Living Through the Coronavirus Pandemic: Part 1

I'm going to attempt to log some short observations and remarks as I go through this bizarre, sci-fi alternate reality of attempting to "shelter in place" during a global pandemic, while living with my husband and almost-4-year-old toddler in one of the largest cities in the country (Chicago).

Mon. 3/30/20
The tv commercials are fascinating. Pre-pandemic, I never had time for them and fast-forwarded right through. But watching the marketing arm of capitalism attempt to hit the right sensitivity mark, while simultaneously seeking profit, is like peeking under the hood of a very large and powerful, but creepy, machine. Some examples:

• Stanley Steamer. They display pictures of a uniformed young white guy cleaning carpets and spraying down the hardwood floors of a church, with the yellow plastic folding signs stationed to alert anyone nearby that the floors are wet. Yet no one is nearby. The voiceover recommends getting your (church or store) floors cleaned while your establishment is still empty--a perfect time! And they have a new disinfectant spray! One can almost taste (smell?) the hopefulness. This will all be back to normal soon. And when it is, we'll post new signs on our doors. Instead of the old "Closed for Business Due to the Coronavirus," they will say "Open for Business! Completely Disinfected! Come on in and Rest Assured!"

• A life insurance company attempted a reassuring voiceover while the entire commercial consisted of a plane or drone pan-shot of a lighthouse at sunset. "We've been there for years, and we'll be there for years," the voice essentially says. Your beam of light amidst stormy seas. But the stormy seas are the main reason you might be compelled to get life insurance: the looming, ever-present threat of your own mortality. Truth is, lighthouses (or insurance companies) wouldn't exist without the stormy seas (or coronaviruses).

• Charmin toilet paper. Now this one is both cruel and ridiculous. The stupid animated red bears who sing about their clean heinies had been airing long before the coronavirus hit, and I have to believe that the company was stuck with some long-term contract to continue airing these ads, because why in God's name would you need to spend money to advertise a product that is in ridiculously high demand right now?!?! You can't get any toilet paper of any brand for love or money in Chicago. Though I haven't really tested that theory by dragging my ass out of bed early enough to be one of the ones waiting when the stores open at 6am.

• I only caught the tail-end of it, but I believe Mazda attempted to inspire their potential customers with a "we're all in this together" message, in the characteristically ironic separate-but-together mantra of this entire pandemic age. A couple, looking out at the picturesque and largely rural horizon, embarking on a journey together whilst safely ensconced away from the rest of the contagious world in their Mazda. I think it was sunset...hmmm, as in, this crisis will be sunsetting soon? Eh?!?!

Other observations:

• The local (WGN) news attempted to throw it to the weatherman, but he was videoconferencing in from home and wasn't available at the appointed time. They cut to him later on in the broadcast, and it was so odd to see what this room in his house looked like and glance over his shoulder to see the (charming) photo of him kissing his wife--or girlfriend, who knows. When the anchorwoman gave him a hard time about not wearing a tie, he smiled and argued that it's an "ivory commandment" not to wear a tie at home (he was ad-libbing), and then declared that he was wearing sweatpants--which made both anchors shake their heads, smile, and say "too much information."

• I made minestrone soup tonight, which I'm not sure I ever would have attempted after commuting home from the Loop, which I'd normally do on a non-pandemic Monday. Jamie Oliver inspired me to do it, and it was delicious--"A+," my husband said. I may never be able to return to canned soups again, because of the coronavirus.

• Today my daughter ate:
• bacon (from Daddy) for breakfast
• "yummy gummies" (1 is fiber, the other is a probiotic). She's less fond of the probiotic, but she usually eats them "for the poops don't hurt." And I will never let her forget that she once said that, in that exact, adorable way.
• an entire bowl of "white crackers" (saltines, she freaking loves them)
• mixed veggies with butter (purely a Mom requirement before she could get any more saltines)
• more saltines, having satisfied the mixed veggies requirement
• cheesy popcorn (white cheddar popcorn, AKA crack to my daughter)
• steamed broccoli with butter (another Mom requirement)
• more cheesy popcorn (the promised reward for the broccoli)
• she was upset when she realized she hadn't gotten her nightly bowl of vanilla ice cream with sprinkles, but I distracted her and then brushed her teeth and whisked her off to bed, because waiting for her to finish the ice cream would have put her to bed an hour and a half past her normal bedtime, instead of just an hour. 
• I chuckle to myself every time I picture the look of horror on my mother's face, if she were to read this. 

