Back together again. The mother-in-law is back in Germany. My mother is back home. We are ALONE. And for a while, we are done traveling, I am tired.
Mother and Son Going to Buffalo, NY – Day 16
No repeat of the stench-filled feedlots found in the other corner of Texas that Mom and I drove through. Just a grain silo and a bunch of not much else. Time to hit the gas and haul ass to Arizona. I need a hug.
It was only about 30 miles to New Mexico. Feels like we’re almost home.
Remember those back roads we tried to stay on for the previous two weeks? Well, that preoccupation has been tossed out the window as we hunt for the cactus that will tell us we’re home.
This photo of monsoon clouds was taken at 80 mph (130 kph) through the windshield of the van traveling west on Interstate 40 in New Mexico. Yes, it was from the driver’s seat; I was driving – duh!
Woohoo, it’s Arizona, and again, with no time to stop for a photo, it must be taken as we drive by. The next stop is home, as this trip is now more or less over.
Mother and Son Going to Buffalo, NY – Day 15
In the light of day, the room could be called old, rustic, or plain old crappy. Mom thinks Psycho is more fitting. We have concluded Weaubleau is pronounced WeBlow, and we wanna blow this town. Before we even emerged from our cabin, granny, her sister, and maybe Mr. Bates were setting up a yard sale. Mom takes a look at the stuff spread out on tables and can see her own past scattered amongst the junk. From Las Vegas ashtrays she’s owned to a heater she used in Angola, New York, while the sliced-up shower curtain only added more worry.
Leaving town, we drove past one of the guys from Deliverance. A shave, shower, and some dental work were in order. Missouri is definitely a state with rich contrasts. What the amenities failed to deliver on, the beauty of the landscape makes up for.
Breakfast was at 54 Café in Nevada, not the state: I meant Nevada, Missouri.
Nothing else much happened this morning as we were driving out of Missouri. Then, in the early afternoon, just before we were about to turn right, a procession of wide-load vehicles was coming our way. The lead vehicle pulls into the middle of the street with flashing lights to alert drivers in both directions to slow down. I can see a truck approaching, hauling a giant pipe about to make a right on our road. So I pull closer to the right. After the first truck passes, the follow vehicle leaves its position to race ahead of the first truck. We see another exact configuration approaching.
While Mom and I sit at the stop sign, the second lead vehicle stops in the middle of the road just as the previous guy did. A tow truck driver behind the lead vehicle is not paying attention, and before he knows it, he is approaching way too fast. With a Lincoln Town Car on his hitch, he locks up his brakes, and as he begins to slide right to avoid the stopped lead vehicle, he is heading directly at us.
There is no doubt in my mind that we are about to be T-boned by this freight train and that if I’m hit, I am certainly going to die in the wreckage. As he is sliding at the speed of sound, I hit the gas after contemplating putting it in reverse but decided I may not be able to do it quick enough, and if the transmission hesitates even a second I’m still going to be hit. As the car accelerates quickly, I have to maneuver over gravel under the right tires and try not to lose traction as, again, I know we are close to being hit.
I am nearly around the corner and thinking about driving down the embankment to save us from being jackhammered as I see his bumper in my peripheral vision with the rearview mirror reflecting his red tow truck and the white smoke billowing out of his locked and skidding tires. We miss sliding into the ditch with the tires holding traction and we continue accelerating down the road as fast as we can. The tow truck, at one point, could not have been more than a few inches away from us.
A quarter-mile down the road, gasping for air and nearly in tears, we pull into a driveway to catch our breath and check our underwear. Just as we exit the van, the old guy in the tow truck passes us with a brief, casual wave and a cigarette dangling from his lips as though this was routine in the course of his daily routine. Mom suppresses the need to flip the man a bird and we get back in the van and try to calmly drive away.
I require an hour or two before feeling like things have calmed down and that my adrenaline won’t trigger some kind of heart condition. I’m done with Kansas and am now ready to leave the state.
