The alarm wakes us at 7:30; we are both deep in dreams about the professions we have recently left behind. When I claw my way to consciousness, I add the dream to my diary in order to tell my spiritual director about it. But once on paper, the meaning is so obvious that I laugh aloud.
The inside of the camper is chaotic. We are still sorting what goes where in the best of times. And this is not the best of times. Because of the rain and mud, we were unable to store items outside last night.
Still, amid the jumble, we manage to warm up the leftovers from Doug’s birthday dinner. A morning prayer centers us. It feels plentiful to eat fish again. And there is still fish left over.
Ottawa Wildlife Refuge, OH
We pack up and head out by 10:00. I’m driving the rig for the very first time. In fact I’ve never driven the truck at all, even without the camper. Now I don’t have a sense how big this beast is. It feels enormous and lumbering. It is nerve-rackingly different from the Ford Focus I usually drive. We opted for a truck camper so we wouldn’t have to tow anything. But I suppose that any way you carry a home on your vehicle — it’s going to have drawbacks.
I drive straight to Magee Marsh so we can walk the boardwalk and look for migrating waterfowl. This is my birthday gift to my husband. It’s the reason we have taken this particular route, along Lake Erie. But a woman at the Visitor Center tells us the boardwalk is closed due to storm damage. She suggests we go a bit further, to the Ottawa Wildlife Refuge, where there’s a loop drive.
We should be getting miles under our belt. We got a late start and tonight’s destination is Milwaukee — a 6 hour drive. Still, we choose to ignore any time pressure. For a leisurely hour we drive slowly, stopping often to look for wildlife. We see three things of note: an eagle sitting on a branch above her aerie; a pair of trumpeter swans flying low overhead; and many white egrets, each atop an individual nest, like chess pieces precisely placed on a checkerboard.
Chicago, IL
Now it’s time to put on some miles. We stop at a Speedway to buy a cup of coffee, use the restroom and switch drivers, then take Route 90 west toward Chicago.
The Ohio countryside is flat, rainy and gray. It reminds me of the Netherlands, which appeals to some ancestral part of my DNA.
As we take the Skyway through Chicago, I text my brother Tim, to tell him we are passing through his city. I snap pictures of the skyline I once knew so well. The last time I was in downtown Chicago was 2016, for the launch of my memoir, RUINED. Has it really been five years already?
This is why we are taking this trip. Because time is slippery.
Milwaukee, WI
We are aiming for Shorewood, a north suburb of Milwaukee where an online friend named Barbara lives. I’m looking forward to meeting her IRL. Barbara has sent me detailed directions for taking a scenic route through downtown Milwaukee. We follow her route and are impressed with the city — especially the long stretches of park along the Lake Michigan shore.
Later, when we comment on this, Barbara says: “Thank the German Socialists who founded the city. They made sure the waterfront is public.”
Parking the rig in Barbara’s narrow driveway takes a few tries but we manage. The three of us go for supper to a local pub where the booths and walls are made of wood and large screens broadcast Sunday night football. We order fried cheese curds and Spotted Cow, a local beer. When in Wisconsin.
Supper is rib-sticking — a pasty for Doug and shepherds pie made with lamb for me and Barbara. As we eat, the Green Bay Packers triumph. Everyone whoops.
Back at Barbara’s we enjoy gingerbread and whipped cream and talk another hour or two, including the one we gained by traveling west. Barbara had made up a guest room but we opt to sleep in our rig, although I fear it sounds ungrateful. Our rig has already become “our own bed.” We turn in before 10:00, completely bushed.
MONDAY Oct 4
Monday morning we enjoy a deluxe breakfast — poppyseed bagels with cream cheese and smoked sockeye salmon from Oregon. Then Doug packs up while Barbara and I chat. Too soon it’s time for goodbye hugs.
For the next 4 hours we take Route 90 straight west across Wisconsin, stopping only for gas and to buy cheese curds.
Great River Bluffs State Park, MN
We cross the Mississippi River into Minnesota. We have a reservation at Great River Bluffs SP, which is quite small and very high up on a bluff. We’re both exhausted. The last few days are catching up with us.
We hike a short way along the river bluff and take in the view of the Mississippi, looking across to Onalaska lake. I wish I had the energy for more hiking, but it’s all I can do to resist taking a nap.
Using our oven for the first time, I fix an easy meal of frozen lasagna. Doug builds a fire and we’re in bed early.