• It is so fundamentally weird to see my favorite late-night programs, especially Stephen  Colbert, filming from their homes, with bandleaders like Jean Baptiste playing the theme song in his bathrobe. Tonight, Stephen made it clear that his son was his cameraman and his daughter did his makeup--it was an adorably humanizing look into his "other" life. His dog misbehaved--or behaved like a dog--and began chewing on the cables in his makeshift home office studio. But it's also bizarre not to hear the audience laughter after every punchline. 
• He told John Oliver "welcome to interviews in the after-times," as they video chatted on national television, and attempted to get away with cursing (it didn't work, apparently the censors are essential workers or are able to do their jobs from home). 
• I loved their video chat. It really felt like being a fly on the wall at a pub and overhearing two talented comedians just shoot the shit. Hearing people like John Oliver talk about how "I'm drowning" definitely makes you feel better about your own personal struggles with remote work and some semblance of homeschooling, not to mention the occasional attempt to appear somewhat attractive to your spouse.

• Toddlers and dogs are seldom if ever engaged by video calls, unless (in my daughter's case) they can play with the facial effects and stare at themselves. I wonder if this means they expose the limits of technological verisimilitude. Do we become more adept at kidding ourselves, at delusion, as we age? Or more easily excited by forms of connection that seem ridiculous or unnecessary to young children and pets?

Tips for Men on Dating Websites

From conferencing with my girlfriends, I have decided that I need to write a book of advice for guys who do online dating. Many of them have not quite grasped what it is that we women are looking for. Or avoiding. Here's a preview of my future blockbuster best-seller:

1. Start saving some good pictures of yourself that have been taken by OTHER people. It is obvious and a bit weird when men take selfies (which are also poor quality pics) and post those on the dating websites.
2. If you must take a self-portrait, DON'T DO IT IN A MEN'S BATHROOM WITH THE URINALS VISIBLE IN THE MIRROR BEHIND YOU! (Yes, this actually happened and it was so sad.)
3. Do not post pics of you with a bunch of beautiful women. Or any beautiful women. This does not impress other women. It makes them wonder why you feel the need to pose with these girls but yet you are somehow still single.
4. While I'm on the subject...do not post a pic of yourself that was obviously once a couple pic, where you are posing, contented and in love, with your arm around the ex, and you try (in vain) to cover this up by hacking her off but clearly you have your arm around someone and/or there is a fraction of someone's smiling cheek jutting into the shot of your own smiling face. This is not good. It reminds the viewer of the hacked-off carnage that was once a happy relationship.
5. If all the pictures of you outside of work depict you holding a beer bottle or an alcoholic drink of some kind, what sort of message do you think this is going to send to potential mates? That you are a "good times" kinda guy? Or that maybe you have a drinking problem? Think the latter. Find some new pics.
6. Do not post photos of your dog or your travel destinations in lieu of YOU. There is one reason for the photos on dating websites: so girls can check you out, figure out if you are fit enough or tall enough or not-too-old. Don't be naive and just give us what we want so we can all save ourselves some time and energy.
7. Don't be the schmuck who doesn't post a photo at all, hoping that some hot chick (because you know you're checking out her photos) will "get to know" you and come to love you for your searingly brilliant mind and your Shakespearean-esque way with words, and then she won't even wind up noticing your man boobs or your hair loss. No. Not happening.
8. Saying that you like to "play video games" in your spare time is NOT appealing to the opposite sex. It's just not appealing period. It might be honest...but it's also unappealing.

Things I have learned since arriving in Maine

1) It is BEAUTIFUL here. More nature and less strip malls = fabulous. (LA has many more strip malls than Northern California.)

2) I will never, ever, purchase or drive a Jeep Cherokee. Apparently they are the first to slide right off the road in winter.

3) I will never, ever, purchase or drive a car with rear-wheel drive. Nuh uh.

4) If you live in a cold climate, space heaters are WELL WORTH the investment. I love the little portable ones that can sit on the bathroom countertop and warm you up when you have to go to the bathroom and change in the mornings. Don't judge. It's not fun, being cold in the morning.

Day 4, Tues. 8/18/09, In Which the Girls Eat Delicious BBQ and drive from Hays, KS to Chi-Town between 8am and 1:30am...and visit Harry in-between...

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 7:07pm

On the 35-North towards Des Moines, Iowa

The shadows are growing long and reaching across the freeway as the rolling hills of lush green dip and rise again. As Martina remarked, Iowa is just “more interesting” than Kansas as landscapes go. There is less homogeneity all around: here a wire fence, there a mish-mash of wild flowers and a cluster of trees, and more evidence of human inhabitants. Of course, there are also similarities: the yellow flowers with brown centers that grow along the road, the large hay rolls sitting in the fields, the tall radio towers (is that what they’re for?) with blinking lights at the top. The fields of corn and wheat, and the ability to drive for several miles without seeing a single house.