I should point out that this tow truck, but especially the Lincoln Town Car, was especially traumatic to mom as just two months ago, on May 5th, while leaving the freeway in Phoenix, mom rolled her own white Lincoln Town Car that required her to be airlifted to the hospital. Maybe that close call with the possibility of a deadly outcome was what motivated her to want to see the city of her birth one more time. Then here we are out in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas, and the haunting image of the killer Town Car was trying to collect the soul that had been spared fairly recently.
Slow down, take deep breaths, and things will be fine.
I do love Kansas. When Caroline and I first passed through this state five years ago we were enchanted with the places we saw. The Great Plains have a different kind of beauty than the heavily wooded eastern U.S. or the mountainous western states, but the charm is undeniable.
I feel that there’s much to explore out here, but with over 600 miles we’re trying to cover today, we don’t have the time to collect place names or linger to admire the finer details.
Why were the lights flashing here? There was no train. I waited as I really wanted to see one lumber by out here on the Great Plains, but there was nothing.
No, Mom, we are not stopping for ice cream, pie, walleye, pizza, a bakery, a fruit stand, or a winery. I’m stopping to look at the horses because one of them is telepathically signaling me to rescue it from the other horses that are forcing it to herd with them when it just wants to be free.
Passing over the Cimarron River, we are close to leaving Kansas.
Can someone, anyone, tell me why it is hotter out here on the plains than it is in the deserts of Arizona? At a gas station, the sign says it’s 108 degrees, but the attendant said someone reported an asphalt temperature of 136 degrees down on the interstate. The humidity is starting to fade the further west we go, but this is still an overwhelming scorcher of a day.
The sights of roadside America leave indelible impressions in my mind, but with photos, I can share the things I’ve seen in my past with my future self and, of course, with Caroline, who wasn’t able to travel with us. Lucky her.
Sunflowers are the plants of smiles. Who can look at a field of these yellow and black plants and fail to find a moment of happiness? Or maybe I’m just projecting this as knowing we are about to enter Texas; I know I’m only a couple of states away from getting back to Arizona and into the arms of my wife.
Leaving Oklahoma using small back roads, we do not find anything that hints at an upcoming spot for dinner. The first couple of towns in Texas are not delivering any promise either. Then, about to enter Canadian, Texas, we see a billboard directing our attention to the Cattlemen’s Exchange Steak and BBQ Restaurant. This place is drawing us in.
The Cattle Exchange Restaurant in Canadian, Texas, has by far the BEST steak I have ever had in my life! EVER! They have the best bread pudding, too. Their salsa is homemade and GREAT! Their bread is unbelievable! But that RIBEYE STEAK is the thing you (and with that, I mean: I) will come back to Canadian, Texas, for.
Forget Morton’s, Fleming’s, Ruth’s Chris, and any other contender. The Cattle Exchange in the little town of Canadian in the Texas Panhandle has set the bar for the best mesquite broiled steak in the Universe. And best bread pudding. The ranch dressing is no slouch, either. – Yeah, I was impressed. If you don’t someday make your way to this little corner of the panhandle of Texas for this wonderful treat, you are truly missing out on life.
Leaving Canadian we drive by some well-kept, beautiful old homes and a meticulously renovated old theater. Outside of town, the landscape is lusciously green. Mom exalts high praise on the state she was afraid was too boring and ugly for her tastes, a newfound appreciation has been found.
We breeze by Amarillo and stop in Vega at the Bonanza Motel, where, for $45, we have a room on Saturday night that isn’t the backdrop for some horror plot. Tomorrow, we will be home.
Mother and Son Going to Buffalo, NY – Day 14
Our goal today is to go far. Finding a balance between taking small roads to avoid large cities and their inherent congestion and making quick time seems mostly impossible. We get out of French Lick and head over to Montgomery, Indiana, before stopping for breakfast at a little Amish-influenced place. By setting ourselves in motion, it feels like progress is being made right away. Before we know it we are crossing into Illinois and are almost halfway across the Midwest.
U.S. Route 50 takes us straight through farmland, allowing us to travel nearly at the speed of the freeway but without the semi-trucks and endless franchises that define America’s main arterial roads. I prefer to lose 30 miles per hour for the calm tranquility of passing fields of corn that are so close I can reach out and touch them or maybe just stop and photograph a field of it as a reminder that I’ve been here.
