Road trip 2012

On Thursday, August 30, Ellen and I said goodbye to New Hampshire and began our journey to Colorado. We had planned out a road trip that, while not exactly the most direct route to the Rockies, gave us maximum opportunity to see friends, family, and sights on the way west. And so as we left behind the place that had been our physical, professional, and spiritual home for a combined fourteen years, in front of us lay eight days and 2,717 miles of the most beautiful, moving, and bittersweet travel we may ever be privileged enough to do.

Day One: Massachusetts
Ellen and I gave ourselves an easy first day on the road; two and a half hours to the Boston suburb of Needham, MA to visit my grandmother. It's always a blast getting to see her; I hope I'm so vibrant and vital when I close in on my 90th birthday! She especially enjoyed getting to see the photos Ellen and I had taken of our recent trip to Cape Cod. We played a closely contested game of Scrabble (I'm deliberately omitting who won), and then it was early to bed and early to rise, for the next day we had New York in our sights.

Day Two: New York / New Jersey
We started our travels by visiting my mother and stepfather in Putnam County, where we had a nice brunch with them. My stepfather is an avid photographer, and Ellen and I enjoyed looking at the photos from their recently concluded European vacation. Then we stopped in to return the last of my gear to the Chappaqua Volunteer Ambulance Corps and visit with captain Mike Tagg (whom I'd known since before he was an EMT!). I was delighted to see how the Corps has continued to grow and thrive in the three years since I stopped riding with them.

Next up was lunch at Mario's Pizza (still the best pizza I've ever tasted) with Jason and Briana, two good friends from high school. I've only kept up a few relationships from my high school days, but I'm glad that these two are among them. After lunch, Ellen and I braved the George Washington Bridge to get to Jersey City, NJ, where we were spending the night with Ellen's old roommate, Laura, and her boyfriend. We parked outside their place and took the train to New York City, where we were able to see Corey, another of Ellen's college friends, as well as my father and stepmother. Originally we'd made plans to see my brother, but unfortunately the timing just got too tight. Indeed, my biggest regret from the whole trip was that we were so rushed this day; it felt like we either missed or rushed too many of our visits.

We returned to New Jersey for dinner with yet another college friend, John, before heading back to Jersey City for a nightcap of peanut butter cookies and conversation with Laura and Pete. Modern technology has made it easier to keep in touch over long distances, but there's just no substitute for face-to-face interaction. Rushed or not, Ellen and I thoroughly enjoyed all our visits! And we were both pleased that despite not having any non-New England paper maps in the car, we never got badly lost, which probably had more to do with Ellen's common sense than with my phone's GPS app.

Day Three: Washington, D.C.
 Fortified by a delicious breakfast of homemade banana waffles, we tackled I-95 en route to Washington, D.C. I appreciate I-95--north-south travel on the East Coast would be immeasurably more difficult without it--but it can still make for unpleasant driving. Suffice it to say nothing had changed since the last time I was on that road. Except perhaps the number of tolls (it didn't decrease). Driving through Delaware and northern Maryland reminded us of the last time we had seen those sights, from the window of a bus as we returned from the West Coast last August following Hurricane Irene.

One of my senior year roommates, Nathan, graciously hosted us for the night, and he was generous enough to share his talents as a tour guide upon our arrival, driving us around some of the sights that we would never have had time to see otherwise (I particularly enjoyed seeing John Philip Sousa's home and the Marine Commandant's barracks). After he dropped us off on the National Mall, Ellen and I spent the rest of the afternoon playing awed tourist, which wasn't a difficult affect to don.

Ellen collects brochures from National Parks and National Historic Sights she has visited, and by the end of the day we had managed to expand her holdings significantly (we gathered a brochure from each site that had them, although on her tally of parks visited she is fairly counting the National Mall and its environs as all one big site). We saw the White House, the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial, Constitution Gardens, the Vietnam War Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, the Korean War Memorial, the FDR Memorial, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, the District of Columbia War Memorial, the George Mason Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial. Not bad for one afternoon! Ellen was also delighted to get to use her new camera (and make good use of it she did! What a talented photographer); selected photos have been posted to Facebook.