I felt a bit guilty for categorizing Kansas road signs as either “trite,” “provincial,” or simply corporate chain businesses. Martina and I discussed that this morning as we took off early from Hays under a gray sky. When you come from a big city—especially a cosmopolitan place like San Francisco—you do tend to presume some sort of stature over the other places you go. That is, you feel that you know more and have a larger basis for comparison than the inhabitants of these landlocked, rural towns where most residents have remained all their lives, where they are born and where they will die, where most people seem to look and sound about the same and the richest cultural outlet within 100 (or 200, or 500) miles is the world’s largest ball of twine, or the biggest “Czech egg” (a sign we saw this morning), or—another size thing—the most fearsome prairie dog ever to roam the Kansas plains. Yet there is history here: Wild Bill Hickock and Billy the Kid roamed the streets of Hays, and they have a restored 19^th-century German immigrant home that I would have liked to see. There is a history museum that just exhibited a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton, and as we drove toward Topeka I saw ads for historic Lecompton attractions that might have been quite interesting—or terribly hoky. Still, this is the state that re-ignited the simmering sectional strife of the antebellum period, where John Brown ruthlessly murdered an entire family at Pottawatomie Creek and where the term “red light district” was apparently coined in Dodge City, after a certain brothel with a red glass door. There is history here, and the people we encountered were very kind. Although Martina also pointed out that Westborough Baptist Church is also based in Kansas; the group that treated an English documentary filmmaker (Louis Theroux) with such startling kindness whilst simultaneously holding signs reading “GOD HATES FAGS” and steadfastly believing that they were doing the right thing. Which leaves one with a certain sense of uneasiness about it all; hospitality only goes so far if that sort of bigotry can exist beneath the surface—not among everyone, of course, but the multiple road signs we encounter do lead one to conclude that there are a great many zealots in these parts. And maybe some very conflicted segments of Kansas society, too, since we also passed a porn emporium in front of which was positioned another billboard declaring that all pornography is a sin. A black sign with glaring white letters proclaimed that “JESUS IS LORD” from the midst of a wheat field; it just seemed so incongruous, as if such doctrinal assertions had any place whatsoever in the midst of quiet pastures and little if any apparent divergence from that sort of conviction. This also reminds me of Martina’s canny observation that most religious rhetoric consists of dangling participles and unmodified verbs (“Jesus is Lord!” “…Lord of what?”)

In the midst of 88% humidity, we reached Topeka and both noticed a roadside sign for the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site. We wanted to see it (and Martina had to pee—her bladder has such an incredible sense of timing!), so we pulled off the freeway and drove a couple of blocks down a very quiet street in sight of the state capital dome, where the red brick buildings and one-level houses looked as if they had been essentially the same structures since the day in 1954 when Earl Warren wrote for the majority to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson and declare segregation unconstitutional. And we pulled up across from a schoolhouse that definitely looked untouched (and in fact was perfectly restored, at least from what I could tell from the black-and-white postcard photo of the building that I purchased at the book shop inside). The first thing visitors see when you enter are two white signs with large, simple black lettering: “WHITE” and “COLORED.” It is a small but well-done site, with a room that traces the history of segregation in a brief film and a couple of exhibits on the case itself, its predecessors, and its legacy today. We would have liked to learn more about the building itself: did Mr. Brown’s daughter (and the children of the other twenty plaintiffs in the case) ever get to attend this school in desegregated classes? Can they interview students who were here before (and just after) it was desegregated? It would be a nice addition. Still, it was a worthwhile stop, and one I’d rather make than the Eisenhower library, since Eisenhower was very reluctant to enforce that particular decision and seemed to share some of the racial prejudices of his age.

Another great song came on the radio today: “One Piece At a Time,” by Johnny Cash. It prompted me to finally christen my car: “Psycho Billy Corolla,” instead of the Psycho Billy Cadillac that Cash sings about. Martina knew almost all the lyrics, which I think is so fantastic about her: she knows the words to songs ranging from Johnny Cash to Blondie (“Rapture”) to Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg. I love that characteristic in her, and the fact that she appreciates good food like barbecue! And speaking of which, last night she suggested that we get some Kansas City barbecue for lunch, so we checked the Road Food guide—which is fast becoming my Bible, I just wish it had more entries—and hightailed it to Oklahoma Joe’s. The place has won just about every kind of barbecue competition out there, and when we arrived, the parking lot was totally full—that’s always a good sign. Inside was a gift shop where they sold steak seasoning and BBQ sauce, each of which I got for Aunt Diane and for Kevin Adams. Along a metal corrugated wall (classic South, to me) was hanging a neon Barbecue sign, several championship ribbons, and photos of the Joe’s team holding their trophies and prize checks. A crowd of eager eaters occupied the booths and tables, most of them moderate-to-large in size. I got the pulled pork and Martina got “Hog Heaven”—sausage and pulled pork. It was so good. SO good. The BBQ beans were equally incredible: black and regular beans with onions, bits of bacon and brisket thrown in. That was at 2pm and we’re both still full, 5 hours later.