There’s a lot of corn grown in this state, but by the time we reached Odin, Illinois, where we picked up some fresh tomatoes being sold next to the road, it was time to step south in order to give a wide berth to St. Louis and avoid even a hint of the suburbs. Great, now we have tomatoes, but not a grain of salt. We need a store or a fast-food restaurant.
In Pinckneyville, Illinois, we spot a McDonald’s and score a few salt packets so we can start enjoying the tomatoes. A place across the street offering oil changes allows us to have some basic maintenance done on Mom’s van, which has already been driven more than 4,500 miles on this trip. The guy’s hopefully removed some of the ticks out of the car when they vacuumed it. We don’t know for certain that there were any ticks in the car, but Mom was worried after all my stops to take photos.
About to leave Modoc, Illinois, across the Mississippi River by a small ferry for $8, heading into Saint Genevieve, Missouri.
At 100 degrees on the river with what feels like an equal amount of humidity, we might as well be in the river. Except, the last place I want to be right now while riding a ferry across the mighty Mississippi River is on a capsizing boat taking us to nice dry land on the other side in a different state.
Collecting more ticks, so my neurotic mother is more occupied with pestilence instead of food.
The torment that must exist in my mom as she vacillates between imagined variants of the plague and the overwhelming desire for calories to regulate her serotonin would push lesser people into therapy. Again, we are at the point where it’s too hot to do anything but seeing the Charleville Vineyard here in Ste. Genevieve, she’s all of a sudden energized into buying more wine. If you’ve been keeping track, you wouldn’t be wrong in assuming we have quite a few cases of wine stowed here in the van.
While you’d never guess it from the picture I captured at a moment with no one else in sight, the Old Brick House was packed, so we went over to the Anvil Restaurant, which was the second recommendation. The Anvil has been open since 1855 and has the best onion rings mom and I have ever had. I had a chicken fried steak that was the daily special, while mom opted for a burger.
Looking at the path our road trip took, I’m left wondering years later what exactly was the motivation for the drive south only to turn north again, but that’s what we are doing today instead of holding a steady westerly direction. Here we are on one of those northern legs about to cross the Missouri River.
Of course, there’s more corn out here; it’s the Midwest, right?
Crossing the Missouri River, we arrive in the unincorporated area known as Dutzow. It’s the Blumenhof Vineyard & Winery that drags us out of the car. Mom purchases even more wine. Further west on the river is the city of Hermann, Missouri. Why are we here? Lunch, shoes, ice cream? Nope, more wine. Back in Dutzow, the proprietor told Mom of the Hermannhof Winery. Mom goes berserk and is about to leave with two full cases. One half a case is for Caroline, but after sampling their sparkling grape juice, we left with a case of it too.
Back across the Missouri River on a road that will keep us the closest to the river until we have to turn south again.
Our turn south was happening in Jefferson City, Missouri, which also serves as the location to have dinner. We’re not done driving yet, as we are determined to cover more ground today before exhaustion sets in.
Highway 54 takes us past the over-commercialized Lake of the Ozarks area, but not before we stop for a Custard at Andy’s in Osage Beach. We make it as far as Weaubleau, Missouri before I’m just too tired to continue on. The Weaubleau Motel offers small cabins for only $40, including tax and cash only. The pillows are sofa pillows, the shower has a sizable colony of spiders in residence, and the place is at least 20 degrees hotter than outside. The last temperature we saw 45 minutes before checking in was 91 degrees; this room is well over 105. The air conditioner makes a valiant attempt to cool things, but after 30 minutes, it’s still ridiculously hot. Only $40, hmmm, maybe not the best bargain, but then again, I was about to pass out on the road.
Mother and Son Going to Buffalo, NY – Day 13
Millies Café – “Go a quarter-mile and turn right at the caution light, go about four miles” are the instructions we use to find breakfast. Nothing on the highway identifies the place. Good thing we arrived on Wednesday, according to the waitress, as on weekends it’s standing room only. If you were to see for yourself how sparse the local population is out here, you’d understand how popular this place is to bring people in from near and far.
