Travelog: Feb 2, Day2
Up at 6am again. Before my coffee I’m on the phone to T-Mobile to try and ressurect our email settings which got messed up last night while accessing the wirless service. Success, but I’m not crowing too loudly as I still can’t remember my username for my blog! Al suggests I email Carman, but that implies he can decipher my cryptic notes on the bulletin board at home. Easier to set up another blog, but that will have to wait until tonight.
7:18am with very large café lattes in hand we join the Cleveland commuters on I-90.
I take my first sip - a wee bit sweet. Do they use artificial ‘dairy’ or is this whole milk? Freshly ground beans though. I should be sighing ‘ah!’, but the highway is not ‘friendly’. Al has a ‘death grip’ (his description) on the steering wheel, coffee untouched & growing colder by the second. The concrete jungle gets worse. Al’s spoken lesson for today – “Always stop on the other side of the city”. The city of Cleveland reveals itself with taller buildings dotting the skyline. I catch a glimpse of Lake Erie. ‘Oh look!’ I exclaim. I quickly revise my statement: ‘Don’t look! I’ll look for you’. A marina passes by with what seems like acres of white plastic-covered boats up on blocks. The General Benjamin Davis High School of Aviation has runway lights blinking along the shoreline. Towering buildings aplenty, multi overpasses, mucho concrete. I count 3 massive bridges, one built years ago with lovely stone arched supports. Briefly reminds me of one I saw when hiking with Sean & Uli in the walking district near Shieffield, England. Two gorgeous stone buildings with round sloped-roofs, cathedral-like but much, much taller. An outdoor stadium. A massive TV screen with moving pictures … couldn’t tell, possibly advertising. Now the ‘burbs, houses and finally open visual space. Relax!
We’re driving the I-71; don’t know when or how that happened, but the right road thank goodness as I’m supposed to be navigating, not gawking and typing.
BTW Al will have to read this at the end of the day, if he wants to know what he ‘saw’
Down to 3 lanes with lots of very! tall sound barriers. Motels, motels, motels, all the same names as before. Al needn’t have worried so much. Pet friendly is a requirement; free WiFi would be equally welcome though we still have our $6 credit with T-Mobile from last night. To use we have to find another area where it is available.
8:30. Road sign says Mile 209 (To? From where? I wonder). Al speaks: ‘Trees again. This is nice”. He doesn’t say much while driving, but when he does, he says it all.
I-71 has a grassed boulevard; traffic is sparse. YUK! Not a dead skunk as the song goes, but a deer which has been dragged up against the guard rail. However did it jump that height? Wow! 2 hawks (‘side-by-each’ as Al would say) in adjacent trees overlooking the field right next to the highway. They disappear in a flash, but it didn’t look like they were in hunting mode.
9:28am Low fuel warning bleeps again. We’re caught behind a salt truck prodigously
spewing a rotating cloud of fine white granuals. As if we don’t have enough salt covering us already.
9:51am, 192 km so far. Gas is $2.18/US gal. Feed dogs. Discover someone has peed on her dog bed. Of course it just has to be the suede-covered one. Discovered the first thing we forgot – extra windshield washer fluid. We forget again at this stop.
Back on the road & it’s “flurrying” just a wee bit now. The highway is wet. Tiny gusts of salt rise up in the vaccuum created behind each passing vehicle. 18-wheelers leave us awash in salty slush. Windshield wipers are in ‘slow mo’, constantly requiring little bursts of washer fluid. Al drives with a ‘whiter’ windscreen than I would, but then he’s trying to stretch out the available supply. Visibility has diminished with a light misting of fog all around us. Reminds me of when we lived in Rot, Germany, a very dreary place at this time of year.