Then we drove over the state line to Missouri to visit Harry Truman’s home and Presidential Library. Martina was amused to discover that Kansas City actually straddles both states; it is hilarious that there is a Kansas City, Missouri. We finally got to the Truman visitor center, which is strangely separate from the house itself (I guess because the house is in a historic district of protected private residences). But they had booked up all tours until 4:30! So we just settled for a 12-min. video about the Trumans and their home on Delaware Street, which included photos of each room. We drove back to the house to take pictures, with the help of a very kind couple from Indiana who had been driving longer than us—6,000 miles to our 1,800!—and who were very excited to learn that we were historians. Most people we’ve met, especially middle aged people and older ones, seem very excited about this; their eyes get very bright when we answer their queries about what we do or why we’re traveling to Maine.

Neither of us had ever been to a Presidential Library before, this despite the fact that I spent the summer of 1998 interning for the head Office of Presidential Libraries in D.C. So we headed over to the Truman Library, reportedly one of the very best, and told each other we’d just do a quick visit. A couple of hours later, we finally emerged. There was so much! WWII, the atom bomb, McCarthyism! A room full of Life magazine covers, piping in popular music from the 1950s; I wish I could use this in my women’s history class. I took a picture beside an engraved Truman quote, “The truth is all I want for history,” on a wall facing his and Bess and Margaret’s gravesites. And then we stood for a portrait beside a life-size statue of the surprisingly short president, like the tourist dorks that we are.

The sun is almost set and that Rusted Root song just came on the radio—the one mom loves to dance to. It makes me miss her already. “Send me on my way…send me on my way…”

We’re on our way to Chicago; let’s see how far we get tonight. I wanted to stop in Davenport, Iowa for a minor league baseball game (the Quad Cities River Bandits), but we won’t have time now. Martina has been driving for 3 hours and has been a total trooper throughout this journey. I’m so lucky to have her with me!

Postscript: we pushed on through some heavy Illinois fog and arrived in Chicago around 1:30. We LOVE the hotel, Club Quarters at 75 E. Wacker Drive. Downtown Chicago lights up the sky right outside our 14^th-floor room, and the Wabash Avenue bridge is directly beneath us. We are exhausted but so happy to be able to stay in the same place for 2 nights (and not to have to battle rush hour traffic into the city)! There is a bakery on the corner, aptly named the Corner Bakery, which must be doing some late night / early morning prep because it smells HEAVENLY on this block. They list the menu on the windows: everything from danishes to bagels to challah to scones and so on. Hmmmm….

p.p.s.: just a funny tidbit from this morning, I had almost forgotten. Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” came on the radio and we both sighed; it’s the musical equivalent of a chick flick. And as we were talking about how we still loved this song even though we could hear the boys we know making fun of us, we both had a pregnant pause in the car and said, exactly at the same time and in the same tone, “They can suck it.” Scary osmosis effect of some 1,800 miles worth of car co-habitation…or just brilliant minds and wits, thinking alike. ;)

Monday, August 17, 2009 10:37pm

Hays, Kansas

Today we set out from Grand Junction later than expected…didn’t hear my phone alarm go off, then spent quite a while in the hotel parking lot because the birds in the tree above the car decided to unleash their bowels all over it. I swear, it was like a migratory flock of very large pigeons just arrived from Mexico and experienced “Montezuma’s Revenge” directly above my Corolla. Half of it was practically white. So I used a bottle of windex from the hotel and got a nice arm workout from scrubbing off the encrusted tirds. They should make superglue out of these damn things.

Anyway, we employed “Cecil” (our name for the GPS, since I selected the male narrator with the British accent) to get onto the 50-E through Gunnison National Park and on past Gunnison to the 24E to Pike National Forest. The views just kept getting grander and grander. At first sweeping slopes of brownish-green grass, then hills that grew higher and higher and views that spanned further and further out. Then the winding road took several more twists and turns and each one seemed to introduce a new level of beauty. There were crystalline blue lakes surrounded by green forests, reflecting the trees above and the blue sky beyond. The water was so still in places that it acted like a mirror, only magnifying the scenery above. A chipmunk darted into the road on a turn, and Martina almost swerved across the lane to avoid it; she saw it scamper back to the shoulder in her rearview mirror, and I joked about how my Facebook status that evening would be that I nearly perished so that a chipmunk might live.

