Road Trip # 2

I made it to Columbus Ohio that first day.

Altitude                743.9 feet

Latitude               40.33

Longitude            -88.43

I’m not going to say the rest of the day after Moraine View State Park wasn’t eventful.  But I was after all driving on the Interstate.  I wanted to stop at the Hen House in Mahomet for old time’s sake but didn't.  Hen Houses were the first chain restaurants we knew of on the new highway system they called the Interstate.  I 74 was built not far from our town when I was a kid.  Hen Houses used to be everywhere but few remain.  They’re still serving food out of the Hen House building in Carlock, or were last I knew.  Hen House buildings are something like tiny Quonset huts. I get sentimental about old buildings and places that are fading away.

The buildings around the exit for Westville and Attica looked bad.  Whereas Leroy hid its architectural sadness behind new steel sided buildings, the buildings visible from the highway at Westville and Attica needed paint at the least, probably needed tearing down.  What’s the future of rural towns?  When do they just call it quits?  I grew up on a farm near Danvers, a little town between Bloomington and Pekin, which purrs along nicely.  It’s even grown.  But these little towns on the decline; who finally pulls the plug?  I guess when no one will run for the village board, they close the school and post office, and the buildings have no value.  That could take a long time.

I was making the trip this year in a different Buick, six years newer than last year’s.  It is a 2006 Lucerne with the 3.8 V-6 and all the bells and whistles.  I wanted a LeSabre but they stopped making them in 2005.  The Lucerne is not as long, but it still offers a pretty good ride.  Nothing like those LeSabres though.  The great thing about this car, among other things, is that the gas gauge works, and it has a compass right in the dash.  I could have used both those features on last year's road trip. 

    

I stopped for something to eat around Indianapolis and a block past the off ramp a tall black man was dressed up as the Statue of Liberty twirling a sign for Liberty Loans.  He looked dreadfully cold.  Is that the lowest form of employment, acting as a human ad?  I suppose not.  The sight of him, bright teal cloth flapping in the cold wind, trying to smile in the cold, was disturbing.  Of course you can surmise anything if you stop your inquiry at sight alone.   I tried to get a picture but the traffic pushed me along, and he was quickly behind me.

I got a room at a Day’s Inn in Columbus.  After I checked in the room I called my wife.  She was concerned about a storm predicted for Indiana.  I told her I was pretty sure I was out ahead of it. I’d left Indiana hours ago.

I drove down the street to a Steak and Shake. When I got out of my car the wind was blowing fiercely.  Inside the restaurant, the place was completely deserted.  It was 7:30.

“Are you closing?”

“No we’re open till 11:00 but its dead.  I think it’s those storm warnings.”

They had shut down one grill.  Two waiters were cleaning even though the place looked spotless.  People take those warning way too seriously, I thought to myself.  I took a single steak burger with slaw and baked beans back to my room.  Not a bad first day but I always wish I could go further.

 

I was asleep at the drop of a hat.