What of the dogs? Thank goodness someone asked. Leila, ‘where is that black one’ and Gypsy, aka ‘little one’ are tolerating very well their confinement during this 4-day marathon. When an exit from the car is imminent, Gypsy puts good voice to her impatience even before the rear passenger door is opened. Not to be outdone, Leila sets up barking. Very hard on the ears in the confined space of the car. I can now leave the rear passenger door open while I put my jacket on. Okay, Okay, I frequently dive into the interior to wrestle Gypsy down thereby preventing a getaway. Listening to me is probably quite a treat to onlookers as I commence the ‘SIT’ ‘NO’ mantra while I struggle with the leashes. Everyone has to be sitting and still (well almost…have to give Gypsy some leaway) before I give the very quiet ‘OK’. I tense my body in preparation for the massive jerk of Gypsy’s leash. I’m still contemplating buying a spiked choke collar which is not harmful, but supposedly will ‘put paid’ to this kind of behaviour and do it ‘toute suite! I can hear your ‘oh no’s’, the chortles AND see Doris’ sympathetic grimaces as she appreciates the ‘ouch’ that follows the jerk.
We’ve settled into a routine. Al drives in silence, at times with the radio off thank goodness (news! News! News! Did I happen to mention that I hate news as well as talk shows, phone-in shows. But my ‘rule’ is - the driver decides)…I compose & type& delete & re-type…dogs sleep. Pretty quiet. Scenery is consistently boring – tall trees, the occasional beech still with its summer leaves attached and motels, fast food joints & gas stations surrounding each exit overpass. Which book do I read now, as I finished yesterday’s? I don’t feel like knitting. I select a magazine, settle in and watch/listen to the big transport trailers as they whine past. Al comments that we are not moving as fast as he had hoped. I reassure him that his driving speed (90 kph) is exactly correct for his comfort level. So what if we can’t keep up with S&T (Streets & Trips) LOL.
I-70/71 split is just ahead & it’s 202.1 km to Cincinnati, or so says S&T. As we enter the foray, a collander of spaghetti looks better organized than this myriad of over/underpasses.
12:13pm 380.4km and 26 miles N of Cincinnati which is setting out another homeless shelter because of the freezing weather according to the news. I see a water fountain still in operation. Paramount Kings Island cinemas & amusement park appears on the left with a roller coaster. On the right side of the highway, a giant water slide as well as a tubular structure. CINTAS Services sports a giant American flag. ‘Retirement University’ a sign on a multi-storied building This section of the Interstate is beautifuly landscaped on both sides, a real treat to the eye. I comment as much; Al responds with “and clean too”. I then realize that we have seen very little, if any, roadside debris on our trip so far.
I need a book of N.American trees. Very tall ‘eggs’ on stumps is the best description I can give of what I perceive to be cedars. For some reason I think of mushrooms, only on a very much larger scale. In the dim light they provide much-needed contrast to the lifeless & leafless trees and shrubs.
The haze deepens into minor fog conditions. Car headlights have been on for over an hour.
I eat lunch while Al drives; he’s saving himself for his beer stored in the very cold trailer. Approaching downtown Cincinnati I spot a little red Cooper. What a riot! Reminds me of Al’s dad’s mini Minor which travelled at only one speed – as fast as possible, just like this one. Lady driver with foot to the floor & in my mind praying that she can make it up the on ramp, cut in front of us and merge into the 3rd lane over. She does and quickly disappears. We continue at our stately 90kph in the slow lane.
The city of Cincinnati presents the usual number of lovely stone buildings, in this case several that appear to be interconnected with shorter buildings and the requisite skyscrapers which impress me again.
All of a sudden lots of police – state, local, sheriff, as often sitting curbside all alone with lights flashing as cruising. Even more are in view now as we pass by a digital roadside sign telling drivers that there is a transport truck blocking the right hand tunnel lane which is on the shoulder by the time we arrive. The long slow descent to the tunnel provides a quick sighting of 2 stadiums (Paul Brown & …) on our left over-looking the Ohio River. Upon emerging a ‘Welcome to Kentucky’ sign greets us.
Much blasting was required to create the Kentucky portion of the Interstate leaving the sides lined with massive rock cuts covered in monster icicles. Probably quite a wonderful sight when the sun is out. Today they appear dull, lifeless, and dirty. Pity!
Both fuel and washer fluid indicators are sounding off so we take the next exit (175). It’s 1:09 and the 463.3 km mark. Pilot is the station name. Includes 2 showers, ‘smoking’ toilet stalls, super-sized (24 oz) cups for an amazing variety of non-alcoholic beverages. The trailer squeels as Al makes the sharp turn to mount the unexpectedly steep & short ramp. Then the noise of trailer hitting and dragging along the asphalt at the top. We repeat the process upon leaving; the noises seem worse.
