Highway of Our Dreams

The Dude and I weren’t able to set off at dawn, directly down the southbound highway of our dreams. No, the evening before departure, I discovered in the cab that neither the radio nor the CD player would operate. One cannot take a lengthy journey without music or books-on-tape, unless one has a high tolerance for tedium on the road. The Dude may have such a tolerance, but I do not.

The first destination after leaving home in Two Harbors, Minnesota was just 25 miles away in Duluth. I returned to Dad’s Electronics where super mechanic Phil had recently done a difficult installation of cruise control on my motor home. Phil was The Man because he had also sorted out what was draining the battery -- the poor wiring a previous owner had left after installing some kind of alarm system. Luckily, Phil was again the hero. He fixed the stereo right away, and we were on the road that afternoon.

Most of the names (if any are given) of the people I refer to have been changed, because I never remember the real ones anyway, except Phil. My apologies to all the others.

With visions for the next ten weeks dancing in my head, we finally set off in my Toyota Escaper. I was going to see the beautiful places of the United States, aiming for as many national parks as I could fit in on a loop through the southeast to southwest. Accompanying me for security and companionship, was The Dude, a Scottie with strong jaws and a sometimes-ferocious demeanor.

My first priority was to get away from cold country as fast as possible. Get me to the warmth on time. That and I wanted a national park as soon as possible. Despite “civilization” along the interstates, the prairies looked pretty vast to me. Prairies have many excellent qualities, but I wanted to travel through them quickly so as to arrive somewhere warm, somewhere I could be outdoors without first spending 15 minutes putting on long underwear, layers of wool sweaters and a down coat.

On a practical level, my plan was to have no dedication to a particular style of road. For instance I was not determined to stay off the evil Interstate system. For authors like Least Heat Moon and Steinbeck, our back roads held the authentic America. I know people who have made a moral imperative out of this attitude: interstate bad – back roads good. Well, I say, “Bah.” Several times if necessary.

I believe you see about the same country along the side of the road whether on freeway or trunk highway. Once I get to an area I want to see, of course I turn down the side roads and highways. But I don’t want to stop at every streetlight and slow down for every left-turning vehicle in front of me, when I can get through with less hassle on the interstates. I found this especially true in highly developed states. In Florida, thinking to cut across an area and get to the coast “more directly,” I took a regular highway southeast from Ocala. It was Malwarts and gas stations and strip malls for hours, with stoplights every half-mile or less! I prefer a multi-lane freeway to get through big populated areas. I also found that the freeways feel safer if my 21-foot camper breaks down. The interstate always has shoulders upon which to pull over and cry in an emergency. Many highways have nowhere to get off the road. Call it practical or call it cowardly traveling, there is safety in numbers when you need help on the road. (More about breakdowns later.)

The drive though Wisconsin was a fast and familiar one. I soon learned that The Dude is a clinger on the road. He wanted to be right next to me as we drove and he preferred to have his head on my knee. Better yet, he would put his front paws on my right leg and rest his head on top of them. It became his habit to begin any drive by getting as far onto my lap as I would allow. If I objected to the extra weight he provided, and pushed him away, he would inch his way back. First he would lie so he was just touching me and hang his head over the edge of the seat. Eventually he would try just barely resting his chin on my knee. If he were allowed that, his whole head would soon be resting on my leg again. If he felt particularly needy, he would add his front paws. If I wasn’t crabby, and if he didn’t interfere with my ability to use the gas and brake, I let him stay. It became a comfort to me on long stretches of endless road.

Where was the first stop, people ask? If I counted the errands on the way out of Duluth, and all the rest stops along the way, well that would be tediously literal, literally tedious, and obviously not what the questioner really wants. I remember a nice stop about sunset near Black River Falls, Wisconsin. The ground underneath the picnic tables was a low grass and moss lawn lit golden by the setting sun. It was not a real “stop.” For a dog, it was just a pull-or-be-pulled-around-the-parking lot stop. For me, there were historic signs about the Winnebago people and about peat moss and it was WARM. For our first day on the road, the weather had been partly sunny and mild. Wearing just a fleece vest and a knit hat for outerwear, I was comfortable walking with The Dude around the edge of that freeway rest area.

