Motels

This is the door to the perfect motel.

Or rather, this is the door to my room at the perfect motel. I’ve discovered a few things about myself during this road trip.
I like to drive up to the door of my room. I like the pillows to be slightly lumpy. I like the small decorating attempts - plastic flowers that haven’t been dusted since 1956, the furniture that tries but doesn’t really match, the soaps that come wrapped with labels i’ve never heard of.
Thus this motel made it to the top 3.

But really it’s not surprise - the Wigwam was the prize at the end of the road. But you ask why top 3 and not first? It did bump Hotel 7 (the bastard son of Motel 6 and Super 8) out of spot 2 but it came down to desk clerks.
The Wigwam is manned by the son of master wigwam builder. Son seems slightly disgruntled that he’s stuck with the things but soldiers on anyway - complaining of having to put up with all the publicity hounds - “the BBC with their cameras”, and the silly enquiries - “it’s only the Americans that come into the door marked motel with the big neon sign outside that says motel and ask me if I rent out the wigwams. I’ve never had a Europeon ask me that.” But even with the bad hair he couldn’t bump off the Tucumcari Inn. I stood at the desk and out of a side door comes a tiny little guy in stocking feet (grey tube socks), shorts, a puffy winter jacket, and a knit hat pulled down to his eyes. He then breaks into a spot on impersonation of Peter Sellars impersonation of an Indian accent. I feel very bad that I am making fun of his accent. He won the first place trophy by then offering me an ice bucket (what service!) that he had just removed from the freezer compartment of the refrigerator next to the desk. Inside the frozen bucket: a big lump of frozen ice cubes. My best sleep was at this motel: sweet dreams as my ice bucket slowly melted in the bathroom sink.

I almost forgot Texas

No offense to Texas but really after Missouri anything else was a forgettable relief. That said, Texas was memorable (after some thought) for a few things.
The wind - I stopped at the first rest stop in Texas and was literally blown onto my knees. It wasn't evil or mean it was just there with a force I hadn't experienced before.
The legs (see below) apparently are warred over - socks on socks off - I was there when the huge legs were clothed. The rancher responsible for the land (who shook my hand and asked very seriously if I had come all the way from Massachusetts to see the legs) disclaimed any knowledge to when the legs had shown up and who was responsible for the socks/not socks. He did agree with me that the historical marker near the legs which had a poem by Mary Shelley had nothing to do with the sock.

The caddilacs (see below) were the only place I found other people photographing. The caddys are world famous and right on the side of the highway - hard to miss.

The combines on the other hand are off a couple different side roads and took me an hour of driving in circles to find.

One is left to wonder what Texan farmers will plant next.

I'm sitting on the rim of a canyon and this is what I'm looking at. I
always think that childhood summers in southern Utah would prepare me
for these sights but still this veiw takes my breath away. I'm a half
mile from I40 and while I can hear the cars I hear the wind more, that
and the incredible silence that permeates this area. My home will
always be by family but truly I sit here and I know that this too is
home.

trials of the road

Coffee: Once White Castle and Hardees appear at the same rest area you can no longer find Dunkin Donuts. Once you have no DD you have no readily available coffee - especially if you prefer iced as I do. So next it's Starbucks which I now find myself stopping for even if I just started driving 5 minutes ago because I have learned that Starbucks appears only every 150 miles.

Missouri: It never ends. It goes on forever. It is like being caught in a whirlpool and all you can do is hope that you will whirl to the outside and find yourself spit out into Oklahoma.

Oklahoma: I love Oklahoma.

The creativity of Middle America

Maybe it's creativity or maybe it's boredom but in either case it makes for a more interesting ride.

Found in Springfield, Mo the fork has this nice little plaque that helpfully let's you know you're looking at the largest fork in the world. A more helpful woman in the parking lot (who I accosted with the words "what's up with the fork?") told me the fork was 10 years old and has been moved 3 times and was originally built to sit in front of a restaurant. She shared with me that the grounds crew was equally creative "sometimes they plant lots of greens around it so it looks like a salad".

Somewhere in Missouri in a field is a two story metal dragon. It was raining when I took the picture so it's hard to see but trust me, this dragon has a happy face. There's no helpful plaque and no business nearby that would explain it's existence so the dragon just hangs out smiling with nary a word to explain why it's there.

The bowling ball art yard I found on a dirt road outside of Nowata, Ok. (Just for the record - I am not just meandering aimlessly I have done some research on roadsideamerica.com so that I can meander purposefully.) There are fences made of bowling balls, sculptures made of pins, bowling trophies on mailboxes, bowling balls surrounding the Blessed Virgin. All this on a dirt road so peaceful - I only heard the wind rustling through the bowling balls - that I nearly cried. Really this is a special place and they need more bowling balls - they've made it to the letter V on their alphabet sculpture.