As we made the climb in elevation, a brand new bag of pretzels spontaneously popped open in the back seat. I’m sure that has something to do with air pressure, all perfectly scientific, but it scared the hell out of us. And we became enamored with “Cobra Commander,” a badass on a large bike who Martina noticed while driving through the mountains. We realized after several minutes that C.C. was probably a woman, based on her frame in the small leather jacket (she was wearing a helmet). When a large truck cut her off as it pulled out of a gas station, she pumped her middle finger high in the air so he would see it, and we drove behind her giggling like kids, thrilled with the display of irreverence and fearlessness from a woman in tight leathers, towing a large platform behind her, climbing through the high altitudes, flipping off truckers, and just not giving a shit.

On we drove, past an old water mill and around turn after turn. I loved looking into the distance and seeing layers of mountains, one after the other, their distance indicated by changing shades of dark blue, purple, and grey. The music always seemed somehow apropos, even in all its variety: some of the best picks were Space Oddity and Ziggy Stardust, Mahler's 8th (a recommendation from Leon), Prince (Little Red Corvette), Blondie, and Van Morrisson.

We descended through picturesque valleys in the shadow of the mountains, full of green grass and running horses and roadside signs for whitewater rafting. I have always liked Colorado, and this time was no exception. It’s not as barren as Nevada, not as conservative as Utah. More varied, interesting, and fun. And green! Definitely more green. Towns like Gunnison and Colorado Springs looked interesting, the sort of places that wouldn’t make you panic if you had to spend more than a lunch hour there.

Well the beauty continued throughout the drive until we got to the point where the land grew progressively flatter until it seemed as though God had sheared everything off with a razor blade. We were in horse pasture country, rural east Colorado on the way to Limon and the boring interstate to Kansas, when we noticed that the sky on the horizon was becoming progressively greyer. Soon the winding road winded right towards the dark curtain on the skyline, and I immediately began regretting the fact that I had explained the characteristics of super-cell storms and tornadoes to Martina a few hours earlier. Dad and Carol called just as the downpour began, and he warned me not to drive in hail because the ice can congeal and make the road slippery. I retorted that I wasn’t about to sit around on the shoulder and wait for the ice to congeal, and I would just drive slowly through it. We resolved to look up the recommended strategy online later…and that turned out to be too late, as the hail began shortly after I hung up with dad. Martina quietly knitted but increasingly turned her eyes skyward as the hail pelted the car. Between the incredibly large rain droplets and the increasingly frequent marble-sized pellets, we followed the lead of the car in front of us and pulled over in the parking lot of a small roadside café. We sat there and I tried to make light of the situation while searching for a weather update on the radio. We heard one but then they segued into the Glen Beck program, we winced, and quickly changed the station. I accidentally came across NPR, and Martina and I actually high-fived each other because we were so excited to have something familiar in the midst of so much that was unsettling and strange. And we’re dorks, as Becky would hasten to remind us. But the NPR broadcast played a segment from an Obama speech that instantly calmed me down; it’s something about his voice.

The sunshine slowly caught up with us, and the hail melted into rain sprinkles again. Thinking we were in the clear, I pulled back onto the highway only to get inundated again just minutes later. Once again we pulled over behind the car that had pulled over once before; it had Missouri plates and I thought, “they probably know all about tornadoes.” The sky was never ominous enough to make me think we were about to experience anything like that, but there were a few scary moments when I squinted toward the grayness above and tried to decipher what I saw. It wasn’t helping that the lighting kept illuminating my peripheral vision and the thunder rumbled so loudly that it startled me. I quickly got tired of just sitting there, feeling the whole car shake every time a giant truck rumbled past us. I kept thinking about my brother and how he would be climbing the walls and out of his mind with fear at this point—he has always been deathly afraid of tornadoes. We got back on the road, and mom called. When I told her what was going on, she went online and began reading notices from the National Weather Service about severe thunderstorms in eastern Colorado…just as she said it she started to break up, and I found myself clutching the cell phone, trying to get her back, wondering what the rest of that bulletin said, soothe Martina’s doubtlessly frayed nerves (though she remained nervously quiet), and continuing to navigate the car through the hail. Thankfully I got mom back and we figured out that the storm was moving slower than us; the horizon gradually cleared and we sped on to Kansas with a wall of grey in the rearview.

