If you had a few months and a car and a trailer and a dog, where would you go? Cross out most of the continents on our planet because you can’t get this stuff across the oceans, so, South Africa is definitely out, though very appealing (and the elephant sanctuary is definitely a place I want to get to eventually). Even Central/South America, while technically drivable, are unlikely destinations because these would involve passing through Mexico where in some states the chances of being held up and robbed of all your stuff (see blog post #2/Packing for details on what all the stuff is) would be very high. I do not mean to slur Mexico but it really can be dangerous, and the drug crime is out of control in some parts, so, it’s not my top choice for an adventure.

(Though actually, let me say that I have known two people–one an ex’s cousin’s partner, one a cab driver I spent some time talking to while stuck in traffic one day–who did do Road Trips through Mexico, both about 40 years ago; the cab driver actually made it down through Argentina because he was in a Volkswagen bug whose engine he had converted to be able to run on just about anything, including filtered cooking oil, and the ensuing adventures made so captivating a story that I almost wanted to hug the guy when we finally got to the airport and I had to get out of the cab. But I digress…)

So let’s say you are planning a road trip in North America, probably just the U.S. and Canada–but because Canada is really beautiful (and feels almost exotic, once you get outside Toronto; you can practically drive to the Hudson Bay, check out the map, there’s this one road that goes, like, to the north pole sort of), I have agreed with my partner Suzanne that I will save Canada for next summer when we can do it together. So now the territory has been narrowed to the United States of America, but it’s a big country, so you have to pick and choose. Steinbeck, when he traveled with his dog, made a ring around the country, which as anyone knows means that he didn’t really see the country at all, because when you cling to the edges you see only the easy stuff, the beaches, the largest cities, the most beautiful national parks. I mean, L.A.? Seattle? Boston? Been there, done that. Most people have done that, if they’ve seen anything in this country at all. It’s in the middle where things get real, and that is where I decided to go, and where in fact I am now–as I write, I am in Missouri.

Another aside: At dinner the other night with some of the faculty of Missouri’s famed journalism school, I mentioned that I’d done some “apartment swaps” with my NYC home in order to spend time in Europe; “what Parisian would want to come to Columbia, Missouri?” they laughed (because in the Midwest people are too good natured, generally, to complain so they laugh at themselves instead). “Everyone wants to come to Missouri,” I exclaimed, banging the dinner table. It is not exactly true but I think it should be.

Alright, so I want to go off the beaten path. But that still leaves a lot to figure out. Once I’d decided to travel with Colby through the middle of the country, I next anchored my route in three conferences: the first is in Rockford, Illinois, hosted but the Society of Industrial Archaeology (yes! it is the geekiest sounding organization ever! and it is also profoundly awesome, so, more of that in a future post); the second is with the Pioneer America Society in Utica, New York, but that is sort of inconvenient because it means backtracking–I will have to fly back to get to that one, but it involves the Mohawk Valley and the Erie Canal, where I have recently been, so it is totally relevant even if it occurs out of order–and the third is in Indianapolis, Indiana, a conference hosted by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. These are the anchor points. They are spread out into November. To fill out the time in between, I looked at a big, beautiful map of America and felt…well…overwhelmed.

There is too much there. I cannot see it all. I can try and try, I can turn down every road I see, but I will never get to see it all. It is folly. It is like trying to eat once in every single restaurant in New York City, including all the deli salad bars. It can’t be done and even if you came close, every day a new place pops up and you’d

have to add that to the list; the list is endless. You’d eat and eat and eat all day every day and still, there would be more. America is like that.

Break out a map, kids. (And I do mean “A MAP” and not your GPS, because it’s not driving directions we want here but an overview; GPS is a tool, but maps are the world.) Look: I love the map, it fills me with impossible desire. I want to touch each place on it once, I want to be everywhere, I start to ache. There is a canal in Illinois called the Hennepin. Who the hell knew? I mean, we barely recall the Erie Canal and it was both an engineering marvel and an economic super-engine. Who the hell built the Hennepin? Why am I not kayaking on it today? The number of little state and national parks is extraordinary, though I am not quite so sad to not be able to experience each one as I am sad to miss seeing every single town and city, because at least with parks I can more or less know what’s going to be there–nature! glorious, American nature, waterfalls, ponds, trees, dirt, all the stuff our government (in the time when it was wise and smart and not shut down, as it is right now, as I type) had the foresight and determination to preserve for future generations as humanity churned up the real estate. So I can pass over the parks but how can I live with myself for not spending an hour at least in Monmouth Illinois where Wyatt Earp was born? And I drove through Macomb, where I discovered Western Illinois University as if it was the Grand Canyon and I was a 16th century Spaniard on a horse: My God, look at that! There is a university here! A big one that I will never teach a class at! What is wrong with me? And is there a mill in Duncan Mills and what does it make? Are there baths in Bath? Why are so many names in Illinois the same as the names in NY and NJ, like Brooklyn and Schuyler County and Camden? This is just a little piece of one page of a map covering one part of one state and it is absolutely beyond my ability to know anything about 99 percent of it. There is no time. I look at the little dots in the map and I feel like an old friend of mine did when she saw tiny kittens and swelled with impossible love and when she felt bowled over in this way, she would say, “I want to hold them in my mouth.” I do. I want to stuff America into my mouth and hold it there, where it will be safe.

But, no. I did not eat my map. Instead, I plotted a route across the middle of America in which I would be able to see as much as possible, and specifically (because I have a plan; there is a post on that too) I am looking for places where American industrial and manufacturing might was born and grew and eventually faded, because I am interested in those things as a way of understanding our country, and where it finds itself now, which is a strange place indeed, full of much disappointment and confusion. This country is not all ruins and disappointment; it is a marvelous place, too, and I know that, but sometimes I can’t remember exactly why, so I’m going to have a look.

The itinerary is “forged in hell” in a way because when I recite the major sights I plan to see, most people I know are basically glad not to be with me even if it would mean they were not at work today, or this week–or, this year basically. Here are the highlights:

The Mohawk Valley–> Buffalo –> The Allegheny Mountains and Oil City, Titusville –> Pittsburgh –> steel towns in the region known as Pennsyltucky –> Elkhart Indiana (The RV Hall of Fame!) –> Rockford, Illinois –> Hannibal, Missouri –> Columbia, Missouri –> some place in Iowa along the Mississippi River, preferably a place that has lost about half its population and most of its jobs –> Milwaukee –> Green Bay –> Utica, and NYC for a break. After the break, pick up the camper and dog in Milwaukee and head on down through Illinois, through parts of Kentucky and southern Ohio, up to Indianapolis, then over to Altoona Pa., West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and home. And when that’s done, I think I’ll try the southern states, but, I’m a northern girl through-and-through, so, I’ll have to get all this in first as practice to prepare for that.

Thinking of how I have sometimes been afraid to show up in small, broken towns that I have seen along the way, and how I am a little worried to go poking around in some areas with my New York license plates, it strikes me that it is very strange indeed, to fear my own country. I’m not talking about driving into the bad crime areas. I’m talking about entering the unknown, and wondering if I will find that we’ve become hostile to ourselves, our fellows in this country. I felt that in the dead and dying steel towns south of Pittsburgh. At times, I can’t quite comprehend that we are creatures who share a home, share a government… but we do. And so I’m on the road, to introduce myself, and hope that we can find some way to get along, once we get to know each other.