We had dinner with Nathan and his girlfriend, as well as another former roommate, Chris. I hadn't seen either one of them much in the ever-lengthening time since we graduated, so I was glad to have that opportunity. In addition, I was grateful that that evening's thunderstorm waited until we were finished sightseeing and safely indoors enjoying pizza before opening up!

Day Four: Washington, D.C. / Somerset, PA
It seemed criminal to me to pass through Washington, D.C. with a space physicist and not visit the National Air and Space Museum (which Ellen had never seen before). So we spent our few sightseeing hours on Sunday surrounded by aviation and aerospace history. My favorite artifacts were the Apollo 11 command module and The Spirit of St. Louis, to name but a few; Ellen liked those but also relished the circuitry and data exhibits. I'd been there once before, but it was a blast to see the museum through her eyes.

Once we left DC, we traveled to Somerset, PA to visit my old roommate / best man, Chris, and his wife Megan. There wasn't a lot of sightseeing to do in rural Pennsylvania, but we weren't there for the tourism! It was great to see them both, and they taught us a new board game called "Survive: Escape from Atlantis." Anytime you get to attack your competitors' pieces with a sea monster, you know you're onto something good. Ellen showed a natural aptitude for the game, but Megan managed to edge us all (as for my final showing ... don't ask). As always, we left encouraged but wishing we had more time to spend visiting.

Day Five: Chicago, IL
Ellen and I celebrated Labor Day with a laborious nine-hour drive from Pennsylvania to Chicago. I can't remember ever visiting Illinois before; Ellen has passed through its airports numerous times but has never ventured outside. Our recently married college friends Kristin and Cullen (for whom Ellen was the matron of honor; Kristin was also a bridesmaid in our wedding) played both host and tour guide for us. We really enjoyed getting to see Chicago; it has a number of charming qualities (not least of which is the river running right through downtown). The Chicago Tribune building was a highlight for us, as was the Hancock Center. We got to go to the lounge on the top of the latter and take in the panoramic views of the city and Lake Michigan.

While I have yet to meet the city that can hold a candle to Manhattan in my estimation, I nevertheless have to admit that Chicago in early September is a very nice place to be. It is cleaner and more spacious (if not less crowded, people-wise) than NYC, and the double-decker train cars were novel. I also got to see the Chicago Fire Department Scuba Team's truck drive by, which was pretty cool.

After our sightseeing excursion, the four of us returned to our hosts' apartment for dinner and continued catching up. Wedding participation notwithstanding, it's hard for two graduate students and their irregular-hour keeping spouses to all stay in as close contact as we might like. The time we got to spend with them that evening was cherished.

Day Six: Sioux Falls, SD
We made a quick exit from Chicago--slowed only by morning rush hour traffic--and set sail for Sioux Falls, SD, where we would celebrate our second wedding anniversary. Funny story about that: Back in May, when I was making reservations for the trip, I found a restaurant I wanted to take Ellen to for our anniversary. The phone conversation went like this:

Me: Hi, how far out can I make a reservation?
Employee: There's no limit.
Me: Great. Can I make a reservation for two people at 7 pm on Tuesday, September 4?
Employee: Umm ... I guess you could ...
Me: You see, my wife and I are traveling cross-country, and we're going to be in Sioux Falls on our anniversary, and--
Employee: Oh! Certainly, I'll write you in. There's no one else down for that day yet.

Okay, digression over. The trip out to South Dakota went smoothly; there was virtually no traffic after we left the Chicago city limits. Crossing the Mississippi River was fun--it's a lot less impressive way up here--and there was a lot of scenery to take in. Plus, we were able to make the kinds of stops that give trips like these their unique character. For instance, imagine our surprise when we stopped for ice cream in Blue Earth, Minnesota and found a sixty-foot statue of the Jolly Green Giant next to the Dairy Queen!