TUESDAY Oct 5
Before we leave camp, Doug decides to fill our water tank from a spigot at one of the campsites. He feels like he needs the practice.
While he’s doing this, a couple about our age walks by with a pair of dogs. We chat and it turns out they drive a Northern Light truck camper similar to ours. They are Cheryl and Jay from Sequim, WA. They’re tickled when I tell them I have an uncle who lives in Sequim.
We tell them we’re newbies to truck camping. To underline this, I say that a week ago I was still working. The sentence surprises me too. But it’s true. What’s more, it will be true for four more days. No wonder I’m so pooped. I’m just beginning to decompress.
Jay notices that the tie-downs on our camper aren’t tight enough and tactfully offers some helpful advice. So Doug and Jay spend an hour fixing them.
Meanwhile, Cheryl tells me about their camping, which they do for three months every year. She says this year was the worst year ever — very hot, very smoky, and very crowded. She tells me about being evacuated from a campsite on Flathead Lake in Polson, Montana. Someone banged on their door at 3:00 AM and told them they needed to leave — the fire was approaching. They were already awake because the power had shut off and without electricity they had gotten too warm. It’s sobering to hear about these very real difficulties. And I also feel a bit of guilt that we’re adding to the swell of people clogging up the roads and national parks.
By 11:00 we are on the road again, headed toward Mitchell, South Dakota. We will drive across southern Minnesota for at least 5 hours.
It’s a cloudy day with patches of blue sky behind the clouds. There’s flat land on either side of the road, most of it planted in crops, and a few dairy barns here and there. We pass very sizable wind farms, which did not exist the last time I came this way, decades ago. We tank up at a Loves Travel Stop for $2.99 per gallon.
South Dakota
We cross into South Dakota and immediately notice a couple of things. First, the welcome centers feature an enormous sculpture of a teepee. Would you call this cultural appropriation? Second, the speed limit goes up to 80 mph. A motorcyclist zips by without a helmet. Third, the road surface is smoother and more red.
We buy our second tank of gas for the day at a Casey’s in a small town. Not a person in the crowded place is wearing a mask. Also, everyone is white.
We stop at the Mitchell Corn Palace late in the afternoon. Outside, we see a group of people heading to a bus. The women are all wearing long dresses and head scarves. They have lots of children. Inside the Corn Palace, a group is on stage singing Christian music at a high pitch. When they finish, a mascot bursts onstage with lines like “I smell children!” and something about eating them. I take a bit of video, but I will spare you that. We leave quickly. The whole place gives me the heebie-jeebies. I’ll skip the pictures too.
Then — maybe because we’ve been passing fields of beef cattle for two days — we decide it’s time to have a steak supper. We ask Siri for advice. She tells us that the Chef Louis Steakhouse is the top rated steakhouse in Mitchell. We are the first customers in the door at 5:30. No one in the restaurant is masked, including the waitstaff. Worse, the waitress is coughing. When the manager sits another table of three right next to us, even though the dining room is completely empty, I flag him down and protest. He reseats them and no one makes a fuss. The manager acts as if it hadn’t occurred to him to spread people out. The steaks are okay.
We stop for the night at the Lake Mitchell Campground, which is very nicely situated on a point of land that projects into a lake. We are still bushed and go to bed early. The overnight low is 57 degrees, which is comfortable sleeping weather.
WEDNESDAY Oct 6
We can hear the local marching band rehearse as we fix breakfast. We stop to buy groceries before hitting the road again. It’s a large grocery store and I notice that the prices are every bit as high as at home, without the good sales I’m used to seeing. We balk at the price of beef. Instead we buy a locally-made chicken pot pie that is frozen solid and costs $11.
When we tank up at the gas station connected to the grocery store, I go inside to buy a 99-cent cup of decaf as usual. They send me next door to a small café where a number of elderly people are eating breakfast on Styrofoam plates. A young man named Travis is waiting on them very kindly. When I try to order the coffee, Travis explains that there’s a special — I can get a free cup of coffee with a donut for $1.09. Or I can buy a cup of coffee for $1.29. So I opt for the free doughnut, of course. Then discover that the decaf pot is empty, so I fill my cup with caffeinated coffee. Which is how it comes to be that we have real coffee and an apple fritter as we drive west on Highway 90 toward the Badlands. Living large in Big Blue!
PS: Yes, we did stop at Wall Drug later in the day. And yes, I got another donut.