Sights Seen on the Road

August 10, 2015            odometer reading 1,550 West side of Kansas City, MO

This has been a day of highs and lows. But before I go into details, I want to say for the record that there has been more to this journey than driving like a maniac and geocaching. For instance, going through West Virginia I passed a gypsy caravan, a truck pulling a trailer that was painted to resemble a log cabin. Heck, it was so realistic it might have been built of logs! Across the back were a couple of words in Irish Gaelic, so I know they were MY kind of gypsies. I’ve never seen them in the US before. I believe the second word translated to ‘clan’ or ‘family,’ so the first word was their name.

Kentucky was much as I remembered it, although I didn’t remember the accent as being even thicker than Georgia’s. At one pit stop, I heard the cashier asking the customer to “swap” her card, and wondered if it was a credit card they didn’t take. Then the Southern part of my brain kicked in and I heard “swipe.” I stayed the night in a motel where they proudly displayed framed high-quality pictures of local celebrities, the place of honor holding a formal grouping of every winner of the Triple Crown including this year’s. Quick work to re-do such a lovely formal photo collage.

Indiana impressed me, in the southern section, with some really high-quality looking outdoor recreational areas. Also with the best roads I’ve traveled yet. Two of the rest stops held geocaches, each a satisfying quarter-mile walk/hike into a wooded area.

Illinois was a weird place. I think it’s made of nothing but clay mud. I felt like it was going to wash away or collapse, like an animal with no bones. Not a rock anywhere. Rivers and streams carved deep muddy troughs in the landscape, still no rocks. At one point, seeking a geocache (without reading the description first, a newbie error) I left the Interstate, finding that the roads immediately deteriorated into a state worse than any that Potter County can boast. A dubious grassy pair of ruts actually had a county road number. As I tried in vain to find a road that could be described as more than ‘field access for farm equipment,’ I was terrified I’d slide into the horrid clay or one of the abrupt, deep stream crossings, never to be seen again. At last I bumped across a field dotted with straw rolls to get back on I-64, only to find that the cache was in a rest stop three miles up the highway, an easy stroll across a freshly-mowed lawn. That was the only one I got in that state, as I read the description of the other one I’d downloaded and did not like the parts about ‘brush-busting’ and ‘brambles.’ In this weird place?

Now came the part of the day I’d been dreading: Driving in St. Louis. With one eye on the gas gauge and one on the clock, I decided to postpone both gassing up the car and lunch in order to miss rush hour in the city. A few minutes later, from the Interstate, I glimpsed the famous arch ahead. Whoa! It is so much more impressive, even at a distance, ‘live,’ than in jigsaw puzzles.

Of course, I was faced with a quandary right away. One of the bridges carrying one of the Interstates that meet here was closed, and I wasn’t sure which one: the one I was currently driving on, or the one heading north/south. Reading signs, watching traffic, moving from lane to lane, and being exceedingly anxious caused me to miss the pivotal moment when I crossed the Mississippi River. The Wabash had been darned impressive, and later that day the Missouri itself blew me away, but I missed the Mississippi.

But I spotted Busch Stadium and went baseball-ballistic. I was a high fly ball, and could hear the whole thing in Harry Kallas’ voice, bless him. That’s my excuse for missing my exit, but I managed to make a save two exits later and found myself driving up Market Street with the Arch perfectly framing the buildings at the end of the street. For blocks and blocks I drove, thinking that here was a structure placed to best advantage and designed to be viewed just this way; art AND great engineering. When I approached Ground Zero for the virtual cache, I was just too bloody impressed by the huge, glittering Arch looming above and ahead to pull over and get my landmark notes (and the picture I promised Nermal). Going around the block for another pass I found myself right AT Busch Stadium and the American baseball gene kicked in again. When I once more found myself on Market Street, the parking meters had the high-tech, hostile look of Cylons and there appeared to be no coin slot, so I timed the light at Broadway and pulled out into the lane that would take me to I-70 just when the light turned red. I got my landmark notes and pictures from inside the car.

