Just Where am I Going?

I’m planning the route for my February road trip in the Buick.  It continues to run like a top. 

I drive to Pensacola in the panhandle of Florida to play golf with some guys from Illinois who fly there.  After that I join up with my wife who flies one way.  We visit relatives in southern Florida.  Then we drive back.  This year we’re stopping for a while in Memphis to pay our respects to the king, have some barbeque, and hear some blues.

That I am planning the route is something of a first.  On past trips I had a general idea, more of a direction really, but purposefully left out any details so that the trip would be spontaneous and surprising, even to me. Actually I started out that way this time.  Here was the original plan.  I knew it was counterintuitive when I tossed it around in my head, but I let it play out. 

I wanted to head to western Iowa to get into Rep. Steve King’s legislative district.  It’s out there around Sioux City Iowa.  I’ve met some folks from out there.  Damn nice people.  They remind me of the kind of regular small town folks and farmers I grew up with in downstate Illinois.  It seems crazy that they have elected an open and self avowed white supremacist, anti-immigrant, homophobe to the U.S. Congress 7 times.  But they have.  I saw myself getting out there and visiting coffee shops in small towns, asking guys how they are doing selling their soybeans, and then seeing what they like about Rep. King.  It’s the kind of first hand observation I’ve gotten hooked on.

From there I wanted to put myself and the Buick in the most remote parts of Nebraska.  I loved the black and white scenes from the movie of the same name starring Bruce Dern.   I don’t live in a congested place, but something about the emptiness of that part of America, and what life must be like there, draws me like a magnet. 

But when I began to look on maps, I saw that to get from there to the panhandle of Florida would require me to head south into Oklahoma and North Texas, then angle through Louisiana to get to Pensacola.  Big circle.  Way too many miles.  I should have known that when I imagined heading west on 80 into Iowa.  You don’t get to Florida by heading west.  You go south and east, or vice versa, but not west.   I try to keep this to a five day, four night trip.  I’m not particularly cheap but there is the cost of gas (low now though) and all those roadside motels and meals.  I decided it isn’t feasible.  Too damn far if you have to end up in Florida.  So I put that journey on the shelf.  Good trip, just not at this time.

Now I’ve got it figured to head east, a much more sensible direction.  Trouble is I’ve gone that way before.  But so what?  My challenge, like life itself, is to keep finding new experiences. 

I’m going to see if I can find the old Mike Pence, who may be President one day soon, out there somewhere in Indiana.  As the story goes his family ran a chain of gas stations that sold cigarettes in a big way, made a lot of money, and then sold their properties before they were condemned by the EPA for leaky underground gas tanks.  It’s going to cost taxpayers upwards of $20 M to clean them up, and the Pence family $0.  I’d like to see what people like you and me in Indiana think about their one time governor and six term member of the House of Representatives, now a heartbeat away from running the country.  He’s another arch conservative anti gay right wing white guy who has found himself on top of the heap.  Amazing isn’t it?  Maybe people that know him better than I see another side of him. 

From there I think I’ll go straight south, through Kentucky and Tennessee, and concentrate on Alabama.  While I was in the Chattanooga area late last year I read a paper that described what I thought were amazing political developments in Birmingham.  They elected, for the first time ever, an African American County Sheriff and State’s Attorney who ran on a liberal, progressive agenda.  I blogged about it.  People that know the area remarked that I should not think of the South as a monolithic pure red state through and through, but rather as a place with pockets of progressive voters.  Those pockets exist in more urban areas, but many think their numbers are growing and spreading. That doesn’t sound like the Alabama northerners have in their heads.  I want to see if I can find out more about that whole proposition.

I also want to visit the museum in Montgomery where they have documented lynchings throughout the South in one spot which represents them factually, symbolically, and artistically.  I’m embarrassed I know so little on that topic.  I had no idea of the breadth of the murders, or how recently they ended until I saw a show on CBS’s 60 minutes.  I think that will be particularly blog worthy.

From Alabama, it makes sense to head to Gulf Shores and see if I can spend a little time, at least an afternoon, on those nice beaches.  From there, it’s a hop skip and a jump to Pensacola and the links.

I share this with my readers thinking you many have suggestions of good places to stop along the way.  Perhaps I can make my trip your trip in a small way.  If you want to give me ideas the easiest way to communicate with me is by commenting on this in Face Book if you are reading me there, or privately through Messenger.  But if you receive a link to my blog via e mail just hit reply, and send me an e mail.  The comment section of Blogspot, my blog platform, seems problematic for many.  If I ever get organized I’ll upgrade that.  But for now, I’m trying to figure out where I’m going.