Exit 173 & still heading toward Louisville on I-71. Finally getting a grip on S&T’s way of using the term ‘exit’. Sort of means, take the right or left lane, don’t ‘really’ exit, with the other traffic actually exiting the Interstate.
My cedar ‘eggs’ on short stubby trunks are less numerous. Compared to yesterday’s relatively flat landscape, we are now in gently rolling hills. At times our speed is reduced to 65kph as we creep up the long inclines.
2 dogs very close to the roadside apparently feeding on something – a rotty and a ? are a long way from home, assuming they have a home since there is no visible housing along this stretch.
Radio news flash – apparently NY is preparing to enact legislation prohibiting the use of the ‘N’ word, a word so heinious that it cannot be spelled in the legislation. No fines or jail time will apply. Followed by an interview of Annabel about her newest film on the topic of getting fired. Various rules were quoted: ‘don’t answer the phone when Human Resources calls as they can’t fire you if they don’t talk to you’; ‘always have a piece of chocolate with you in case you get fired’; or how about – ‘if you can get a bunch of people fired along with you, the drinking afterward will be so much more fun’.
OK back to the road trip.
The sun has finally burned off the haze. My giant cedars appear less ominous; my mind’s eye still sees mushrooms rising up.
2:01pm We crest a hill and are presented with a comical sight – that of very large lollipops which are actually signs sitting atop very, very tall skinny standards. Lollipop valley contains a wide assortment of flavours, AKA, restaurants & motels.
The sun continues to penetrate the front window making it difficult to see the laptop screen. I am alternating between hand writing notes about the current landscape and catch up typing of earlier scenes. My poor brain is being greatly taxed by having to tune out the radio while I cast about for the perfect phrase or word to describe…
We’re now 10 km from Louisville. ‘Monster houses’, new construction developments, housing sizes drop marginally as we get closer then I am stunned by several ‘small’
The highway widens to too many lanes to. Sure can’t miss the Nashville sign covering 4 whole lanes as the two outer ones ‘speed’ off to the right. Thank goodness the traffic is very light at this time of day. Then we’re down to only 3 lanes on our side. Other than a grassed median, there is no obvious landscaping, making for a pretty bleak stretch of highway. Tiny clumps of snow covering an otherwise green ground. We are literally ‘bumping’ along the road. My handwriting is more hierogliphic than cursive. The ‘most awesome flea market’ adorns a very tall barn-like structure. By contrast Murphy’s Antiques & Collectibles occupies a very long, low building. The House of Quilts flies by
The dry Inerstate is fairly flat again, snaking through the higher hills. Highway debris is difficult not to notice. A massive billboard announcing Bowling Green doesn’t help either. An ‘Exotic Art Transport’ truck passes us.
The rolling hills become steeper. An extra ‘slow’ lane appears. I catch a fleeting glimpse of some pale, but very bright green pine trees, a welcome addition of landscape colour.
Exit 91 announces Lincoln’s birth place and Paducah, a name I recognize from QuiltArt.
I’m attentively listening to a radio broadcast featuring an interview of the author of ‘Change your mind; change your brain’. Apparently a great 2-hour read about neuroplasticity. www.Sciencefriday.com
We’re now entering ‘mammoth’ country with its monster billboards announcing places like: Diamond Caves, American Cave Museum, Mammoth Cave National Park, Peeps Theatre with adult books, Guntown Mtn., Dinosaur World, the Adult Superstore, Granny’s Quilts
750 km at 4:53 EST (now 3:53 Central time). We make our last gas stop of the day. Shell is the choice at 2.09 per gal.
We reached our 800 km today and we’ve found another Red Roof Inn just north of Nashville. I’ll be able to do email and maybe set up another blog. This travel account is approaching ‘mammoth’ proportions. I wonder if anyone will want to read it.
In Tennessee grocery stores don’t sell wine, beer stores don’t sell wine, but require a license causing Al to prove he was from out of State. At that point Al was tired of looking for wine for me, so we still don’t know what ID you need for the booze store.
With our marathon drive almost half done, I wish you a good night.
TTY tomorrow
posted by Pat @ 9:11 AM
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