Before and after breakfast, we were dealing with somewhat heavy fog, which quickly burned off into a blistering heat combined with humidity conditions, leaving us feeling like we were in a tropical fishbowl. We sweat. The air conditioner vents in the car sweat. The air is sweating. Humidity is a nemesis and absolutely alien to someone who’s been living in that good old Arizona dry heat. Moving around causes each individual pore to sweat in a kind of torture. Seconds later, every square inch of clothing is damp, but it’s so hot that our clothes are not cooled by the breeze or fans blowing air in the car. We are so hot and humid that we start creating our own personal cloud of humidity. I think we will start raining upon ourselves.
The Ohio River Valley in July is not only a nearly unbearable land of humidity but also laden with crops this time of year. From vineyards, corn, beans, and melons to tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, and tobacco, we are taking inventory of a cornucopia of produce here along the river.
Towns come and go, none really stand out. The scenery is definitely the winner here until we make Manchester, Ohio, where we stop at a small winery called Moyer on the Ohio. As they also have a cafe on the premises we use the opportunity to have lunch. Mom also picked up four bottles of Ohio wine, and we were right back on the road.
Our waitress recommended that we cross the river into Maysville, Kentucky, about 20 minutes southwest of the winery. She emphasized that we go to Old Washington in Maysville in particular.
I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to just drive by an abandoned gas station, as there’s something fascinating about these places. My best guess about what the attraction is would be that my imagination conjures the sights and sounds of travelers from the past who are driving somewhere new. Not going to work or school but on a migrant journey following opportunity and chasing new horizons. Without the mass media, we have today, those travelers from a previous age would be venturing into a great unknown where every corner showed them the unexpected.
Those people were fleeing their own uncertainty and inability to deal with particular situations, hoping for a new start elsewhere. When I stopped at a house in ruin, there really wasn’t anything special about the chaos of the place that appeared ransacked following its previous inhabitants abandoning it, but there was one thing that stood out. While everything appears to be turned over the potholder above the stove looks untouched. The person who put that back up on its hook after removing dinner from the oven probably never thought that they’d never use it again.
There are certainly parallels between these rural abandonments and Buffalo, which makes me wonder about what places in America are next.
Great recommendation from the woman at the winery to visit Old Washington. This is where Harriet Beecher Stowe found some of the inspiration to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin after watching a slave auction at the local courthouse back in 1833.
Quite a few old buildings from the 1700s still stand on Old Main Street; I only wish we had more time to visit. The truth is that we had enough time, but the hot weather and humidity were too oppressive for Mom’s comfort, so she waited in the car with the a/c on while I jumped out and grabbed a few photos.
There’s a lot of history in this small town I hope to find again someday in the future, but for now, we are leaving.
Back across the river in Ohio, just before Ripley, we stop to take a photo of a houseboat that is undergoing renovation. Seeing the owner, Mom now has the wherewithal to exit the car. I see how it is; if it’s something my mom wants, she’ll go the extra mile. She asks Bob, the owner of a local upholstery shop, about his labor of love. He’s been working on this aluminum 42-footer for four years now and is almost ready to start putting it back together.
Ripley itself is one of the towns Mom and I swear we must come back to. Sometimes, in the most unlikely of places, the most wonderful surprises await you. Today, it happened multiple times. Driving through Ripley, Mom spots an Easy Step shoe outlet and insists on visiting. Twenty minutes later, with five pairs of shoes and a new purse, she emerges to me, napping in the running car.
A few more miles down the road, and we’re aiming to cross the river back into Kentucky. Our $5 ferry ride has us landing in Augusta, Kentucky, our next amazing surprise location. Not far after leaving Augusta, we are on some of the twistiest roads known to mankind. A light rain starts to fall, but only for a minute before it starts to pummel the earth. Darkness descends in midday, and lightning strikes not more than 300 feet in front of us, making Mom grab my arm so quickly and tightly that I thought I’d jerk the van off the road.