It was a matter of ten grueling city-driving minutes to reach I-70, and just as I did the rain started. Great Plains, pouring-down rain, hiding the other cars and road signs, forcing me to a slow pace the other drivers barely exceeded themselves. And were there other cars! The traffic that was absent before was all on this stretch of superhighway, no doubt routed that way by the bridge detour. Miles and miles and miles of this. I was afraid to exit for gas or food, still watching that gauge droop towards the quarter. The road was sometimes six lanes, sometimes three, and it seemed several Interstates were still braiding together there. Somehow I stayed on 70 west and some twenty or thirty miles out of town the rain stopped and the traffic thinned enough that I could get to an exit lane. Even so, I was blocked by traffic from turning towards the good restaurants and filling station, and had to make do with a Phillips 66 and a slice of pizza from its convenience store. Once again I’m in Pepsi country, so I lived through the day on unsweetened Gold Peak tea and (at the moment) a diet Mtn Dew.

By the time I paused again, peacefully out in Missouri’s country side, the other two caches I’d downloaded, both back in the metro area, were nearly a hundred miles behind. One thing I noticed about Missouri is that angel’s-trumpet, also known as strangler-vine, is currently the most common flower blooming on the road verges. I also was reassured by occasional banks of rock breaking through the soil: weathered chunky limestone  or seams of shale, with a few ledges of something harder. This area is not at all hilly, but at least it has bones.

For a good many miles I’d had a song going through my mind despite the techno-fusion playing on my CD player, prompted by the road signs along I-70. “I’m going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come. Oh, yes I’m going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come. (At this point I play fast and loose with the lyrics.) They got the best steaks in the world and sure I’m gonna get me one.”

But the periodic rumbling noise I was hearing was getting louder, and I could no longer explain it away as a nearby truck or passing motorcycle. Did I do something to the exhaust during my impromptu detour in Illinois? The dealership said they left a guard plate off when they re-welded that one join. Or did their repair of the transmission leak fail, during that up-and-down shifting madness in West Virginia? I pulled into this hotel (I should know better, but this seemed like the cheapest one amidst a cluster of high-end hotels and suites) and here I am, with a referral by the manager for a muffler place that opens at 7 a.m., trying to de-stress and wondering, not how much money this will cost me, but how much time. I didn’t realize I’d crossed a time zone and blew my chance at a half-price buffet (including triple Happy Hour) in the hotel restaurant because I thought it was already after 7. Instead, dinner was a Good Humor ice cream cone. As stressed as I am, it’s probably better for me than that steak.

Still, somewhere during the Illinois debacle I came up with the knowledge that it doesn’t really matter if I complete the HQ Geotour, or even if I miss the Thursday night Meet-and-Greet. I was waxing quite philosophical about my reasons for going to Seattle, prepared to get there any day before Saturday… until the car began to act up. The gods of anxiety have upped the ante on me.

Caching and Chocolate

Sunday, August 9, 2015 odometer reading 1,003 miles. Louisville, KY

            Today I made up for stopping early last night. I stopped in Breezewood, where I-70 E and I-76 E part company. In fact, I’d wanted to stop an hour further west when I-70 WEST separates from the PA Turnpike. Well, as tired as I was it was not such a bad thing, but I drove fast and with few stops today, racking up 580 road miles. West Virginia is totally nuts. The Interstate through there has such steep slopes my transmission was auto-shifting at highway speeds, which in that state are posted at 70 (which the roads are often not designed or maintained for) and cars are actually going 75 to 80. There I stopped twice for gas (poor Bruce) and once for a quick lunch. Once again a so-called fast-food joint had me waiting longer than I would have in a sit-down luncheonette.

            I took the first exit off I-64 when I entered Kentucky, knowing I’d loaded a JOE (Just Off Exit) cache in the Garmin at home. I pulled into a convenience store lot to turn on the Garmin and start hunting, but my bladder and the heat drove me inside where I purchased and somehow ate an overly-chewy ice cream confection called a Choco Taco. My hands were sticky on the wheel and leaving smudges of chocolate on the GPS as I returned to the side road, crossed the Interstate, and turned up the next little country road. Less than a quarter of a mile later, I was carefully insinuating my hand past an inconvenient growth of briar rose covering the end curl of a guard rail. “WAHOOO!” I exclaimed as I held up the jungle-camo covered container (For a guard rail cache?). “My first cache find in Kentucky! A new state souvenir! My first new one since December ’13.” I didn’t even notice the oppressive humidity and heat until had signed the log and was trudging the short distance back to the car.

