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Jun. 20th, 2015 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressSo there was a post on Tumblr, "Things you will see on a road trip across America"0. It spoke to me, far more than the Regional Gothic trend did, and I was quick to respond with my own listing. You may read my additions here:
-Rain in Ohio. Hard Rain. Rain that torrents around your car for the entire state, then disappears as soon as you get to Indiana.
-A tiny local cow farm with a creamery attached and some of the best goddamn ice cream you’ve ever tasted. They have a playground with a couple of old tractors attached for kids to climb on. The tables are filled with teenagers relaxing after prom.
-Stone walls that parallel the road for miles and miles. You can tell the boundaries of the farms by the subtle patterns in the walls–this one, the stones are hacked square, this one is covered in ivy. That one probably has zombies behind it, keep driving.
-Maryland is a tiny state? Why did you take the long way through. Why are you driving for hours and hours through the ninth-smallest state in the nation?
-There are no Wyoming license plates. You’ve looked for days. Damnit.
-When you pass through West Virginia, the speed limit jumps to 70mph. You are overjoyed. No one can get out of WV quickly enough.
-So many frustrated drivers on the NJ turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. You can tell the locals because they don’t _drive in the fucking passing lane_. Do not, under any circumstances, drive in the fucking passing lane.
-As you drive through the Appalachians, slide your car between the cut-out mountains and look for dinosaur fossils. Just because you did not see any does not mean they’re not there.
-For the love of all that is holy, stop at WallDrug. They have Free Water. It is delicious.
-How many billboards will you pass for The Lion’s Den before you realize the logo is a pair of lions humping? Your younger sister is in the car. The realization makes you both uncomfortable.
-The leaves are turning as you get onto the Meritt. You grudgingly admit that New England is right to be so proud.
-The entire country has one Maximum Speed Limit sign. It is a toll plaza in Maine. The other cars honk as you stop to take a picture. Let them, it is your grail.
-If you get the timing wrong, you can drive through traffic in DC, then traffic in Bal’mer, then traffic in The City, then traffic in Ba’ston. Do not get the timing wrong.
-It is possible to drive from Boston to Atlanta in one day, with one driver, while everyone else sleeps in the back. Do not make your girlfriend do this. They will never let you forget it for the rest of your life I AM TALKING TO YOU SPARR!
-It is night in Montana. Find a side street. Pull over. Stop the car and get out and look up. That is the Milky Way. Pay your goddamn respects.
-It is night in Maine. Leave your tent, or campsite. Steal a canoe. Row into the middle of the pond and look up. Do you see all those stars? You are insignificant.
-It is night in the Hudson Valley. Get as high in your hotel as you can. Find a window and look down. The city is glittering for you. We made this. We are powerful.
-If you are writing a book, use highway exit signs to make character names. Henniker Keene. Athol Petersham. Ravenna Chardon. Darien Rowayton. Lind Odessa and Paha Packard and Motley Pillager.
Tell us their stories.
Tell me their stories.
Tell stories. You never know what you’ll find as you drive.
Of course, then I started writing more about it all. Have some blather about road trips. It's not under a cut, because I do not love you enough.
According to my quick count, I have visited (or at least driven through) 36 states. Let's look at some highlights...
-From very young to age 11, the family drove to Peoria IL every year to visit Great-Grandma Deemy. She died in 2000, which was the year of...
-The Big Trip! Mom, her best friend Neva, and me and the sibs spent 2-3 straight weeks on the road. We drove from Maryland to Colorado, took a turn north up through both Dakotas, cut east back to Minnesota, just missed Michigan, and swooped back to MD. It was an absolute fucking delight. Kansas is terrible, we somehow skipped Nebraska entirely, and mom spit-swore she'd take me to the Mall of America to ride the roller coasters before I turned eighteen. This is why I don't trust my mother. ;)1
-From very young until college, we drove to Winsted CT for Thanksgiving, and also usually for a visit in the summer. Dad's parents (St G'ma, G'pa Gus) live up there, on a wonderful horse farm with rock-walls to climb on and a pond and art and books strewn everywhere. I haven't been to the farm in several years --Thanksgiving started moving around my sophomore year of college-- and I miss it terribly. I should organize a visit some weekend!
