I decided a few months ago to move from Boston to San Francisco. I found an apartment, I hired movers, and I made arrangements to rent out my home. I thought about flying, but I've always wanted to drive cross-country, and hello! Here was a chance to do just that! I got myself a road map, I took the car in for all its regularly scheduled maintenance, and I recruited my friend Melanie to join me as copilot and chief tape deck operator.
Scheduled departure: September 5, bright and early. Scheduled route: I-80 all the way, baby.
Accompanying me, other than a suitcase or two, is as follows:
I have two simple goals for this trip. First, I need to get to San Francisco by September 11 -- a feat I think I can accomplish without too much trouble, weather and highway troopers permitting. Second, I intend not to eat at a single McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Hardee's, or other cookie-cutter cardboard cheeseburger chain. This might be a bit more difficult, since having a cat in the car more or less limits us to drive-through meals until we reach a motel each night. But I'm taking it on as a challenge.
Dear reader -- and you know who you are -- I'm going to give you (yes, you!) the opportunity to see America's spacious skies and amber waves of grain through my eyes, or rather, through my digital camera. You will almost certainly catch glimpses of tacky motels, wacky locals, cheesy billboards, truck stops, and possibly even a diner or two. I can also guarantee you many fascinating miles of soybeans and corn. Check back every evening for the day's sights and events!
We were a little late getting started this morning. I had every intention of being on the road by 9 or so, but Lisa and Greg got married last night, see, and between the ceremony and the dinner and the fact that I was nowhere near packed, I didn't get to sleep until almost 1 a.m. So when my alarm went off at 7:30 this morning, I did not bound out of bed ready to face the day. I was moving pretty darn slow. I didn't make it to Melanie's until 9; then, of course, we had to go get breakfast at the B&D Deli before loading my stuff into the car. It took a while to figure out how to fit everything in with minimal wasted space, too. Poor Surely had a little accident in her carrier while we were jostling her around, and I thwacked my shin on a suitcase hard enough to leave a rather large and scary-looking bruise.
Anyway. We headed west on the Mass. Pike, swung down I-84 through Connecticut, and stopped at the Blue Colony Diner for lunch. Since an impressive layer of clouds had rolled in, it was cool enough to leave Surely in the car while we had sandwiches. Behind us was an older woman in pearls and a silk blouse who had brought three young, squirmy boys out for lunch and continually exhorted them to pray to Jesus for self-control. We rolled our eyes a lot as she scolded first one boy and then another to sit still and stop wiggling. That's a lot to ask of a kid under 10. And who wears pearls to go to a diner, anyway?
After lunch, we made our way through the knot of highways around New York, which were inexplicably crowded for a Sunday afternoon halfway through a long weekend. I was tempted to pull off the highway every time I saw a sign for a diner, but I restrained myself -- even though I'm obsessed and won't get another chance to visit all New England's diners any time soon, there's only so much one girl can eat, and we were in a hurry. By this point Surely had resigned herself to captivity (or sated herself on the catnip I'd thoughtfully sprinkled all over her carrier) and only let out a plaintive mew every 10 miles or so.
Once we crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge, it was alternately drizzling and pouring, and by the time we got to the Pennsylvania border, it was raining steadily. At this point it was clear we wouldn't make the day's 500 miles before nightfall, but we decided that since we'd gotten a late start, we needed to make a point of staying on schedule, so we figured out how far we needed to go and picked the town with the most entries in the AAA guide to motels that take pets. Got off the highway in Clearfield, headed for the Super 8, demanded a room for two tired women and one overwhelmed cat, and headed upstairs to collapse. At the moment, Surely is sprawled luxuriously on my bed, purring madly and offering her belly to be scratched. I think she's forgiven us the day's indignities.
We ate dinner in a truck stop. Everything either had cheese on it or had been deep fried. Melanie ordered a chef salad, hoping for some greenery, but it was essentially a mound of grated cheese and ham with a little bit of sad iceberg lettuce underneath. America's heartland is not known for low-fat fare, and a truck stop is probably not the best place to look for healthy food. Me, I had a cheese steak sub -- we were in Pennsylvania, after all, and I wanted to sample the native cuisine. The french fries were excellent, hot and crispy with the skin still on. They were almost as good as the thick, crisp-crusted, creamy-textured fries we'd had at the Blue Colony. So far it's been quite a good trip, fry-wise.