The first stop for the night was spent at the Petro Plus 24-hour truck service center near Portage, Wisconsin. RVs are allowed to park all night in a corner of the parking lot if they ask for a free permit. I generally sleep deeply and seriously, so I didn’t find the sound of the diesel engines annoying at all, nor did I hear any complaints or alarms from The Dude. We parked on a fairly quiet side of the restaurant as instructed, while about a hundred semis rumbled through the night in a huge parking lot on a level above the restaurant lot. There were just a couple other RVs in our section and like me, those folks just pulled in and went to sleep. Most of them left earlier in the morning than I did. Those who know me well know that to say I am not a morning person is a gross understatement.

Some people have asked why on earth I would want to spend a night in a truck stop parking lot. Number one, it’s free! Number two, it’s convenient and quick when you just want to get somewhere fast. No set up, no take down. Not my idea of a vacation destination, but it certainly was a good stop on the road. I heard about truck stop options from a travel internet group, and it sounded good to this cheapskate.

The next morning brought the first problem of the trip (if you don’t count the stereo as number one). I had brushed my teeth in the kitchen sink before going on the morning walk with The Dude. As we returned to the Escaper, I saw a stream of water had made a path from under the camper somewhere heading across the parking lot. I hadn’t seen it when we left the camper because the water was all on the other side of the RV from my door.

What the hell was leaking? I thought, mulling over a few more choice words. Since I saw no more water was dripping just then, I decided to just head out and worry about it later. It was water and it wasn’t coming from the engine, so I chose the first line of problem solving–“ignore it and maybe it will go away.” Sometimes it works. In blissful ignorance of the source of the leak, we continued down I39 towards Illinois.

Day two was cold, windy, and overcast. Not a bad day for driving. As long as it doesn’t rain too much, I won’t complain. Driving in overcast weather is easier on the eyes than bright sunshine.

If you are on the interstate near Rockford, Illinois, take advantage of the Turtle Creek Rest Area. I took a long break for lunch there and was pleased to find that semis were not allowed, so there was no humming of trucks laying their pastiche over the atmosphere. I don’t really mind the noise of the trucks, but the lack of it was a noticeable and nice change.

Over lunch, I would usually study my road atlas. I had to switch interstates here and there along the way and didn’t want to get off course. More often than I’d have thought, I found route choices through or around a downtown area. I don’t remember ever getting lost or turned around taking the freeways. I did get off my proposed paths on the “back roads,” sometimes on purpose.

While doing my frequent map studying, I discovered something unexpected. If you use a highlighter on all the names of the National Parks on an atlas map of the U.S., you discover a large, unhighlighted hole in the Midwest. Except for Voyageur and Isle Royal National Parks in the far north, and Hot Springs, Arkansas in the south, there are no national parks in the central U.S. from Mammoth Caves in Kentucky all the way west to the South Dakota Badlands. Does no one love the vast prairie landscape enough to make a national park in this hole on the map? There are lots of national preserves, national forests, and national monuments in the hole. That designation apparently is the pinnacle of the system reserved for the most remarkable features of our national landscape.

I figured I had a couple more days of driving before I reached my first national park, Mammoth Caves. It was actually less than a day and a half of driving, but I took almost three days to get there. On the second night, I came to “rest” in the luxurious sense of the word. I was waylaid by Comlara Park, a paradise run by McClean County near Bloomington, Illinois.

One hundred and twenty six campsites wind around a section of the shore of huge Evergreen Lake, a meandering shoreline of little peninsulas and marshy inlets. Most of the dozen or so campers were at sites near the entrance, on a hill with views of the lake. One lucky pop-up camper household was set up in one of four or five sites on a little wooded knoll with treed privacy. I refrained from invading them and drove on through the winding access road to the rear of the campground where the only other occupied site had a couple of tents. I chose a spot farther around the loop where hills separated me from the tenters. Though not right next to the lake, the site sloped down to a grassy area of shore with trees and brush on both sides. I brought out my folding chair to sit reading, writing, and taking photos, while The Dude occupied himself smelling things I’ll never be able to smell (or want to) and wading in the muck. Paradise enough for both of us.

Soon after arriving, I decided to spend another night there. This was a vacation not a marathon. I had reached my initial goal of warmer weather. It was balmy at 50 degrees compared to the freezing temperatures I had left behind in Two Harbors. The evening was restful. All the neighbors were respectfully quiet, so much so that the only sound I heard was the ticking of my clock, drowned out only occasionally by a vehicle on a nearby road. Probably the park was hell in the middle of August with all the sites full and no chance of peace. In April, with so few other campers, there was lots of space, trees, green grass, and quiet.

