Farewell, Chicago

July 07, 2018

Farewell, Chicago

At the end of June, I flew to Chicago to help my daughter pack up her apartment. Movers took the furniture and boxes. We climbed into a tank of a minivan, with her dog Piper, for the 2,000+ mile drive to San Francisco.

Driving across a significant chunk of America seemed daunting at first. All those miles. All those hours.

I'm so glad we did it.

I always knew it would be great to spend so much time with my daughter. We don't have that many opportunities to be together, given that we live far apart. I was relishing that aspect of the trip. The driving, as it turned out, was relatively easy. The hardest part was fighting scenic boredom at the start of the trip. Illinois is flat and swathed in hundreds of miles of corn fields. It didn't get interesting until we crossed the Mississippi, a perfect example of a swollen river. It seemed stuffed to its limits and about to burst.

IOWA:

The hills of Iowa break up the monotony of the corn fields. White boxes painted on the highway are a visual aid to help with aerial speed monitoring. We watched as a helicopter with specially mounted equipment hovered over the highway for just that purpose. Giant wind turbines speckle the fields. Did you know that 35% of Iowa's electricity comes from wind generated energy?

NEBRASKA:

At first, Nebraska seemed like a copy of Illinois: flat and overflowing with corn fields. But just past Lincoln, the highway seems to take a right turn into a new landscape. The corn fields disappear, and long views filled with bluffs and sage-covered hills emerge. In a remote town, at least one Nebraskan business owner has a sense of humor.

WYOMING:

The scenery took another uptick in Wyoming. Mountains and carved hills that seemed to have been inspiration for the setting of the Pixar movie "Cars", popped up suddenly. We spied pronghorn antelope in the distance. The windy, mountainous roads were a bit unsettling with a 75 mph speed limit, especially in a van that shook violently at those speeds and pulled hard to the right. We managed the ear-popping mountain passes safely, but others did not make it home. We saw the aftermath of a horrible crash between two semis that kept us at a standstill for more than an hour. Road signs abound that warn of driving fatigued. It was very sobering.

UTAH:

The land around Salt Lake City looks post-apocalyptic. I can't imagine how the settlers traversed the barren wasteland in 103° heat -- the temperature the day we drove through -- wearing long sleeves and floor length skirts. The mountains in the distance must have been a terrible tease. That said, it was also remarkable. I've never seen anything like it. From a plane, yes, but there's a completely different feel of it from a car. I was transfixed, though the view didn't change dramatically. As we neared civilization, dinosaur "fossil" sculptures seemed to rise up from the desert floor. Great idea and perfect for the landscape.

NEVADA:

Nevada is beautiful. Wild, with isolated clusters of buildings that are called towns. Stallions battle between herds of mares. Pronghorn antelope graze amongst the horses. The mountains aren't as white-knuckled for driving. Seeing Reno was a bit of shock after all the open space.

CALIFORNIA:

California is breathtaking, almost immediately after crossing the border. Lush forests sometimes obscured the horizon as we wound around the mountains. The highway occasionally mirrors the path of the Truckee River; we crossed it numerous times, spying mini-canyons as we drove over the bridges. I had forgotten that California has strict laws about interstate commerce. We would have had to surrender any produce we had at the border. (Puh-leeze. We were snacking only on carbs.) For most of the trip, our fellow highway drivers had been polite. All bets were off in Sacramento. The drivers were nuts. As someone who is completely comfortable driving in New York City, that's saying something.

SAN FRANCISCO:

It was a clear afternoon as we crossed the Bay Bridge to enter San Francisco. A few more miles and my daughter was at her new home. That night, we went to the "Off the Grid" Food Truck Friday event at Fort Mason. Welcome to San Francisco.