Last week I took a road trip from Colorado to Wisconsin and back to see the Oshkosh Air Show, which I have wanted to visit for many years. The show was worth the 2,500 mile round trip but the surprise was the trip itself, and that experience is the subject of this blog.
I last drove across country, from Illinois to LA, to San Francisco, and back to Illinois in the early 1970’s, when I was a student at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Ever since, my transcontinental travels have involved sitting in a jet at 35,000 feet, and the two experiences could not be more different in terms of understanding the United States. Yes, it takes several hours to fly across, so you get some idea of the distance involved, but to understand the vastness, complexity, and beauty of the country, nothing beats driving for hours and days, even though it is at 90mph on the interstate highways.
For a start, the surprise was that the drivers are nice, considerate and disciplined; especially the truck drivers. That is even more true when you get off the interstate onto more rural roads and towns. It is a noticeable difference from my daily experience in a Colorado city, where irresponsible and dangerous driving seems to be the norm, and rude people seem to be everywhere. The pleasant experience of the trip culminated in my running into the Sturgess Harley-Davidson annual meeting when I went through Deadwood and Hill City, South Dakota on the way back – even they were more courteous, and nice, than I might have expected. It sort-of restored my faith in humanity a little and, therefore, perhaps, such a road trip is good therapy for the daily invasion of our consciousness by the media – I didn’t watch the news all week! Very relaxing!
However, the best part of the trip was the countryside itself. The greenery of Wisconsin, the rolling corn fields of Minnesota and South Dakota, the amazing loop through Badlands National Park and the last part through Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks all had a remarkably calming effect on me, despite driving for many hours on my own – I didn’t even turn on the car radio, once.
The only disappointment was Mt. Rushmore; the feeder town of Keystone was awful – a bit like Coney Island on steroids – and the view of Mt. Rushmore was dominated by a huge concrete covered garage structure in front – fortunately the faces are high enough up that you can visually block out that great slab of concrete…almost.
Overall, in our everyday world of soundbite culture, where we are indoctrinated to think that not a minute can be wasted, and not more than a minute can be expended on any one thing, it was a pleasant surprise to find myself not thinking about much for long periods of time, except enjoying the views, even, as I said, if they were mostly viewed at 90mph from interstate 80 and 90.
In case any of my readers think I was being irresponsible driving at 90mph, I was in line with much of the traffic, including the trucks – both pickups and tractor-trailers – and there was far less traffic than I had expected for peak summer travelling season.
I entered the east gate of Yellowstone National Park after driving along one of the most interesting highways I have ever encountered; Wyoming state road 14 from Sheridan to Cody. A high plateau giving way to a deep, deep canyon, onto rolling hay fields and finally to the east gate of Yellowstone, all within a 2 ½ hour drive. Spectacular. The first few miles into Yellowstone showed just what devastation wildfires can cause. Mile upon mile of burnt, limbless, thin, fir trees on the north side of Lake Butte, which is huge. I eventually exited the Park into Grand Teton National Park having seen a grand total of six Canadian Geese as Yellowstone’s contribution to my aggregate of wildlife viewing.
The Grand Teton’s were as impressive as I remember them from the 1970s.
South through Jackson Hole to interstate 80 and 300 miles to the turnoff on I-25 south and home.
The trip rekindled my awe in what the United States is, as a country. Not from the point of view of politics, social justice, or capitalistic greed but purely from the tranquility and splendor of the land itself. I just hope that the current fight for the country’s democracy doesn’t result in me having to leave, if the current political situation results in a dictatorship.