            Sixteen miles later, the Garmin led me into a rest stop. Yes, I was trying to rack up miles and make up for lost time, but caching in new places is the primary goal of the trip. Besides, I love caches placed near rest stops. They encourage me to pause and exercise my arthritic old body, breaking up a day spent behind the wheel so I don’t wind up painfully stiff. Most are bordering wooded areas, if not actually in them, which provides a dose of natural surroundings after the glaring artificial environment of the Interstates. So it eases stress as well as being physically healthy. This one required me to clamber up a rather steep, longish slope to the trees, wearing sandals and without my walking stick. Eventually I spotted an Altoids-sized tin with a few springs of grass carelessly scraped over it, hiding nothing. I am just loving the camo on the caches I’ve found this trip. It’s ranged from glaringly obvious to none at all like this one. This has made them easy to spot, but the locations have been chosen for seclusion and a low chance that anyone not actually hunting the cache would be anywhere close.

            After that, I headed west, hoping to get past Lexington’s traffic and exceed my goal of 550 miles for the day. One more gas stop, and I found myself in Louisville, in a good position to cross into Indiana forty minutes or less after checking out tomorrow morning, ready to add yet another state to my collection of States I’ve Found Geocaches In. This part of town makes Breezewood with its ‘hundred motels’ look like a rural cluster of tourist traps; it is HUGE and includes dozens of hotels, hundreds of eateries, some shops, and even some light industry buildings. It took me almost a half-hour after leaving the Interstate to find the right series of service roads to get to the Sleep Inn. Because of this chaos at the end of a long day, dinner was a package of vending machine Donette Gems washed down with lukewarm Diet Coke.

Tomorrow afternoon sometime I should be handling the most massive hassle of the trip, downtown St. Louis, MO. The famous Arch is closed for renovations, but thanks to geocaching I’ll be led to one of the best spots to view it (and get a virtual cache find). The hard part will be getting out of town and finding I-70. Oh, how I hate city driving, especially in a strange city!

Dressed to Cache... Not!

             Day 2 of my Road Trip, written in Breezewood, PA with 424 miles on the odometer.

            Unexpectedly I had fun at the wedding. The expected family friction did not develop; in part because there was not a drop of alcohol served. Well, the reception was held in the social hall of the Lutheran church where the service was held. There was coffee, good plain food (delicious) on the buffet, and assorted soft drinks and sparkling cider for the toast. I was also anxious that I’d be reminded of my own disastrous marriage, but there is a great deal of difference between a full-ceremony Lutheran wedding and reception, and a hippie ceremony performed by a Buddhist priest with an eat-and-go low budget reception. In my case, we just should have stayed best friends; Mike and Kate seem to have built their friendship into something solid, with bricks of respect and a mortar of shared fun. They each also have a healthy self-respect and could each get along well on their own… if they wanted to. The fact that this is true, they both know it, and they both prefer facing the future together may be the single thing most likely to keep them together and happy.

            I dressed for the wedding, checked out of my motel as late as I could delay the maids with good conscience, and still had almost two hours until the wedding. What to do? Well, I’d pre-loaded a park-and-grab cache into my Garmin and made notes on another one while online last night, this one strategically located at an air-conditioned mall so that I would not suffer from the heat if I found both caches and had further time to kill. As it is, I did find both, but once again the local roads go here, there, and wherever with no apparent logic, one-ways posted at whim, and often an oops-there-went-my-turn lack of signage. That ate up a lot of time. The caches were worth it, if only for the cheery flower-power ‘camo’ of the first and an equally glaring zebra stripe on the second. Not the same Cache Owner. It must be a local phenomenon. Both were even the same sort of container, some sort of medical/candy bottle repurposed. The first had an interesting inside-out construction, with the container placed inside a large Ziploc bag. The second, it could have been magneted to either a guardrail or a fence, and was neither; it was suspended from the fence by monofilament and hidden in the shrubbery behind. I like the Pottstown way of urban caching, if these are typical. Ground Zero is in a non-busy corner, so muggles have little reason to be there, but the container is fairly easily spotted by anyone who is there just casually lounging and using their eyes. I could get to like this kind of urban caching. Especially when I don’t want to mess up my glad rags just before a wedding.

Road Trip 2015

August 7, 2015  258.5 miles, most of it trying to negotiate Pottstown, PA’s one-way streets.

