Road Trip

Next Wednesday, we are piling into the car early and heading to Chicago for the day, then spending the night in Racine, Wisconsin. "We" in this case means Warren, his son David (19+), his daughter Elizabeth (15+), and yours truly.

We'll spend Thursday morning touring Wingspread, a Frank Lloyd Wright residence built for the Johnson family (the Johnson Wax Johnsons) in the late 1930s. After that, we drive on to Madison to spend a few days with Warren's brother Brian and his family before barreling back to Ohio on Sunday so Elizabeth can start marching band camp the next morning.

In short, we are taking a Road Trip. It may be disguised as a short family vacation, but it is really a Road Trip.

And I am an inveterate Road Tripper.

My first Road Trip was when two other Chicago students and I jumped into a VW Beetle and drove cross-country to California in the middle of the winter of my freshman year. (It seemed like a good idea at the time.) I have been hooked on Road Trips ever after.

More than once when I lived in Portland, Oregon, I drove the door to door, no stops except bathroom, gas, and food (eaten in the car), cross-country Road Trip. If you had three drivers, it was 48 hours from my front door in Oregon to my folks' back door in Ohio.

For a long time, there were parts of Ohio I only knew at 3 a.m. at high rates of speed.

My favorite part of that Oregon to Ohio marathon was always Missoula, Montana. For some reason, no matter who I was driving with, I-90 was preferred over I-80. Maybe that was because I-84 (then I-80N) was an awkward and not yet completed connection from Oregon to Salt Lake City.

And maybe it was because I-90 took you across Montana and Montana was just a way cool state to drive across. It really is Big Sky Country. To get to Montana, you would leave Portland on what is now I-84, drive to Pendleton, then cut up to Walla Walla to pick up US 12. US 12 would take you over the Lolo Pass across Idaho, then drop you into Missoula, Montana, where you could catch I-90. From there it was a long, straight shot to Chicago, and then a mere jump to Delaware.

Once I drove into Missoula from the Lolo Pass on an early summer morning. US 12 entered Missoula's backside on town streets and not throughways back then. Maybe it still does. The lawns were thick with dew that was just starting to spangle as the sun came up. There was a bike on a sidewalk, dropped the night before in front of someone's porch. It was so carelessly and comfortably thrown that I was suddenly hit with a strong pang of longing. I wanted to live there; I wanted to throw a bike down and have it waiting for me in the morning. That scene has stuck with me all these years, even though I was last in Missoula in 1983.

I had recently finished law school when William Least Heat Moon wrote Blue Highways about his cross-country Road Trip. I read it from cover to cover and still read it from time to time. It is a beautiful book. Least Heat Moon calls back roads "blue highways" because on old road maps they were represented by blue ink lines.

Warren and I prefer blue highways when we travel. We have taken some wonderful Road Trips through Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. We have sampled local bakeries and diners, roamed through cemeteries, stopped at small independent groceries, and explored little byways on our different trips. There was a magical December night in Hastings, Michigan, when the snow came down so heavily that the downtown soon looked like the scene in "It's a Wonderful Life" after Jimmy Stewart realizes he wants to live again and goes running through the snow, through his hometown, shouting "Merry Christmas!" as he slips and slides his way home.

Warren recently suggested that we start exploring the original Route 30, the Lincoln Highway, this fall. Much of it has been repaved or rerouted into divided, limited access highway, but pieces of the original road still remain. That is a blue highway Road Trip if ever there was one.

On our upcoming Road Trip, we will combine blue highways and interstates to reach our various destinations. Leaving from here in the early hours, we will thread our way across Ohio at an angle towards Lima before picking up US 30 in Delphos to cut across Indiana and towards Chicago.

We could pick up Route 30 much sooner by heading north out of town and catching it in Upper Sandusky, but that would spoil the trip. This way we drive through sleepy little crossroads like Raymond and Pharisburg. This way we get to stop at Mello-Cream Doughnuts in Lima, a doughnut shop that has been in an old Pure Oil station for decades. The doughnuts are made on the premises and a service bell still rings inside when a car drives over the air hose outside. Wednesday morning, we will all get to stand at the doughnut case and ponder what flavor breakfast will be.

In Blue Highways, Least Heat Moon wrote "Life doesn't happen along the interstates. It's against the law."

I agree. Life happens at Mello-Cream Doughnuts when the cinnamon buns are still warm and the service bell rings.