Road Trip Redux

Note: This is one of my favorite early essays from 2016, reconstituted and updated.

“Kathy”, I said,
As we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh,
“Michigan seems like a dream to me now.
It took me four days
To hitch-hike from Saginaw.
I’ve come to look for America.”

–Simon & Garfunkel, America
I-whatever, photo by responsecrafting.com

The sun is lower in the horizon now, stabbing through the late afternoon windows when we drive westward home. My baseball team is starting to lose all hope of catching the division leaders. Even pet stores have back-to-school sales. It must be mid-August. It must be time for the End-of-Summer Road Trip.

Everybody’s had these. Maybe when you were a kid, and your parents loaded the station wagon/minivan/SUV with odds and ends and headed off to the Grand Canyon or the Smokies or the Adirondacks or Yosemite. Or, in college, when you and some friends just crammed into someone’s old beater and took off for somebody’s friend’s place where you could crash. Road Trips usually take place at the beginning or end of summer, or at the beginning or end of Something. They are part demarcation, part vision quest, like the mythic journeys where the heroes and heroines go into the underworld or across the sea.

Road Trips allow for a lot of staring out the window and contemplation as well as for Seeing Something New, possibly Interesting. Possibly Just Something. Let’s load the car. Personal epiphanies and experience, coming right up.

Continue reading “Road Trip Redux”

Mare Nostrum II: Roma–In the Shadow of Centuries

Capitoline wolf statue
Capitoline Wolf, Museo Capitolini in Rome. Photo by kajmeister.

There are very few places left which can live up to their own hype. Rome does. Use whatever words you like–ostentatious, city of grandeur, over the top–Rome wears them like a toga. You want 2000-year-old ruins? Here’s a Temple of the Vestal Virgins. Over there’s a Colosseum, where one three-day festival weekend, they slaughtered 9000 people in it. You like statues? Here’s a six-foot head of Constantine that used to tower in a piazza or… how about a Michelangelo so close to you that you can breathe on it. Want coffee? Best cappucino in the world at this hole in the wall, mind the scooters aiming at you as you cross the alley. Museums? More than in Washington D.C. Pastries? Sfogliatelle. Religious backdrops? Oh, here’s a church (imagine me waving vaguely at St. Peter’s, the way Edith Head used to wave at all her Oscars).

We’ve seen painted ceilings, beautiful sculptures, and well-turned out meals in many places. Rome just seems to have more. Of everything. Continue reading “Mare Nostrum II: Roma–In the Shadow of Centuries”

The Land of Rock and Cactus, Part II: Canyons and Culture

Owachomo Bridge, Natural Bridges National Park, Utah

This second week of our trip finds the intrepid southwestern travelers braving the trails through Santa Fe and northeastern Utah. I thought about entitling this Canyons, Cuisine, and Conversation because we had the chance to visit with so many good friends and eat good food… or Canyons and Chiles … or Canyons and Calderas … or Canyons and Calamities, but I couldn’t think of a good “C” word for the art. And Santa Fe had so much art!

Santa Fe: More Artists per Capita

According to something called the Location Quotient at the website Citylab, Santa Fe is the second largest mid-sized U.S. city for art. In other words, there was an awful lot of art for a city of only 85,000. So much art that every other building downtown is a gallery. The famous Canyon Road boasts over 120 galleries along its six blocks. The community garden across from our hotel entrance began with an arch made out of wheelbarrows, and the nearby railroad stop was fronted by a football field-sized canvas with twenty separate photography exhibits. So much art that even the orange traffic cones are turned into artwork. Continue reading “The Land of Rock and Cactus, Part II: Canyons and Culture”