Old Grey and Ethan's Excellent Adventure

The moment in Wyoming I realized the road trip had been an excellent idea

A couple months ago I realized that I would have family visiting Reno, Nevada right before I had to be in San Francisco, California for the American Philosophical Association Pacific Meeting (for a few panels, including one for the new Science Fiction and Philosophy Society!). I'm also on sabbatical this semester. I also have been wanting to do an epic Western US road trip for a long time.

Putting all this together, a plan was hatched. A bonkers plan. A long plan. One that I'm happy to inform you, dear reader, came to delightful fruition.

Nebraska state capitol in Lincoln

I left my house in Chattanooga, TN in late March and didn't return until about two and a half weeks later. All with my trusty Ford Focus, Old Grey. Hence, Old Grey and Ethan's Excellent Adventure! 

(Okay, poor Old Grey had to stay behind in Reno for a couple days while I went to Lake Tahoe and then several more days at the Oakland Airport while I took the train and conferenced it up in San Francisco. But for the most part it was just the two of us on our excellent adventure!)

Downtown Salt Lake City

A few observations:

• Driving West, it was interesting to watch the landscape open up to big spaces and big mountains, fewer people and less traffic. And driving back East, it was interesting to notice, somewhere in the middle of Nebraska, that the West had become the Midwest. And then again somewhere in southern Illinois or western Kentucky the Midwest became the South. Crossing into Tennessee mountains returned at last to the view outside my car windows, albeit the green, humid mountains of Appalachia as opposed to the snowy crags of the Rockies.

Utah state capitol, Salt Lake City

• The first day or two I wasn’t sure whether I had made a mistake on this epic and somewhat bonkers journey. I mean, four or five days each way by myself, putting wear on my poor 2018 Ford Focus, “Old Grey”? What if I got tired? Or sick? And couldn’t drive? What if I got in an accident? Or broke down or ran out of gas in the wilds of Montana or a corn field in Nebraska? What about all that snow still on the ground out West? What was I thinking? But then as I moved through Wyoming, met by mind-blowing, unfathomable natural beauty at every turn, I finally understood. I had made the right decision.

This Salt Lake is pretty Great, but poor Old Grey got really dirty driving up to it

• I stopped often to take pictures, especially in Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, and Montana. But none of the pictures do it justice. Photos don’t capture seeing as being in the landscape. Mountains never look as majestic. Plains never as expansive. But above all, photos don’t capture the sublime feeling of experiencing yourself as a small, fragile part of a vast openness, as if you might fall off the Earth. Tennessee has its own beauty and its own mountains. Even the Midwest, despite its many naysayers, has plenty of beauty of its own. But there’s no place like the West (including, of course, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado!). No place so open. Nowhere with that lonely beauty in which “nowhere” and “everywhere” coalesce.

My nephew at the playground. Also, Lake Tahoe.

• It’s about the journey, not the destination, but I did have a two main destinations in mind. I got to spend time in Reno and Lake Tahoe, where I visited family (technically I visited my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew and their family on my brother-in-law’s side). Around Lake Tahoe (Nevada and California) I saw more snow than I’ve probably ever seen before (and I grew up in Minnesota!). I drove through Sacramento en route to my other main destination: San Francisco. I stopped to visit LeVar Burton Park in Sacramento! I had seen it on his Instagram a couple years ago (his hometown wanted to honor him). It’s really just a regular park in a residential area, but worth visiting for sure. I went to San Francisco for a conference, which was great (as I often say, I basically go to conferences to see my friends). San Francisco is always fun, although I still don’t understand how anyone can afford to live there (judging by the tent cities all over the Bay Area, I guess many people don’t). In Sacramento, I also went by the California state capitol. Speaking of state capitols, I was also able to stop by the capitols in Lincoln, Cheyenne, Salt Lake City, Boise, Jefferson City, and Nashville. I got to Springfield and Topeka last summer, but not this time. Apologies to Carson City, Helena, and Frankfort. I’ll catch you next time. (Technically I was in Iowa for about 20 minutes each way, and I’ve driven through Des Moines many times, but maybe I need to catch the capitol next time).

With my sister and my brother-in-law being cool behind us.

• I had some mildly harrowing nights driving into Boise and Bozeman, especially Bozeman as I was rerouted close to and briefly into Yellowstone at night. I think I saw an elk standing quietly in the darkness at the side of the road, thankfully not in the road at that moment! I’d love to go back Yellowstone during the day after the snow melts. And spend more time in Boise and Bozeman. Especially Boise, which seemed like a cool place.