The rain comes and goes while the road continues to twist and turn, zig and zag and we finally return to the road we were supposed to be on. The next stop was at a gas station for the facilities. I ask about a good place for home cooking and the attendant is quick to tell us of Mr. Ed’s in Verona. About 10 miles up the highway and then about 3 miles west, we will find Verona. One wrong turn, and we took the long way down a narrow road, which proved nice for photos but added a few miles to the journey. At the intersection of Mudlick and Glencoe Roads, we see that the girl meant Mr. Herb’s in Verona; there could not be another restaurant in this tiny village.
The food is excellent. The starter is fried green tomatoes; we agree they are the best we have ever had. I ordered the cod, for which they are locally famous, and Mom went for the catfish. For sides, Mom has more fried green tomatoes, and for me, the green beans. Both of our dishes are great, but I would have preferred the catfish. For dessert, we nearly have coronaries before reaching the front door after gobbling down a deep-fried slice of apple pie with ice cream and caramel sauce, an “oh my god!” experience. Feeling like we’re falling behind schedule, although it’s a loose one for sure, we decide on taking the dreaded freeway to shave some time off the driving requirements.
The idea was to beeline it to Madison, Indiana, and then take Highway 56 across the state as we continue in our effort to bypass any major cities and minimize freeway driving. Right, enough energy to go shoe shopping and eat deep-fried apple pie, but it’s too hot, and her feet hurt, so I have to get out and snap a selfie of myself. I should have worn donuts on my shoulders to get my mom to follow me around.
Does that look like Kentucky to you? As far as I could tell, the barge was hauling coal.
In Old Madison, we almost ruined our plans. This place must be one of a small handful of absolutely perfect places in America. I had said Harbor Springs in Michigan would be in the top three, and Monterey, California, would probably be there too; that leaves Madison to round out the list. I’ll have to give this more thought and see just what my top 10 favorite American cities would be. I suppose I would also want to include Canandaigua, New York. While I’m at it, throw in Apalachicola, Florida, so there it is a beginning to my all-time favorite cities in the United States.
We talk of staying the night after spotting a riverside motel that, for only $59, begs us to stay. Our loved ones back home are begging us to return, so we decide it’s better to get a few more miles down the road before calling it a day.
Only 75 more miles were driven before we were too tired to continue. We made it to Paoli, Indiana, but didn’t quite find what we were looking for in accommodations. In French Lick, we stop at the Lane Motel grabbing a nice little room for about $57.
Mother and Son Going to Buffalo, NY – Day 12
Breakfast starts the day at a little café called Skyjet located at the ‘top of the hill’ right here in Tionesta. Nice place with average food, not bad at all, just not outstanding.
Our drive is taking us through the Allegheny National Forest and mostly along the Allegheny River. The road twists and turns for quite a long time. We zig and zag, heading toward the western edge of Pennsylvania. Our goal is to stay in rural settings as much as possible as we aim to find the Ohio River somewhere out in front of us.
Countryside ruins hold intrigue as I wonder about the lives that occurred within these walls and consider the lost dreams as the former inhabitants pulled up roots and moved down the road to start over. On the other hand, urban ruins are loaded with the bad feelings of people who may have never had ambitions and were simply beaten down by the system. For me, they are two sides of tragedy but one I never want to witness firsthand as I don’t believe the latter really ever aims for a fresh start.
By the time we reach Oil City, Pennsylvania, it’s time to take a hard left to aim south. The sky is cloudy but does not appear to be threatening us with imminent rain. The humidity is almost overwhelming. Everything in the car is damp, everything we wear is damp, and sweat continuously drips, dampening our hopes of drying out. Our escape from the heat of the Arizona summer has been less than effective, futile even. The next day’s weather report tells us to expect more of the same. Caroline informs us it’s over 120 ‘real’ degrees in Phoenix, not the reported 117 degrees.
Through farms and forests, we crawl along. Finding elderflowers in Eldersville, Pennsylvania, seemed poetic. West of there, we enter West Virginia at a tiny border crossing that apparently doesn’t deserve a Welcome to West Virginia sign. Our first town is Follansbee where we stumble upon a bakery; not much left, though, we leave with a still-hot blackberry pie. Don’t think for a second we left with a slice; we left with the whole thing.