-Starting in about, oh, 2002 or 3, us kids (Shan, then Al, then me) attended Stayaway Camp in Maine. Have you seen the Parent Trap? That is the camp we stayed at. No literally, they wanted to film at Wyo, but they were told to piss off, there was a camp to run. Anyways, there would be 2-3 trips up a summer (dropping off, changeover day, picking up) with some subset of siblings and parents, and staying the night in either Winsted or Boston.
-For two of those years, when the sibs were at camp and I was not, me and the rents drove down to South Carolina for a conference at Myrtle Beach. This is relevant because it means I've visited both South of the Border and Wall Drug.
(The second year, when it was just me and them, mom started to have some really funky vision problems and dad had to do all the driving home. Turns out she had MS. Anyways, that was 2002, which means Shan started camp in 2001, which works out since I did 2003 and 2004. Good talk.)
-Moving on to adulthood, I went to college in Boston (well, Cambridge). The family did many runs to pick me up or drop me off with my stuff, several of which did not involve my mother (see also, Dragon*Con.)
-Didn't roadtrip much in college, but right after I graduated, I got to do 14 straight hours in a car with one other driver (mom --although Shan did drive a couple hours), two siblings, and two cats. We moved to Chicago! Cats do not like it when the car goes 80 mph. They are fine when it is up to 85. No officer, I had to speed, I was doing science!
(Two days later, I did half that again, doubling back to Hiram, Ohio with Alys in tow. Dad was out of town, mom had to wait for the movers, I was her Official Adult for her college orientation. This was a profoundly uncomfortable experience for us both, I suspect, plus we had a serious argument about whether World/Inferno Friendship Society was a hipster band in the first thirty minutes of driving and were both super tense and stressed for like an hour. That bit I mentioned about the Lion's Den? I think it was figuring that out which calmed us the fuck down and brought us back to giggling like loons.)
-Sparr and I have made the Boston-Atlanta(ish) drive a few times. One of these times, I drove 17 of 20 hours (I did not make that up above for humour value). One of those times, our rental car was totaled and we had to frantically scramble to get home. The last time went quite without problem, except for the entertaining logistics of picking people up or dropping them off in at least five different locations.
-In early fall 2012, I was unemployed. My favourite ex-partner decided to move to Seattle. Their rich friend offered a plane ticket home. Mel and I packed up a uhaul (technically a Penske), drove to Cleveland (where we spent a day with their mother and raided a storage unit), drove to Chicago (where we spent about an hour and a half with my mother before she left for some vacation and we hung out in the house and watched movies --maybe George of the Jungle?), and drove and drove and drove and drove to Seattle. The Milky Way is every bit as stunning as I implied, Buttes will never not be hilarious, and having a governor keeping you from going over 75mph when you're on a 70mph speed limit road going DOWN THE ROCKIES is the shittiest thing.
I think that's the most of 'em. There's some small ones with strangers (from Indy to Chicago a couple times after GenCon, and I'm about to do Boston to Syracuseish) but most of the long trips have been with friends or family. States I have been to without driving there: Florida, Texas, California, and Arizona. And I suppose technically Tennesee in that I *have* driven to Georgia before, but the trip we went to TN, I flew to GA and then we drove up there. Dunno if that counts or not.
I hold no respect for America the Corporate Identity but I do fucking love America the road-trip liminal space of folklore and legend. Given a world without capitalism and a Tesla Roadster2, I wouldn't even bother with a house in exchange for a rotating selection of friends riding shotgun as we roam around this world.
~Sor
MOOP!
0: Although I appreciate the thing someone pointed out, which is that they mean "USA", not America.
1: In case the smiley is not obvious, my mother is THE BEST MOTHER and I trust her very much and have forgiven her, but it's fun to tease.
