly anything at that point (her tolerance for wine being a little lower than mine), so we started north.

I am not an expert on Indian casinos, or even the so-called “riverboat” casinos that are apparently considered more morally acceptable than casinos on dry land, but Firekeepers seemed pretty typical to me:  gigantic parking lot, impressive parking garage and lots of room for tour buses, surrounding a nice (if unadorned) entrance into a large windowless building.  Except for the fire burning out front (“Firekeepers” – get it?) we could have been in Council Bluffs or Michigan City.  Still, blackjack is blackjack and I had no complaints.

Up until now, Mitch’s casino experience had been limited to Hoosier Park in Anderson, which for the non-Hoosiers out there, is a horse racetrack supplemented with slot machines and automated table games as a way of generating revenue for A) the State of Indiana and B) the owners (in that order) when parimutuel betting took a dive in the 1990’s.  So this was the first “real” casino she’d been in.  She was a little disappointed at the, um, understated building.  It’s not a pole barn, but it’s no MGM Grand, either.  Those Indians are frugal people and nobody’s going to look at the building anyway.  And did I mention the fire in front?  Firekeepers, get it?

We found the $10 blackjack tables and I promptly dropped $100.  I have never played at such a cold table – and it wasn’t that I’m not good at blackjack.  I mean, I’m NOT good at blackjack, but nearly every hand was going to be a loser regardless of what I did.  I’ve never seen so many 4's.  And when you’re playing a 4 against the dealer’s 7, to quote the guy from Argo:  “this is the best bad idea we can come up with.”  No good choices.  And so, off in search of the bar.

We were ably assisted in our quest for beverages by a nice young man named Lane who complained of feeling badly after a workout.  Sometimes it’s best just to nod and smile sympathetically and hope that no more details are forthcoming.  Fortunately, none were, and even with his impairment, Lane mixed a nice drink.

It is both the joy and the curse of cellphones that even in a casino you can be tracked down by someone with a political situation to discuss.  And I was.  And so I did.  Talking about Fort Wayne politics at a casino in Michigan while everyone is getting ready to watch the Tigers play Game One of the World Series is a little weird, but one adjusts.  Still, after a few minutes we clearly needed to leave the bar and find our Next Stop.

Which turned out to be a lovely lounge with a fireplace (Firekeepers, get it?), several TVs, a bar, and a little couch area.  We plopped down on the couches, received drinks from a Very Nice Waitress, and congratulated ourselves on our good fortune in finding such a comfortable little place.  Another political call from My Attorney (for the record, he is not Samoan - not that there's anything wrong with that), and we decided that the classic bar appetizer of 1998, hot artichoke dip, was just what the doctor ordered.  When I told him where we were, My Attorney confided that his Official Ban from Firekeepers had probably just about expired, which had involved a recent incident involving him taking a large drink of beer while standing at a craps table just as one of his associates made a funny comment, resulting in the beer being spewed all over the craps table, requiring a team of men in hazmat suits to clean up, closing down the table on a Friday night much to the consternation of all concerned.  But that had been several months ago, and to be fair to him, beer probably wasn’t the worst thing that had ever been spewed on that table.

It was around this time that I observed that the menu didn’t contain prices.  I mentioned this to Mitch, along with the gnawing feeling that we weren’t supposed to be here, and she provided the kind of advice which is the reason we are friends.  “It is the job of people in the hospitality industry to make you feel comfortable.  They didn’t stop us when we came in, right?  Besides, look around, it’s not like we don’t fit in.”  Of course, she was right – we were squarely in the middle of the crowd, appearance-wise, other than a barely noticeable lack of Tigers fanware.  So I settled back down and enjoyed it.

Suddenly, an idea popped into my little head.  “We need to call Henry!”  Henry (of course that’s not his real name) is a friend of Mitch’s whose job takes him constantly on the road.  Our initial thought for the road trip had actually been “let’s find out where Henry is going to be this weekend and meet him there.”  Although the plan had been slightly modified by Life’s Demands, we weren’t yet ready to give up the essential element in our Great Adventure.  So I called Henry, because it is true that most people never progress past middle school in their behavior.  At least, at that moment, Mitch and I hadn’t.  Henry recovered his confusion very admirably and advised that he would be in Detroit on Friday night with an uncertain plan for Saturday.  Ahh, this could actually happen.

As the central character in this little report, Mitch has had editorial control over it.  So, if you are now reading about how giddy she was it’s because she’s okay with my sharing it on the interwebs.  One might have initially credited the whisky for her giggling but since that lasted long after the whisky wore off I would have to say that the cause was something else.  Okay, someone else.

We sat around and giggled until the Very Nice Waitress stopped by again and we asked to settle up.  That will be Five Fifty, she said.  Looking at the debris of two cocktails, an appetizer, and two bottles of water, I was uncertain what I heard.  I was expecting a lot more than $5.50, but $550.00 seemed more than a little stiff for a casino in Western Michigan.  Mitch, being more assertive than I, called the Very Nice Waitress back over to ask for clarification.  And now, the Moment of Truth. 

“It was $11 but you get half off,” she said.  We looked confused.  “You aren’t VIP members?”

Ummm….no.

“Well, then I cannot give you half off, and I do need to ask you to leave,” she was half-apologizing and half-commanding.  It was actually an odd tone that I don’t think I’d ever heard before.

Even $11 seemed ridiculously cheap for what we’d consumed so I gave her a large tip and we left before she needed to call security.  After all, she was a Very Nice Waitress.

