Travel Log: The Great Midwestern Road Trip #1
The Great Midwestern Road Trip #1
[From June 4th to June 13th my family piled into a rental car and drove through eleven states straight down the middle of the country. These are our tales.]
Yeah, But Why?
I had an epiphany when I was young that ruined fun runs forever: for less than $25, I could buy a t-shirt without an insurance agent’s logo on it and run 5 kilometers any time I wanted. All I really had to do was run 2.5 kilometers from my house, and then turn around. I could even time myself and pour water from a paper cup on my head like a true athlete.
I shared this insight with my wife, who was less than impressed, but the marriage certificate ink was dry by that point. She has this crazy notion that the fun part about the fun run is doing it with a group.
So there are a lot of things I don’t get, and among those many things are most formalities, and all this explains why my wife thinks it’s important for our kids to go to all fifty states, and why I’d rather like to take fifty trips to places that aren’t a gas station just over the border in Maine.
My oldest kid decided to take a term off of school. In a fit of some real-Generation-Z-level narcissism and laziness, she took a few weeks from organic chemistry and physiology classes to focus on the MCAT. (Damn kids, right?)
When the test was over, she didn’t want to sit around the house watching Netflix like a normal person who has given up. She wanted to cross off some states. She had thirteen states left, and nine of them touched. Alaska, Delaware, New Jersey, and West Virginia were going to have to wait. It was time to hit America’s bowling alley—all the states stacked on top of Texas.
The Itinerary
Here was the plan.
Day One. Fly into Minneapolis, cross the boarder into Wisconsin, come on back, and sleep in the Twin Cities. (We’d be bedding down with Minneapolis, which is the hot twin. St. Paul is the twin who reads more, and you’d probably rather date if you’re the kind of person that takes a Moleskine to a coffee shop.)
Day Two. Lunch in Minneapolis, dinner in Fergus Falls, and hunker down in Whapeton, ND.
Day Three. Drink deeply from Whapeton’s chalice, then cross into South Dakota which promised the world’s largest hairball and only corn palace, plus an animatronic Lincoln that used sprinkler pipe for an arm. (This did not disappoint.) Sleep in Sioux Falls.
Day Four. Pause a moment to see nature’s grandeur, and then go to more weird shit, including a place in an industrial park with a bunch of hearses, a weiner house, and a replication of Davinci’s Last Supper carved in wood by a Mailman. Stay in Omaha.
Day Five. A good day for big art and big locomotives. We’d also stop at a mental hospital and sleep at a Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City. (I preferred the mental hospital.)
Day Six. Did you know the guy who made those bug eyed Precious Moments kids created a park with a chapel? I did. We also saw what billionaires do with their leftover billions in Bentonville, AR.
Day Seven. A great day for seeing a whale a man gave to his wife, visiting the center of the universe, seeing the most uncomfortable tour guide of my life navigate a racial tragedy, forcing myself into a bowling alley, and getting kicked out of a Motel 6 in McAlester, OK.
Day Eight. Drive to DFW to drop off my perfect wife, stop at the most Texas place I’ve ever been, and take in some potty art. Sleep in Arlington.
Day Nine. If you have young kids, you’re going to end up at Six Flags. That’s just the way it is.
Day Ten. A perfect day to discover things. Like what’s all the fuss with Whataburger about, whether or not the Stockyards in Forth Worth can entertain you from the time you’re kicked out of your hotel room until you have to return the rental car, and whether in Texas the called Texas Roadhouse just “Roadhouse.” Could the internet have answered these questions? Yes, it can and should have.
That was the concept. What could go wrong? Stay tuned for lessons learned during a 7.5 hour flight delay.