2: I am adding this footnote seven years later to acknowledge that this reference did *not* age well.
-Rain in Ohio. Hard Rain. Rain that torrents around your car for the entire state, then disappears as soon as you get to Indiana.
-A tiny local cow farm with a creamery attached and some of the best goddamn ice cream you’ve ever tasted. They have a playground with a couple of old tractors attached for kids to climb on. The tables are filled with teenagers relaxing after prom.
-Stone walls that parallel the road for miles and miles. You can tell the boundaries of the farms by the subtle patterns in the walls–this one, the stones are hacked square, this one is covered in ivy. That one probably has zombies behind it, keep driving.
-Maryland is a tiny state? Why did you take the long way through. Why are you driving for hours and hours through the ninth-smallest state in the nation?
-There are no Wyoming license plates. You’ve looked for days. Damnit.
-When you pass through West Virginia, the speed limit jumps to 70mph. You are overjoyed. No one can get out of WV quickly enough.
-So many frustrated drivers on the NJ turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. You can tell the locals because they don’t _drive in the fucking passing lane_. Do not, under any circumstances, drive in the fucking passing lane.
-As you drive through the Appalachians, slide your car between the cut-out mountains and look for dinosaur fossils. Just because you did not see any does not mean they’re not there.
-For the love of all that is holy, stop at WallDrug. They have Free Water. It is delicious.
-How many billboards will you pass for The Lion’s Den before you realize the logo is a pair of lions humping? Your younger sister is in the car. The realization makes you both uncomfortable.
-The leaves are turning as you get onto the Meritt. You grudgingly admit that New England is right to be so proud.
-The entire country has one Maximum Speed Limit sign. It is a toll plaza in Maine. The other cars honk as you stop to take a picture. Let them, it is your grail.
-If you get the timing wrong, you can drive through traffic in DC, then traffic in Bal’mer, then traffic in The City, then traffic in Ba’ston. Do not get the timing wrong.
-It is possible to drive from Boston to Atlanta in one day, with one driver, while everyone else sleeps in the back. Do not make your girlfriend do this. They will never let you forget it for the rest of your life I AM TALKING TO YOU SPARR!
-It is night in Montana. Find a side street. Pull over. Stop the car and get out and look up. That is the Milky Way. Pay your goddamn respects.
-It is night in Maine. Leave your tent, or campsite. Steal a canoe. Row into the middle of the pond and look up. Do you see all those stars? You are insignificant.
-It is night in the Hudson Valley. Get as high in your hotel as you can. Find a window and look down. The city is glittering for you. We made this. We are powerful.
-If you are writing a book, use highway exit signs to make character names. Henniker Keene. Athol Petersham. Ravenna Chardon. Darien Rowayton. Lind Odessa and Paha Packard and Motley Pillager.
Tell us their stories.
Tell me their stories.
Tell stories. You never know what you’ll find as you drive.
Of course, then I started writing more about it all. Have some blather about road trips. It's not under a cut, because I do not love you enough.
According to my quick count, I have visited (or at least driven through) 36 states. Let's look at some highlights...
-From very young to age 11, the family drove to Peoria IL every year to visit Great-Grandma Deemy. She died in 2000, which was the year of...
-The Big Trip! Mom, her best friend Neva, and me and the sibs spent 2-3 straight weeks on the road. We drove from Maryland to Colorado, took a turn north up through both Dakotas, cut east back to Minnesota, just missed Michigan, and swooped back to MD. It was an absolute fucking delight. Kansas is terrible, we somehow skipped Nebraska entirely, and mom spit-swore she'd take me to the Mall of America to ride the roller coasters before I turned eighteen. This is why I don't trust my mother. ;)1
-From very young until college, we drove to Winsted CT for Thanksgiving, and also usually for a visit in the summer. Dad's parents (St G'ma, G'pa Gus) live up there, on a wonderful horse farm with rock-walls to climb on and a pond and art and books strewn everywhere. I haven't been to the farm in several years --Thanksgiving started moving around my sophomore year of college-- and I miss it terribly. I should organize a visit some weekend!
