Day Two: State College, Pennsylvania, to Detroit, Michigan

Tuesday 24 September -- It is a gigantic pleasure to me to wake from sound slumber in a firm bed, snuggled into a puffy comforter, to the sounds of children getting ready for the day.  I stayed in bed, out of everyone’s way, until the noises without made clear that everyone was downstairs.  Washed, brushed and slippered, I joined bits of the family (varying bits, as kids leapt up to collect books and swooped back for another sip of cider) for fruit and fresh-baked, again in a cast-iron skillet, scones.

Once everyone was off to the orthodontist, D.J. and I dressed in our fancy clothes and headed to the Bell Mansion for tea.  We chose the Music Room and then wandered the Duchess and Victorian rooms to select our favorite tea pots and tea cups, to be filled by our gracious proprietor with our preferred teas.  It was a lovely meal, and we lingered over it, “gossiping gently,” as Betty Neels would say.

Then I was back in the car, with about 400 miles to go to Detroit, almost all big, lightly traveled interstate route 80 through western Pennsylvania and northern   The speed limits were mostly 70mph, and good thing, too.  That lingering over tea put me off schedule a bit, and I did not want to descend on K.R. and family at midnight.

I rarely descend on anyone, anytime, without a little gift.

These Pennsylvanian chickens provided one (six, actually) for K.R. and family.

Some people don’t like super-highways, I know, but I’m not among them.  Their efficiency is great, and they typically don’t have too many billboards, and the view is usually of natural landscapes, rather than of the strip malls and tract houses often on display on secondary highways.  Route 80 offered me a hilltop windfarm, which I think rather beautiful.  Those tall, slender white windmills look like other-worldly praying mantis; spooky and beautiful.  They’re a bit like something my friend Stephen Butler would create as art:  unknown yet oddly familiar; eerie and comforting; expected but out-of-place.

Of course, one tries not to dwell over-long on the aesthetic and psychic qualities of windfarms when driving 77mph, you know?

After a hundred miles or so, the hills vanished and I crossed into Ohio and a trail of pretty, flat cornfields dotted with little white barns with perfect roofs.  The traffic stayed light through Erie and Sandusky counties, and I crossed the world-famous Cuyahoga River – twice in ten minutes!  Somewhere around Huron, Ohio, the local radio station offered up a weather report that included predictions for wave heights.  I was pole-axed for a moment – waves are part of oceans, and the ocean is 500 miles in one direction and 2,500 in the other.  The idea of waves big enough to make the news happening on a lake is alien to me, so that’s another perspective-shift.

And it might not have require that moment’s flummox-ment if I could have seen the lakes from the highway.  This route 80 scoops right along the southern shore of Lake Erie, but a bit too far south to allow a water view.  Felt cheated, a bit.  I do love water.

This water was, I believe, in Pennsylvania.  But maybe Ohio...

Ohio did offer some mild excitement in road signs.  You know the big highway signs that announce attractions, gas stations, lodging and restaurants available at the next exit?  On the Ohio Turnpike, some of those signs included the notice, “Directions at toll booth.”  So if you want to visit the whatever museum, or the whomever birthplace, take the next exit, stop at the toll booth, and ask the toll-taker how to get there.  That’s not a service we get with EZ Pass.

The signs for the Blue Heron Service Plaza offered three fast-food restaurants I’d never heard of:  Red Burrito, Gloria Jean’s Coffee (I may have seen these, actually) and Man-something-Italians.  Yay!  Not all of America is limited to Sbarro, McDonalds, Burger King, Starbucks, etc. etc.

At the western edge of Lake Erie I turned north, headed for Detroit, and turned on the GPS to direct me through that city.  Its immediate advice was that I make a legal u-turn as soon as possible.  What does the GPS have against Detroit?  I turned it off again, and 30 miles later it resigned itself to journeying through Rock-and-Motor City.

I got to K.R.’s an hour or so ahead of (revised) schedule, and she was in the shower.  Her tween daughter greeted me through the kitchen window and welcomed me in, and we had a great conversation about school and grandparents.  I love meeting all these marvelous kids (though actually I first met this one 11 or 12 years ago, when she was a babe in arms, but her younger brother was entirely new to me).  K.R. and I haven’t seen each other in over ten years, and have kept in only sporadic touch, and you would never have guessed that if you’d heard us chatting away about careers and real estate and relatives.  This part of this trip, connecting or re-connecting with people I don’t know as well as I’d like, or don’t see as often as I’d like, is a valuable and rich element of the adventure.

Still happy as can be, I fell asleep in my younger hostess’ pink bedroom, surrounded by ballerinas.