Wellsburg, West Virginia, is a well-maintained, beautiful village kept alive by the steel industry and coal-generated power. Lunch was at a small Main Street restaurant with a great homemade chicken dumpling soup. Their chicken pot pie was the daily special; I went for it while Mom had a Philly cheesesteak. Steel and coal are still alive here, and the town is better for it. Wellsburg is impeccable.
We remain on the West Virginia side of the Ohio River as we meander further south for another hour or two of curves and hills. Passing the south side of Wheeling, we cross over the river, landing in Ohio. More forests and farms dot the landscape along this side of the Ohio River.
It is a slow day of driving for us and by the time we start approaching Belpre, Ohio, we are ready for dinner. I know you must be thinking, “Jeez, these two are eating their way across America.” To an extent, that is true, but since leaving Wellsburg, hours and hours have passed.
We see that Parkersburg, West Virginia, is bigger than Belpre and figure there are better dining options over there. So we pay the toll to cross the bridge and, at the toll booth ask an elderly guy where’s the best place to get catfish. He recommends that we go back up Route 7 over in Ohio, where we just came from, to a place called Catfish Heaven. Great, we make a U-turn that takes a mile to figure out. We pay the toll to return over the bridge and head back up Route 7.
Four or five miles, just as the guy told us. There it is, except it is called Catfish Paradise. I should note I know this is the right place because before committing to this backtracking, I stopped at a 7/11 to ask the cashier for confirmation of the location. I explained that my mom and I wanted some catfish and that the guy at the toll booth told us about Catfish Heaven; she nodded in agreement and confirmed that the place is only 4 or 5 miles north.
We miss the turn but find a middle-of-the-road spot to make a U-turn that was probably only supposed to be used by law enforcement – hey, I’m a tourist! We see fishermen around the roadside little lake and think, wow, this must be a catch-and-eat fresh kind of place. Oh, NO, it’s not! This is not a restaurant. This is a catfish farm with no onsite cook waiting to batter our fresh catch of the day and throw some hot sauce and lemon at us.
I’m sure that this is some kind of joke played on tourists, knowing we wanted fried fish, not swimming fish. Mom is cackling like a chicken; I’m a bit annoyed at wasting the 20 minutes, seventy cents in tolls, and having to listen to Mom bust a gut for the next 10 minutes.
Defeated we decide to skip our hunt for fish and keep on driving, certain we’ll find something soon.
Out on the Ohio Scenic Byway just enjoying the day.
Lucky us as one of our encounters with a local person, had recommended that we leave Highway 7 and take Route 124 instead. We are now on even more rural lands with no services, no hotels, no restaurants, and a detour. Tomato fields, bell peppers, corn, eggplants, chilies, beans, and more tomatoes dot the landscape here near the Ohio River.
The urge to nab a few of the red ripe tomatoes is almost too much to bear, but Mom shoves a heap of guilt on me that this would be stealing. It would be sampling, and there is no one roadside to sell us any. We drive on.
With starvation setting in, we are now wishing we’d grabbed a couple of those catfish that could be turned into sushi instead of facing death. That Bocce Club pizza we bought a few days ago and sat on the backseat for a day or so would come in handy about now, and we’re both certain it would still be great. Dreams of Perry’s ice cream overwhelm us as we cruise through this food desert where the uncertainty of our next meal is torturing us.
Beautiful river scenery and tiny villages go by until we reach Pomeroy, the largest town we have seen in hours. So large is Pomeroy that it has a McDonalds, a KFC, and a Wendy’s. It is the Wild Horse Café, though, that gets our vote for dinner.
We are sitting riverside at sunset for dinner. Our server brings over some tortilla chips with salsa that is surprisingly really good. Waiting on our entrees we have this great view of the glowing clouds reflecting in the Ohio River. Our lodging for the evening is also in Pomeroy at the Meigs Motel. More of the Ohio River awaits us in the morning.