-Starting in about, oh, 2002 or 3, us kids (Shan, then Al, then me) attended Stayaway Camp in Maine. Have you seen the Parent Trap? That is the camp we stayed at. No literally, they wanted to film at Wyo, but they were told to piss off, there was a camp to run. Anyways, there would be 2-3 trips up a summer (dropping off, changeover day, picking up) with some subset of siblings and parents, and staying the night in either Winsted or Boston.
-For two of those years, when the sibs were at camp and I was not, me and the rents drove down to South Carolina for a conference at Myrtle Beach. This is relevant because it means I've visited both South of the Border and Wall Drug.
(The second year, when it was just me and them, mom started to have some really funky vision problems and dad had to do all the driving home. Turns out she had MS. Anyways, that was 2002, which means Shan started camp in 2001, which works out since I did 2003 and 2004. Good talk.)
-Moving on to adulthood, I went to college in Boston (well, Cambridge). The family did many runs to pick me up or drop me off with my stuff, several of which did not involve my mother (see also, Dragon*Con.)
-Didn't roadtrip much in college, but right after I graduated, I got to do 14 straight hours in a car with one other driver (mom --although Shan did drive a couple hours), two siblings, and two cats. We moved to Chicago! Cats do not like it when the car goes 80 mph. They are fine when it is up to 85. No officer, I had to speed, I was doing science!
(Two days later, I did half that again, doubling back to Hiram, Ohio with Alys in tow. Dad was out of town, mom had to wait for the movers, I was her Official Adult for her college orientation. This was a profoundly uncomfortable experience for us both, I suspect, plus we had a serious argument about whether World/Inferno Friendship Society was a hipster band in the first thirty minutes of driving and were both super tense and stressed for like an hour. That bit I mentioned about the Lion's Den? I think it was figuring that out which calmed us the fuck down and brought us back to giggling like loons.)
-Sparr and I have made the Boston-Atlanta(ish) drive a few times. One of these times, I drove 17 of 20 hours (I did not make that up above for humour value). One of those times, our rental car was totaled and we had to frantically scramble to get home. The last time went quite without problem, except for the entertaining logistics of picking people up or dropping them off in at least five different locations.
-In early fall 2012, I was unemployed. My favourite ex-partner decided to move to Seattle. Their rich friend offered a plane ticket home. Mel and I packed up a uhaul (technically a Penske), drove to Cleveland (where we spent a day with their mother and raided a storage unit), drove to Chicago (where we spent about an hour and a half with my mother before she left for some vacation and we hung out in the house and watched movies --maybe George of the Jungle?), and drove and drove and drove and drove to Seattle. The Milky Way is every bit as stunning as I implied, Buttes will never not be hilarious, and having a governor keeping you from going over 75mph when you're on a 70mph speed limit road going DOWN THE ROCKIES is the shittiest thing.
I think that's the most of 'em. There's some small ones with strangers (from Indy to Chicago a couple times after GenCon, and I'm about to do Boston to Syracuseish) but most of the long trips have been with friends or family. States I have been to without driving there: Florida, Texas, California, and Arizona. And I suppose technically Tennesee in that I *have* driven to Georgia before, but the trip we went to TN, I flew to GA and then we drove up there. Dunno if that counts or not.
I hold no respect for America the Corporate Identity but I do fucking love America the road-trip liminal space of folklore and legend. Given a world without capitalism and a Tesla Roadster2, I wouldn't even bother with a house in exchange for a rotating selection of friends riding shotgun as we roam around this world.
~Sor
MOOP!
0: Although I appreciate the thing someone pointed out, which is that they mean "USA", not America.
1: In case the smiley is not obvious, my mother is THE BEST MOTHER and I trust her very much and have forgiven her, but it's fun to tease.
2: I am adding this footnote seven years later to acknowledge that this reference did *not* age well.