Jennerstown

I woke this morning to the Roadway complimentary breakfast: blueberry muffins, blueberry bagels, blueberry cream cheese - well you get the idea. This blue morning, however, did nothing to dampen my spirits for I knew what was coming! I headed out, ice on my windshield, to find the lovely township of Jenner, PA. So I left the moving conveyer belt that is I-70 and drove onto the roller coaster ride of US 30. The ups and downs were steep enough to pop ears and flip stomachs but the views were of farmland and forest with cows and horses thrown in for effect. Truly I did not know the meaning of brown until I came to Pennsylvannia in November. And then there it was - my quest had ended.

Those that know me can get the joke about the speed limit - suffice to say that even with the threat of overrule I felt at home once I saw Les' Sandwich and Ice Cream Shop just down the road from Dusty's Quick Stop. Feelings of family were near and dear and short lived as the township straddles the road for a mere 1.7 miles.

So the day went with miles rolling by, jazz on the radio, and lemonade by the cupful. I got out for a stretch just as the rain started and the sun set. Somewhere in Ohio a technology company felt the need to differentiate itself my planting a field of 5 foot tall concrete corn cobs. A stab at corporate branding or a prophecy for the future of bio engineered food?

If it was only this easy

If it was only that easy.

One please

Being a single no kids kind of gal one would think i'm used to the "it's just you?" kind of looks. I'm so used to this in restaurants that it hardly registers but the Crayola Factory was on a different plane. Really I shouldn't be surprised - it's crayola land home of the purple crayon and childhood colors. I guess I was expecting a sort of brewery tour; walk along the scaffolding and smell the smells, get a few samples at the end. It's not that I was disappointed it's just that all the staff looked at me like I was a two headed freak. When i bought my ticket the girl tried to talk me out of it - "we recommend at least two hours and we close in one, the factory demonstration has already started" - maybe she was just trying to save me from the masses of children careening around the place while their weary parents held fort at a table with the baby. In any case the factory - while no beer tour - did give my legs a stretch and allowed me to create a lovely artistic rendering of...a rendering of artistic droppings from melted crayolas - i'm sure this is how Pollack started.

Road trip

Getting my triple A planned triptik finally got me to sit down and plan my trip and my oh my I am sooo excited. I decided that going the southern route just to go to the salt and pepper shaker museum didn't make much sense especially when I discovered I could drive through Jennerstown, PA!! That and the chance to go to the Crayola Factory (down the street from The Museum of PEZ) pretty much sealed the deal for going through Pennsylvannia. Unfortunately it takes me way far away from the drive through strip club but I will be able to sneak a peek at the topiary french people and Texas and the barbed wire museum seem only days away. And BEST OF ALL I just booked my room at the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona where helpful Harold took my reservation and told me about his five ancestors who came over on the Mayflower - he named all five - and then added "but we're all from Adam and Eve so what's it matter anyway". Indeed!

my fault

I'm sorry about the snow. I've been walking around for the last week gloating about missing winter and, well here we are. I woke up yesterday staring out my window and while i tried to wrap my mind around what white on branches meant I realized that Mother Nature was personally fucking with me. Yesterday of course was pee day; that quarterly fun test that is a requirement of my traveling life. So I got to spend an hour and a half driving to Conneticut to pee in the cup (3 minutes elapsed) and then drive home. All the while thinking about mother nature and how in the end we control very little. In the night, trying to salvage the day I ran outside to make a snow angel-embrace the mother- goes without saying that at that point the snow was slush,I fell on my ass and my angel looked like a mishapen blob .

With apologies to Kubler-Ross

The last week is always the hardest. After 13 weeks i've gone through the 5 steps - denial that i'm actually walking into a new place, anger that they're still talking about bedside triage, bargaining that if i finish this night without screaming I can have a chocolate bar and coke on the way home. Then of course there's the mid contract blues - rehashing all the bad decisions, the lame co-workers, the questioning of night hours (am I just an anti social bitch?) but then that last week it's all forgotten with the pre nostalgia of leaving; they're a great team, they're fun, I laughed so hard I peed. And then it's done - scurrying out the door to avoid one last shift change cluster fuck, a smile as I start to savor the 17 days off (ostensibly the reason I travel but really it's the socially acceptable cover for my lack of commitment and incredible disinterest in becoming "part of the team").
But then I get home and read the reference a nurse writes for me and I think was this the one?; the one place that could be IT - the golden job of fulfilling work, meaningful relationships and belly laughs? I pause and then unsheath the sword to slay the knight in shining armour once again.