The more we got into Kansas the more wheat fields and hay rolls began to dot the landscape. The fabulous 75mph speed limit lowered to 70 (minimum 40), and billboards began to spring up on both sides of the road. The only objects other than advertisements on the horizon were gas station signs—which were actually just more advertisements, with flashing red screens that screamed INTERNET! at passing drivers or (more commonly) advertised gas prices and beds with hot breakfasts for cheap prices to the tired driver. Wendy’s, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Dairy Queen, Subway. Chain stores, one after another, complete unapologetic corporatism saturating the road-side, with an occasional mom-and-pop operation that usually seemed either trite or provincial. Trite: the Tornado Bar, where they will “whip up” some drinks for you. Provincial: the Country Inn, which only included the highway turnoff, the word “nice,” and a giant Jesus fish like a Batman signal that would trigger the right reaction from those-in-the-know. I had been gunning it, 88 mph on cruise control, and just happened to slow down to operate manually and pass a few trucks when a Kansas officer pulled me over for doing 83 in a 70 zone (he had no idea how fast I had been going!).

Martina quickly hid the thing of cold cuts that had been resting on my lap, and turned off the Dr. Dre music that had been blasting. We turned on our sad-but-hopeful faces as the man came to collect my info. He explained why he had pulled me over and when I politely protested that I was trying to pass a truck, he sort of cut me off and said that I had “already passed” a truck when he clocked me (of course, there are about 50,000 goddamned trucks on the Kansas interstate, but I shut up). Martina crossed her fingers as he went back to the car to run my info., but I wasn’t hopeful. You never know what sort of effect 2 women traveling together are going to have; you’d think it would usually be positive, but my wonder-mobile is probably a lot for a Kansan P.D. to digest, with its California plates and bumper stickers and the entire back seat packed with bags. I think the “Maine or Bust” sign charms people, though; maybe gives them some sympathy for how long we still have to go. After what seemed like a very long time, he returned with a warning (no ticket!) and then became considerably warmer when Martina showed him my printout of the large Van Gogh sunflowers painting on a huge easel that Canadian artist Cameron Cross erected on the western end of the state. We had just missed it, and had to drive 8 more miles before the next turnout to go back the other direction for 11 or so miles. We thought about doing it, but given that I now had a warning on my record to stick to the speed limit, and it took forever just to reach the turnoff, I decided that I already knew what Van Gogh’s painting looked like, and didn’t want to be disappointed by a crappy view from the 70 (the actual painting is on the 24 and might have been a bit inland). It’s a shame, though; there are only 3 of them in the world and even though the artist planned to make 7, he may not get the chance.

So we pressed on, rocking out to Jon Bon Jovi (“You Give Love A Bad Name”)—best karaoke song ever, as Martina noted—and ruminating on why the water towers in Kansas look the way they do, like solid hot-air balloons. (Martina thought it had something to do with water pressure. I have no freaking clue.) We also looked out at the wheat fields and wondered what it is about this country that produces such avid religiosity, as amply displayed on roadside signs—some apparently homemade—that implored any and all passers-by to opt for “adoption, not abortion,” and an especially odd one that depicted Jesus emerging from a wheat field (just his head), holding a stalk of wheat aloft as if to demonstrate something about it to you. We decided that maybe it was the sense of confinement and limitation in a landlocked place like this; you want an escape, a release, something to believe in. So you cling to the notion that you will ascend upward when you die; you’ll go somewhere, you’ll do something, you’ll be important and in the right. It makes sense to me that so many sci-fi films about aliens and mutants center on the tall stalks of wheat and corn in middle America. They are picturesque but also ominous; what emerges from them? What do they conceal?

When we were still in Utah, Martina made a very memorable point: this might be the last time in our lives that we are both truly free. Free of the serious responsibilities and attachments that come with true (or advanced?) adulthood: husband, kids, (long-term) job, mortgage, etc., etc. I don’t know if I’ll ever have all of those things, or even half of them, but I definitely recognized the significance of her point and the fact that it was a very real possibility. So it is so critical that we enjoy this time now, and that we appreciate it. And tonight, as night fell over Kansas, she told me that she hopes we will have really good lives (I said “I think we already do,” and she agreed, but I knew her meaning); she wants us to be friends years from now, when we can turn to one another and maybe also our kids, and reminisce about the time we took that “crazy adventure” together across the country. I’d love that too.

Sunday, August 16, 2009 3:27pm

US-70 Eastbound toward Arches National Park.