Lake Tahoe lives up to the hype! But it was cold.

• The weather is volatile this time of year: it felt like summer when I left Chattanooga, winter by the time I got to Nebraska, light summer again in Sacramento, whatever weird season it always is in San Francisco, and then summer through most of the way back. Cheyenne was about thirty or forty degrees warmer on my way back. It was in the 80’s in Montana even with snow still on the ground, and 90’s in Nebraska (the snow was gone there on the way back). Due to elevation and general meteorological weirdness, sometimes the temperature reading in the car would bounce up and down between rest stops. In the the few days I was driving home, the car thermometer went as low as 27 F and as high as 91 F. 

It was cold enough that even the Minnesotans were bundled up, but this dude was out there on a surf board with a sail. Now that's bonkers.

• A few hours after I drove through Nashville due West, a terrible school shooting took place with ensuing international embarrassment from the state legislature (who had, of course, enacted the gun laws that helped create the tragedy in the first place). I thought a lot about politics in other ways as well: marijuana is legal in many of the states I drove through, but it’s a patchwork (legal in Missouri and Montana, illegal in Idaho and Utah, etc.) And now much the same is true of abortion: legal here, illegal there. What kind of nation are we where freedoms vary by the imaginary lines drawn centuries before? What kind of world when it comes to the more heavily policed imaginary boundaries between nations? And how can Americans, who seem more obsessed with the idea of “freedom” than anyone else, differ state-by-state on which freedoms their citizens have, especially with something so fundamental as reproductive freedom? What will this country look like in the next decade or two if this patchwork of freedoms continues?

I love LeVar Burton, so I had to stop at LeVar Burton Park in Sacramento

And of course the California state capitol

• I’m thankful that my life situation lined up to allow me to take this bonkers road trip. I’m not sure it changed my life, but then again, I’m not sure it didn’t change my life.

Café Mason in San Francisco, which I visited on my other nephew Mason's birthday

My "view" in San Francisco, which amused me

Obligatory cable car photo. It's hard not to think of Rice-a-Roni when they go by.

Another old school place still around with amazing pancakes!

Lest you think it was all fun and games, here's a shot of me hard at work at the APA (photo credit: American Philosophical Association)

Gandhi!

Sealions!

I've been to San Francisco several times, but I've never seen Lombard St. before. Now I guess my life is complete.

Chinatown Gate

The view from a friend's room. Marginally better than mine.

Sourdough and Guinness at an Irish bar I remember visiting with my brother-in-law Eric and nephew Mason many years ago

Old Grey and I reunited in a parking lot in Oakland!

Still just a little bit of snow by Lake Tahoe on the way back

Near Donner Pass (yes, those Donners)

Sunset outside of Winnemucca, NV

"Two Billboards Outside Winnemucca, NV"

The meme explanation of my post-San Francisco itinerary

Idaho capitol in Boise

Out West they love to put state capitols dramatically near downtown and the mountains

Elk burger in Boise! With Idaho potatoes! I'm glad the elk I think I saw later that night didn't exact revenge

Old Grey posing for a picture at the Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana. It was 85 degrees with snow on the ground. Weird.

Not a bad view from Montana State U. in Bozeman

A friend from Montana told me about Clubfoot sandwiches at the Staggering Ox (that's bread made in a coffee can); I stopped at the Billings location for lunch, but I don't think I saw World Famous Author Chuck Tingle in his hometown

Nice view from a rest stop in Wyoming

Old Grey was in this for the long haul. Thanks for not breaking down, Old Grey!

Old Grey reflecting a Wyoming sunset

My home away from home in Cheyenne

Western Nebraska is still the West, but no more mountains

A state capitol I missed on the way out West: Jefferson City, Missouri!

Rear view sunset in Missouri

I stopped to visit my sister in the St. Louis area, including my avian niece, Sasami!

Superman in Metropolis, IL!

Returning to Tennessee, I was greeted by the patron saint of Tennessee: Dolly Parton! (In her cardboard manifestation)

One last state capitol: Nashville, Tennessee (our Republican state legislators were up to even more heinous and internationally embarrassing nonsense than usual in there while I was gone)

I told you it was a long trip. Good job, Old Grey!

The states Old Grey and I visited on this trip (I've now visited all US states except Alaska and most of New England .... I'm getting ideas for my next bonkers road trip!)

The real victims of this trip: my poor cats! They eventually forgave me for leaving them.