Day Seven: Badlands National Park / Rapid City, SD
This was the only day of the trip where we didn't cross a single state line (not bad considering we passed through sixteen states plus the District of Columbia!). We did get to cross over the Missouri River, though, which like the Mississippi is much less impressive this far north. The highlight of the day was our visit to Badlands National Park and Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.

Badlands was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. The sheer barrenness of the landscape was astonishing, and so was the beauty that it shrouded. Ellen and I went on a short hike while we were there, and at one point I asked her to stop and listen.

"What is it?" Ellen asked. She hadn't heard anything remarkable.
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing," I answered.

And it was so. When I stopped moving and held my breath, it was the most profound silence I had ever experienced. I knew then what Verlyn Klinkenborg meant when he wrote about "deafening silence" in the Siberian night. No photograph can ever capture the primal desolation I felt in that moment.

A few miles from the Badlands Visitor Center was the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, which detailed the eponymous ballistic missiles the United States deployed during the Cold War. We got to see one of the decommissioned silos, complete with (training) missile, and we were even able to tour one of the underground control facilities. The park ranger who led the tour of the control center was extremely informative, and one of the things she said that struck me the most was that of all the electronics and computing equipment in the launch room, they paled in comparison to just one of our digital cameras or cell phones. Technological curiosity aside, it was sobering to see just how ordinary was the installation that could have participated in the end of civilization. I couldn't wrap my mind around it.

Day Eight: Mt. Rushmore / Arrival
On our final day, Ellen and I went to Mt. Rushmore on our way out of South Dakota. Honestly, it was one of my favorite sites from the entire trip. The scale of the undertaking, not to mention the incredible precision with which it was completed, is nothing short of spectacular. There was a display showing the scale model created by sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his son Lincoln, as well as the techniques they employed for measuring and directing their work. In particular, learning that 90% of the rock that was removed in the construction of the monument was done with dynamite just blew me away.

The only thing I did not like about Mt. Rushmore had nothing to do with the sculpture itself, but I found the literature and displays around the site to be excessively sanitized. For example, it remains a topic of debate whether or not the United States government has legitimate ownership of the land on which the monument is built. Some Native American tribes contend that the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 grants them ownership over the Black Hills, to include Mt. Rushmore itself, and the government's later seizure of the land violated the terms of the treaty. Furthermore, while Borglum was certainly a noted sculptor, he was also an active member of the Ku Klux Klan. These details, while perhaps unsavory, are nevertheless an important part of the overall history of the site and the nation whose history it memorializes. To ignore them seems dishonest.

After leaving the Black Hills, Ellen and I exited South Dakota and made our way across Wyoming (although exactly when we began the latter leg is somewhat unclear, since they don't seem to be big on putting up signs at state borders out here). As we passed through one small Wyoming town, we decided it was time to stop for lunch. Noticing a tour bus pulling into the parking lot behind us, we knew we had to act quickly to avoid getting stuck at the end of a long line. But where to go, Subway or Arby's? When we walked in and heard, "Welcome to Arby's. We're giving away free turkey sandwiches today," we knew we'd made the right choice.

Finally, at long last, we arrived at our destination in Louisville, CO. We knew that our work was not done--having reached our new home, we now had to begin the arduous task of unpacking and getting established in a new place--but we could reflect on our recently concluded journey with satisfaction. We have so many cherished memories of those days ... breathtaking scenery, historic sites, time with family and close friends. But the most treasured thing of all was the time we spent sitting in the car together. Whether we were discussing our future plans, reading to each other, playing "What's the coolest animal we're going to see from the car," or just speculating as to how long it would take an ambulance to reach us if we went off the road in rural Wyoming, I wouldn't trade a single moment of that trip for anything.