We stopped for lunch at Mom’s Café, which was featured prominently in the road food guide that I downloaded onto my Kindle. There are a couple of places on the way where you have to make a turn to stay on the 50, which probably would have got us lost (driving so fast that we missed the sign for the turn) if it wasn’t for my lovely GPS. Mom’s has a sign painted on the side of the building, which was built in either 1876 or 78 (the menu seems to disagree with one of the framed articles on the wall). Either way, it’s been known for home cooking since about 1926. They have 4 framed and enlarged checks on the wall from February 7, 1947, but I’m not sure why. Martina has the chicken fried steak (very good, esp. the white gravy that comes with it) and I have the patty melt, light on swiss cheese (my pathetic attempt not to be too unhealthy). Everything is great, including the “scone” we share for dessert—in Utah, that’s a circular patty of friend dough, served with honey butter. I only have a few bites, as this dish is clearly a one-way ticket to obesity-and-heart-attack city. We get Mom’s Café (and other assorted Utah) postcards and write them out, go over the Atlas, call and make sure the hotel in Grand Junction knows we’re not coming until 8 or later. There are several patrons who look like fellow travelers; families with middle-school-aged children, wearing hats and fanny packs and carrying cameras. Some older bikers sit behind me. The waitress is still learning the ropes and is kind but not exactly thrilled to be there; she has red hair that looks like it’s been dyed with black streaks, and purple eyeshadow, and I can’t help feeling a bit sorry for young people living in towns like this. Whenever we travel through the really huge, gorgeous houses near the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, Martina and my mom wonder what those people do to be able to afford those houses. And whenever we go to a place like Austin, Nevada, or Salina, Utah, I wonder what those peopledo to have to stay in that town (or what they don’t do). Not that anyone is putting a gun to their head…except economically. And the young people have no choice, which is why I feel sorry for them. It must be hard. And boring.

We leave Mom’s and drive down the “main drag”: a video store (I wonder if the tapes are VHS or DVD), a ballet school, a boutique with women’s purses on display in a range of animal prints. One-story houses with neatly manicured lawns, kid’s bikes strewn across some of them, and plenty of American flags. Two housewives sit on adjacent front porches and survey the scene while smoking cigarettes and talking on the phone.

We fill up again (I spring for the 87 octane at $2.66 a gallon instead of the 85 at $2.56, hoping my car will be good to us for it). The 70-E gets pretty spectacular in a couple of hours. Vast, VAST landscapes that fill up your entire 180-degree view. The rock grows pinker and pinker until it’s almost red against the blue sky. The formations grow higher, some lone columns defiantly projecting upwards. Martina has to pee at just the right time; we exit at a “View Area” that gives us an incredible panorama of the rocks, it really looks like a movie backdrop. They quickly descend at the same point where the road cuts through them, and on both sides they shoot up towards the blue sky. A giant landscape awaits on the other side; plateaus of multi-colored stone and the shifting grey shadows of the clouds dotting the horizon, which just seems bigger out here. It is breathtaking. Beautiful and incredible. As we approach Arches National Park on the 191, some of the rock is turquoise-colored. The sandstone columns of Arches are mammoth, so richly colored and smoothly sculpted that they could be sandstone Crayolas (“burnt orange”? “desert red” “sun-bleached tangerine”?). We see many “precariously perched” boulders (that’s one of my classic expressions for which my sister makes endless fun of me, because I don’t just say something like “err, it’s about to fall”). A majestic landscape.

X-Country Stage 1: From the White Pine Motel in Ely, Nevada, along US-50

Saying "goodbye" to my family is the hardest thing. I'd rather eat fruit! But I got this great opportunity and I knew I had to take it.

Saturday, August 15, 2009 3:02pm

Outside the historic marker for what was once the mining town of Fairview, Nevada. These bizarre public plaques are mounted on dilapidated metal mesh, cut in the shape of the state and bordered by powder blue edges. The landscape on US-50—“America’s Loneliest Highway”—is straight out of a Cormac McCarthy novel. Rugged, rock-filled wilderness that produces rugged, rock solid men. On the other hand, it’s another planet altogether: as though we landed on Mars, and the electric poles dotting the otherwise uninhabited landscape are ridiculous, completely useless relics of some bygone civilization.

The handful of signs for naval bases, or those warning you not to trespass on federal property, remind passers-by of mushroom clouds and Oppenheimer, tinkering with deadly formulas out here in the desert. The distant mountains reflect different colors in the sunlight. And our music is fantastic. It’s the instrumental parts of the Marie Antoinette soundtrack—I wish I knew the actual names of the pieces [ok, I've since looked this up: Tristes Apprêts, Pâles Flambeaux, Castor et Pollux RCT 32, Act I, Scene III: Air de Télaïre (performed by Agnès Mellon). A French opera singer belts it out. This is the intermission music between audio segments from The New Yorker. Rich descriptions of other times and places fill the air as I attempt to find the words that will do justice to this time and place.