Day One: Washington, DC, to State College, Pennsylvania

Monday 23 September -- On day one, I took the 9:30am fun energy exercise class in Falls Church, Virginia, then changed into jeans and drove about 200 miles to a friend near State College, Pennsylvania.  The weather was gorgeous, with blue blue skies and a few light, fluffy clouds that never seemed to obscure the sun at all.  According to the First National Bank of Mercersburg, it was 66 degrees, but it felt warmer than that.

The drive just felt like another nuisance until I got off of route 270, one of the major arteries for the DC area.  Then my route followed mostly secondary roads; single lane in each direction, 50- and 55-mph speed limits.  Traffic was light, and the scenery was rich with trees and fields and farms and small towns.  It looks nothing like the city-and-suburban terrain of my daily life.  Western Maryland and south-central Pennsylvania offer up some gentle undulations as well, some of them steep enough to make the sudden appearance of a truck lane welcome – those trucks get really slow at times.

Perhaps the minarets have a practical purpose, but what?

Thanks for the muffin, R&C!

Right about the Maryland/Pennsylvania border, I saw a beautiful barn and stopped to take its picture.  There was a field across the street, next to a pasture with six or seven horses, so I strolled over there for a picnic.  I’d brought some odds and ends from home that would just have gone bad if I’d left them, so I could enjoy fresh mozzarella with a roll and a sweet, white nectarine for lunch.  The neighbors had baked banana muffins the night before, and given me one as a bon-voyage gift, so that was dessert.  I was braced for icky walnuts, but those dark lumps turned out to be chocolate chips.  Finding chocolate chips in my dessert muffin was a burbling joy on a warm afternoon, sitting in the grass by the road near the state line, awash in sunshine and happiness.

Nova, Pennsylvania, right up the road, felt a million miles from home.  But when I switched on the radio, I got the DC station I’d been listening to in NoVA (a popular acronym for northern Virginia).  It was a bit of a shock.  One or two bends later, the signal started to fade, and when Foster the Static came on singing, “All the other krtch with krtch krtch up krtch,” I hit the scan button.

I don't think we're in the Capital Area anymore, Toto.

I got to D.J.’s town early, but there was a park right up the street where I could walk along a river.  A friendly cyclist stopped to tell me, with a Scandinavian accent, that she’d seen copperheads in the grass there recently.  People see them in the woods around the lower Potomac, too, and I’ve never heard of anyone getting bitten.  So copperheads:  not too worrying.  The leaves were just starting to turn, and there were still lots of wildflowers, in blues and purples and yellows and whites.  There were also plentiful signs warning people that if they rode horses on the trail, instead of the grass verge, horses would be banned permanently from the trail.  I saw hoof marks on the grass; none on the trail.  Whew.

Alabama-cum-Pennsylvania with a chunk missing.

D.J.’s kids are great, and her husband friendly and smart.  He remembered the quote I always like but frequently forget (this is not his only claim to intelligence), from James Carville, regarding the state’s demographic profile:  “Pennsylvania has Philadelphia to the east and Pittsburgh to the west, and in between there’s Alabama without the blacks.”  Or something like that.  There are certainly more than a few yard signs quoting Biblical passages, as well as yard signs offering fresh, brown eggs for sale.  My Detroit friend, K.R., says, “I like the eggs better.  I’m not done sinning yet.”  What Bible verse do you love so well you’d be moved to make a sign of it, and stick it in front of your home?

Metaphorical tree in quite literal landscape.

Dinner at D.J.’s was bountiful, with cornbread baked in a cast-iron skillet and tasty delicious kale chips.  She also made brownies, and never once consulted a recipe to make sure she had the proportions right, for them or the cornbread.  You can tell this is a PhD-rich family.

Here is her recipe for kale chips:

Take a bunch of kale and wash it.  Cut out the tough stems and slice the leaves and tender stems into something roughly like two-by-two inch pieces.  Put them in a bowl, add some olive oil and salt and mix everything around.  Then put the kale on a cooky sheet and bake at about 400F for a few minutes, until it gets crispy and maybe some pieces are a little burnt.  It’s delicious, but maybe that’s because she put me in charge of the oil and salt part and so they came out pretty greasy and salty.  Yum.

This is a recipe I can memorize.  With baking, I always double check whether it’s a teaspoon of soda or just half a teaspoon, etc. etc., even with things I’ve made 100 times, like bread and Cape Cod oatmeal cookies.  The only thing I trust myself to bake without looking at the recipe is pie pastry.

I went to bed in the beautiful guest room/playroom (“Did you make anything with the Lego’s?” D.J. asked in the morning.  No, I collapsed into crisp, clean sheets and pulled the comforter up to my chin.) of their gorgeous federal-style home, after washing up in the under-the-eaves bathroom, eyeing the tiny clawfoot bathtub with anticipation.  My own former home has no bathtubs, just ‘luxury’ showers, so I do like a nice tub bath where one’s available.

A soothing and revivifying day.  I feel like I'm in the right place.

Chambersburg, Pennsylvania or thereabouts.