Saturday, January 16, 2016

Road Trip 2016 #1

January 11, 2016

2110 Caton Road, Ottawa, IL
Latitude               41.37    
Longitude            -88.85
Elevation             608 feet

I pulled out of the garage at exactly 7:00 a.m..  Everything was in the Buick.  I had made a fresh thermos of espresso, put two sandwiches together, added them to a little cooler, and kissed my wife goodbye.  I was off on a five-day solo drive to Florida.  I headed for Route 80.

Beside me were my new 2016 Road Atlas (large type) and an old Shakira spiral notebook.  I bought the notebook in a little bookstore in Cochabamba Bolivia while I was visiting my son Dean.  Was that 11 years ago?  I guess it was.  Wow.  The atlas was for figuring the route, the notebook to record what the route turned out to be.  I had no plan.  I had ideas, but the weather concerned me.  There was a storm predicted for where I was going.  The most basic route was this.  Go East to West Virginia, then go South to Florida.  In broad terms I would go South to Bloomington and turn left, then East to Wheeling West Virginia, and turn right, then end in Tampa Florida.  It wasn’t that simple, but that was the basic idea. 

It was to be a two-lane only road trip.  I did all two-lane roads last year, but I took a shorter and more direct route earlier in the year.   I stopped on my driveway to get my bearings on my I IPhone: longitude, latitude, elevation, using the handy free app “Just my Location”.  In addition to those physical facts, the Buick’s dashboard told me it was 9 degrees.  My biggest desire was to wander the hills of West Virginia on two-lane roads.  And there was this promised snow coming from the southwest.  So I caved and took to the interstate. 

It was there on the driveway that I decided to go west on 80 to I 39, south to Bloomington and I 55, east on 74.  I figured to follow I 74 as long as it was making a straight line to West Virginia.  I can be a purist at times, but on this trip, I decided to be pragmatic.

Let me say at the outset that I have nothing against eastern Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.  They’re fine states.  But West Virginia called.  And though it is true you can’t experience near the America on the interstate as you can on two-lane roads, it’s not impossible to get a feel for your surroundings from that always open, nicely engineered four-lane highway system that carries so much traffic.  It’s just harder because at first glance everything seems the same.

I got off at Leroy for no apparent reason.  I didn’t need gas, but I did need to take a leak.  I have little connection to Leroy.  Downstate relatives occasionally golf there.  For one fall I went to U of I football games in Champaign and we would stop at the nice gas stations by the interstate.  That’s where I made my first stop.  The big new Leroy BP had the same nicely displayed junk food and assorted items I would see on every off-ramp from there to Florida.
 
When I was a kid it was considered indelicate to mention you were taking a leak in the company of others.  Women would say they had to powder their noses.  In my family, men would say, inexplicably, “I have to see a man about a dog.”  Why these things pop up in my head I can’t tell you.  But after I saw that man about a dog I got back in my car.

I might have gone back on the interstate but I decided to cruise downtown Leroy to see how it was doing.  They’d been successful in developing new business by the highway.  Maybe that success had been replicated downtown. 

It hadn’t.  You can’t tell by looking if downtown Leroy is declining or making a comeback but whichever direction it is headed it was definitely at low ebb on January 11, 2016.  Very few cars on the street.  Vacant buildings, some of which may never be occupied again.  An occasional professional office.   Printed paper signs in storefront windows.  A beauty parlor.  Not a diner, a hardware store, not even a prosperous-looking bar. You can see what it once was, Leroy’s downtown.  It’s hard to imagine it will ever be that again.  I guess it was a trade rather than an addition to the town, that development on the interstate.
 
It doesn’t take long to scout these little towns.  I took a more substantial looking street that led out of town, which turned out to be Illinois 150, just to see what was on the other side of town when I a sign caught my eye

Terminal Moraine State Park

I have a thing for moraines, given that I feel an affinity for glaciers.  During my time at ISU my journey through the required natural science credits, which for graduation I determined would need to skirt both mathematics and chemistry, took me largely through Geography and Geology.  I took Earth Science, Weather, and Climate. That department seemed more like history than science. It was there I learned to appreciate glaciers.  They’re predictable but unstoppable, and relentless; leveling everything in their path.  The ultimate change agents, glaciers forever alter the world they encounter. And when they finally end, they leave a terminal moraine, the remains of the earth, rock, and whatever else it has amassed along the way.  I wanted to see it.

So I made my way to Terminal Moraine State Park.  If I knew it was there I had forgotten.  Among Illinois State Parks it’s not often mentioned.  As soon as I got away from the interstate, on the blacktop driving between empty snow-packed cornfields, I regretted not traveling the whole trip that way.  It was frigid and sparkly.  It’s flat out there in central Illinois.  You have to look closely to see rises in the terrain.   I was scanning the horizon as I turned into the park.    If I was near a terminal moraine I couldn’t tell.


There were gentle dips in the winding road that took me through Moraine View State Park.  Picnic tables were clustered under trees in places that must be lovely in the summer.  A deserted campground appeared around a curve.  They have a little lake there frozen solid.  There was something clustered in the middle of the lake.


Ducks, perhaps geese, were huddled together on a frozen pond.  Why would ducks sit on a frozen lake?  Patiently waiting for the thaw?  Reminiscing about better days?  It seemed odd.  When I have time I’ll try to figure that out. 

There was nary a soul so far in the park.  Not only that, my tires were making the only tracks on those snow-covered blacktop roads.  I was looking for a marker, a sign maybe, to lead me to the moraine, a viewing stand maybe, something. 

Rounding a corner I saw a building, tracks in the snow, and next to the building a pickup truck.  It looked to be the park office.  I parked, walked in the open door, and found a deserted room.  A counter with a scant smattering of pamphlets and the like was by the door.  I looked for a bell.  Finding none I called out?

“Hello?  Anybody home?”

From the far back, I heard he rustling of someone moving around.  A big guy in a hooded thermal sweatshirt and a fuzzy vest appeared in the doorway.  He looked surprised and asked me this question not like he’d said it many times before but as a genuine inquiry:

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I’m just wandering around, and I was interested in the moraine.  Is there a place in the park where I can view the moraine?”  I thought it a logical question, seeing as we were both standing in Moraine View State Park.
   
“No, not really.  The moraine is all around.  It’s this ridge here.  It runs all along, Leroy, Downs, you know.  It’s here, but it doesn’t really stand out so you can see it.”  He sounded serious, and a little apologetic. 

“I see.”

We both looked at each other.

“Well, thanks.”

“You bet.  Drive safe.”


And thus ended my first road trip diversion, A bust.  I got back in the Buick and made my way through Leroy to I 74.  I had to get to West Virginia.  

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