My desire to play more blackjack was somewhat muted by this time.  We watched some guys playing a more traditional form of blackjack – that is, the kind where you win some and you lose some, and all of the cards aren’t 4’s – until Mitch received a text from a friend in Fort Wayne who advised that we were missing a great time at the North Star Bar and Grill (more bar than grill, but who’s counting), what with the live music and good company and all, and we immediately departed back to Indiana, Land of Freedom.

Southbound we amused ourselves with Aretha Franklin and the Allman Brothers – not at the same time, of course, although come to think of it that might be an interesting mélange.  I spent most of the ninety minute drive trying to decide whether I was playing Raoul Duke (the Thompson character) or his attorney.  Obviously my initial instinct was to be Duke, but I didn’t want to be unfair to Mitch because it’s always more fun to be Duke and I hate to be grabby.  I reached no resolution to that internal struggle before we hit the North Star, leaving yet one more unanswered question for my vision quest.

Happy Birthday to Me

Yesterday was my last official day at Bowmar, where I've worked full time for about a year and with which I've worked (first on the Main Street Venture Fund acquisition of the operation, then as a board member) for most of four years.  It is a small (43 employee) manufacturing company in Fort Wayne.  We make electronic and electro-mechanical components for the aerospace and defense industry - basically stuff that goes in cockpits.  The company has been around for over 60 years and has the interesting history of having developed the first handheld calculator.  That didn't work out so well, but the company is stable now and the purpose of the last year was to get it ready for growth into new products rather than building only legacy parts for old programs.

Wow - that was more than I'd planned to write about Bowmar.  But I feel very close to the company so perhaps it's not surprising:  when Main Street's investors bought the company in 2010, the alternative was its publicly traded parent closing the facility for "strategic" reasons.  (The parent company was in the midst of selling itself in order for its venture capital shareholders to access a lot of money - and as we all know if you're in between a VC and money, you're in a precarious position.  Hence their willingness to close a profitable operation.)  Anyway, I feel like Bowmar is one thing that I can point to and say "hey, if I hadn't worked really hard on this aquisition, that place would quite possibly have closed down."  So it's important to me.  And like anywhere that you work during a period when your personal life is extremely stressed, I feel a closeness to the people there that is probably asymmetrical but is still real.

Coincidentally, my last day as Interim President was the day before my birthday and I saved many of the balloons from the going-away carry-in* for tonight's festivities at the Green Frog Inn.  The Green Frog is one of those "everybody knows your name" bars that comes with the added advantage of serving very good food.  A place that I will miss, for sure.

Today I discovered that I can get 8 storage bins in my car, and I (re)discovered at the same time that geometry is not instinctual for me.  (I was determined to answer this question mathematically rather than just taking some empty bins out to the car - and all the balloons in the back of my car made a physical assessment somewhat problematic anyway.)  I had been putting off the logistics of clothes, etc., for the trip until things were done at Bowmar.  Now I'm done, and since it's not raining today, it seemed like a good piece of research to get out of the way.

Today is also 31 days before the election, and it seems safe to say that no one will be unhappy once that event has come and gone.  (Except possibly television stations in swing states, who make enough money during Presidential elections to cover skinny margins during normal years.)  My political leanings are well understood (at least among the wingnut faction of what in Fort Wayne passes as a blogosphere) and the purpose of this blog isn't to discuss politics.  Let me just say this:  I am weary of a political party whose primary mission seems to be taking this country back to the Middle Ages - literally. And while this election is unlikely to immediately solve that problem, at least I won't have to hear so much about it for a while after November 6.

One interesting thing about losing an election, working at a factory in Waynedale, and living in a house without a television, is how quickly one disconnects from a lot of issues and concerns that seemed very important just a year ago.  Driving across America, I'm not sure whether I'll become even more disconnected or whether I'll become an NPR junkie who starts to sweat if she misses All Things Considered.  At this point I'd say it's even money.  Time will tell. 

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Elisabeth Shue, who was also born 49 years ago today.  Adventures in Babysitting is probably the best teen movie ever made and I've been a fan ever since, even before I knew of our significant connection.



*Non-Hoosier readers:  "carry-in" is what most other Americans call a "potluck."  See also "euchre" and "can't give up the fight against DST" for other examples of Hoosier Exceptionalism.

Beginning in the Middle

And so as I approach the 49th anniversary of my birth I find myself preparing to drive away from everything I know.  When faced with the question "What do I want to do next?" there was no answer.  At that point, it became clear that I wasn't going to find the answer in a city that has been home for over half my life, because it is simply too comfortable and too full of people who know me.  I need to be away from expectations and entanglements for a while.

A friend sent me a Tennessee Williams quote that is exactly right:

There is a time for departure, even when there's no certain place to go.

Amen.

Because she is particularly gifted at coming up with a turn of phrase, she wrote about her own experiences moving onto the Next Big Thing:

It is a feeling of taking oneself and one's goals and dreams seriously, and bravely giving all of that one's very best try. 

Can I have another amen?

Of course there's more to it than me just leaving.  Or maybe there's not.  There's a lot of backstory, as there always is in someone's life, but the simple truth is that I have decided that the best way to figure out the next chapter of my life is to wander away and spend some months in the 21st century equivalent of solitude:  being in places where you don't know anyone, even if those places have lots of people in them.

Another friend gave me the name for this blog.  "You're going on a walkabout," she said.  "Well, really it's a driveabout."  Exactly.

I'm not leaving for a few weeks yet, but I thought I'd start blogging now largely because I was inspired by my friend's e-mail and quotes.  Between now and then there probably won't be much of interest here because, frankly, wrapping up one's life isn't very interesting to anyone but the person who is doing it.  But sometime in mid-November I will set out and it would be fun if you might travel along with me.  Metaphorically, of course.  Because this is an adventure I am taking alone.