The green bushes alongside the road are quite pretty—a rich array of green hues, some lime and others grayish blue. Two dust devils in the distance, faint ones. The Pony Express trail!

Austin is a small post-mining town of about 250 residents (on a good day). Its main street looks like it was the model for most spaghetti western “high noon” scenes. We stop for some overpriced gas ($3.26!), and the cashier man doesn’t seem to take to my kind. I politely stand in line for my receipt and when a local kid unknowingly walks up in front of me and plops down his twinkie, the old grump in glasses reaches right for it, despite the fact that I’ve been standing right in front of him, was clearly first, and the guy standing next to me starts to say something but I brush it off. After I walk outside I notice that his rusted pickup has a “McCain 2008” bumper sticker, whereas my red Corolla sports my Obama allegiance, along with my California plates and another sticker that says “Well behaved women seldom make history.” A third is a gift from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and says “Change Starts With Me.” So maybe I’m not his cup of tea.

We take a stroll around “downtown” Austin. There’s St. Augustine, the “mother” of Nevadan Catholic churches—the first one, built in 1866. Our pre-printed page of Nevada fun facts claims that its bell can only be rung by pulling on the rope, which hangs in the men’s room…but we cannot verify this, not because we’re not willing to go in there (we are), but because it’s closed. Across the street is a run-down shack that really looks like it has been there since about 1930 or perhaps earlier. There’s a Confederate flag further up on the hill, waving over a white balcony alongside the American stars and stripes. We are disturbed by this and take a picture of me, incredulous, in front of it, but choose not to investigate further. Instead we head back down to main street, past a bar with 2 guys sitting inside, some closed antique shops, and into a store filled with overpriced jewelry but a kind proprietor who wants to know all about our lives and tells us of her son who has been in Japan for the past 7 years and who married a Japanese woman.

We then walk up to another jewelry shop where we meet Jim, also extremely kind and helpful. He tells us about how hard times have been in those parts, but how he made a big sale ($17k) to a Frenchman and his wife who bought his various stones (turquoise, amethyst, picarite, etc.) with cash. He is patient as we pour over the little turquoise stones, deciding which one for each of us to pick and make rings out of as mementoes of our trip. We each choose small slightly oval shaped, almost robin’s egg blue stones, each less than $10.

When Martina tells Jim that he reminds her of Marlon Brando (an older Marlon Brando, but this goes unsaid) he gets a sort of hidden smile look on his face and gets her a highly polished black teardrop-stone with the image of a deer carved onto it. And he has me pick out one of the black arrowheads that he carves himself, even though it costs over twice as much as my little turquoise stone did. He warns us to be safe, not to drift over to the shoulder of the road because too many people do that, then over-correct and go skidding across to the other side. Apparently three drivers died like that nearby, and recently. We take this sobering knowledge with us and remain mindful of it. We shake hands with Jim and take down his shop’s information, and go on our way. As we drive through the West at sunset, Martina notes that many of the road signs have bullet holes in them. I keep failing to notice this fact.

Ely (“Eel-ee”) is Pat Nixon’s birthplace, and that explains plenty. There’s not much to it; a nice city hall, a two-storied middle school along the main drag and within feet of the casinos. We stay at the “White Pine Motel,” where Roberta the proprietor is very kind and tells me I remind her of her sister, who is a lawyer and married now but who used to “be wild” and travel all around. I take this as a compliment. Our room is very basic but cheap; $61 for the night. The comforters and towels are a bit dingy but the sheets are clean and all the motel staff are friendly; I speak with one of them as he is watering all the plants. The scene inside the room is a bit comical; I break out the 8-outlet adapter and we plug in our various devices: charge the phone, both of our laptops, the Kindle reader, the camera battery. The GPS is in the car; hey, we’re not afraid to use the technology available to us.

We put on CNN in the morning while getting ready, and I make hotel reservations in Grand Junction, CO and Hays, KS while the pundits grumble about healthcare. Martina and I yell at the tv whenever anyone uses the term ‘socialized” or attempts to shoot down the president’s reform plan. Then there’s an interview with the outgoing governor of Utah, a really popular guy who surprisingly supports equal rights and benefits for same-sex couples. Just before I turn off the tv, he is remarking on how undemocratic it is for landlords in Utah to be able to evict tenants simply because they “choose that kind of lifestyle.” As I walk towards the car, I think about how outrageous that really is. In this country, they used to do that to you if you were black, or an interracial couple.