I spent the next day exploring the park. Although it looked quite free of litter in general, the brushy edges of the park were filled with garbage -- beer bottles and diapers, along with the usual junk food wrappings and Malwart bags.  Need I suggest wearing work gloves for this chore? I picked up several plastic grocery bagsful just around my campsite and several more on my walks though the rest of the campground and the nearby picnic area. It was a hefty Six Bag Park on the mental scorecard.

Picking up litter directs my attention to the little things found low to the ground. I admire the tiny plants and flowers, inspect the little holes where who-knows-what lives, or admire the intricate line patterns on rocks. Nearer the ground, I can see the varied types of moss, one of my favorite plants. Some varieties look like little ferns, some have curly leaves and others spiked stamens poking up. It amazes me the many shades of green and gold these tiny plants show off.

Other than the garbage edging, the park was beautifully maintained. The grass was mown low and lushly green, reminiscent of an arboretum. Dotted with heavy wooden and metal picnic tables, many campsites were blessed with lone trees glorying in the space to spread their branches.

I took time to reorganize stuff in the Toy House to make some things easier to reach, tucking things I didn’t think I’d need farther back in the cupboards. I had a hard time knowing where to stow all the books I had brought. I am not a moderate when it comes to books. On a long trip such as I was undertaking, I need plenty of both reference books and fiction, as well as some poetry and other fun stuff. One does not want to run out of things to read. One just doesn’t. I had brought so many books, that I kept some in the oven. I wasn’t supposed to use the oven anyway (bummer) due to a faulty valve there. The side benefit was that the books kept the oven racks from jingling as I drove. Finding room there for a few more books purchased along the way proved not to be a problem. Nor was finding things to read along the way. Whenever I paid a park entrance or camping fee, I received a wealth of information, presented elegantly in text and photographs. Local information centers presented an embarrassment of riches in free print materials, much of it also beautifully illustrated, and some of it even informative.

I made a brief inspection of the previously mentioned water leakage problem. The leak was not the used “grey water” from the sink drain, as I had originally feared. Clean water was being forced from a water heater drain that had been left unplugged for the winter. Every time I turned on the water, the tank pump sent water in that direction. Seeing no way to remain obligingly in the tank, it ran out through the drain hole, along the side of the camper for a bit, and dropped to the ground. It was not a big problem, though long term it would be wasting perfectly good water from my storage tank. While parked and camping I could make moderate use of the water from the Toy House faucets. A little extra clean water on the ground temporarily, wouldn’t hurt me, the camper, or the ground water. I would need to find an RV dealer and get a plug at the next available opportunity. The next day, I found one just off the interstate; problem solved!

Staying an extra day at Comlara Park had been a good decision. The sun was out and it was warm enough to sit outside by the lake in a light jacket. The Dude obligingly sniffed about in the area granted him, or unobligingly twisted his leash in a pair of saplings. (No, I cannot allow him to be off the leash, disappearing after squirrels for hours.) Sunlight flashed off the back of a fish jumping just 20 feet away from me in the bay. Blue jays screamed at us from jittering dry leaves still hanging after winter, in the branches above. Two more fish jumped on my left. A bored whine erupted from The Dude on my right. The wake of a boat, long since passed by this inlet, drew broad stripes of light and dark as it settled gently into the shore before me. There were plenty of pretty singers in the trees, as well as robins on the lawns. I heard cardinals but didn’t see them. A small bird shuffled in the brush beside us. The Dude barked it up a tree. A swarm of ephemeral bugs bounced in the air in front of my face. Apparently they were flutterers not biters, as they were not chomping on me. Tall grass in the marshy border of the lake glowed green in the slanted setting sun. The photo I took doesn’t do justice to the colors I remember seeing. The wind creased the lake surface. The opposite shore shone with golden fields sandwiched by darker lines of trees on the shore and on the horizon.

As it was Friday, I wondered if the locals who must know about this great place would be descending in droves upon the campground for the weekend. Surprisingly few showed. After the sun had fallen below the hill to the west, I settled in to the Toy House for the night. I plugged the CD/tape player into the 12-volt plug and enjoyed my evening meal to the music of the Dixie Chicks and Jackson Browne. The Dude sat across from me in the two-person booth hoping there was something for a Scottie to eat. There usually was.