            Road Trip 2015. To Geocaching.com, it’s a competition. To me, an actual road trip. This, the first day, is sort of like a prologue. I’d have started my road trip five days earlier, heading north to Niagara Falls and through Ontario to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, thence to the mysterious ancient mounds of Wisconsin, the notorious Minnesota Twine Ball, and on to Medicine Wheel, one of my main destinations. I’ve been feeling an increasing urgency to trace the roots of my father’s family, and that means paying homage to the Cheyenne ancestors at a sacred site. This is the one that’s called to me, louder and louder, over the years. I understand that there is now a paved road instead of the switchbacked, say-goodbye-to-your-muffler old dirt one; yet still some hiking, as is only right for a spiritual journey.

            But, that was fantasy. Reality is an ill-timed wedding at which I MUST make an appearance. Katelynne and Michael are one of those rare young couples I believe may stay the course, grow old together and never lose the love. Besides, I’m not just a number to fill out their guest list, they WANT me there. ‘Nuff said.

            So here I am. 144-odd miles southeast of home instead of 250 miles northwest of it in Canada. Rather than re-trace those miles to stick to my original plan, I’m hoping to head west right after the reception (after cake, before dancing or drinking). I wanted more time for the southern leg… there are so many things on my bucket list. However, I can still make it to the Thursday Meet-and-Greet at the brewpub in Seattle if I keep the pedal to the metal and only stop for the necessary geocache finds to get State Souvenirs I don’t have.

            What’s that? Did I lose you? Why, it’s just this: I am an enthusiastic geocacher. Geocaching’s World Headquarters is in Seattle. For the past seven years, they have had a Block Party in the middle of August which is THE social event of the year for geocachers. They announced that this year is the last one. This includes a lot of one-of-a-lifetime opportunities, including the possibility of being chosen for a development panel for future improvements in the game; touring HQ; finding the HQ geocache; the local Geotour of nine caches  which earns a super-duper prize; four days of activities with other geocachers; a side trip to find the memorial for the first-ever geocache; and lots and lots of virtual and actual souvenirs. That gives me a timetable of getting from Pottstown August 8^th mid-afternoon to Seattle August 13^th mid-day by car, while finding at least one geocache in each of a half-dozen states including three must-haves: Mingo (world’s oldest continuously active cache) in Kansas; the Arch virtual in St. Louis, MO; and the aforementioned first-ever in Oregon.

            Yesterday things got even more complicated. I made an unexpected trip to Galeton, the closest town to home, and there I was able to find one of two newly-hidden geocaches. I found myself thinking, “Rabbit, you could go for the big streak. You could find a cache every day from now until September 3^rd. Twenty-nine days.” My previous record streak was 5 days, on a previous road trip. How and why? It’s a great excuse to get out of the car and get some mild exercise. It gets you off the four-lane and into the REAL ambiance of an area. You get to feel the soil underfoot, observe the trees and plant life, note down unusual (to you) birds. Sometimes you are led to a cache in a unique natural spot or an interesting historical location, or merely get a chance to chat with the locals in some little convenience store and sample local cuisine. That’s what geocaching on a road trip means to me. The virtual souvenir is just a valued reminder of a good time, a time during which I slowed down and appreciated an area instead of just zipping past it at 65 MPH.

            So, after traffic and construction and arguments with my car GPS (Pottstown is EAST, not WEST) turning a 4-hour drive into one of over 5 ½ hours, one of my first actions after checking in to my motel was to get back into the car to go to the nearest Wal-Mart parking lot, location of one of two local caches I’d pre-downloaded into my Garmin 62st. There was a parking space right against a guardrail, where I suspected the micro-cache was located. Someone had conveniently run into a tree that was part of the corner’s landscaping, and I studied the 45-degree lean of the poor thing with a look of gobsmacked out-of-towner on my face. “Gaw-lee, Andy, wouldja look at that?” Bobbing my head like a chicken (or Don Knotts) I spotted the cache out of my peripheral vision. SNATCH! I inconspicuously took my prize back to my car and signed the log, then returned to the leaning tree, shaking my head. “Did you ever see the like in all yer borned days?” POP! The cache was back in its hiding place and the hick from the sticks was back in her geomobile and gone.

            Once again Pottstown’s one-way streets had me frustrated, but this time I managed to find a landmark: The Ice House, a hoagie/pizza shop I remembered visiting with my friend Monica back a good many years. Just what I wanted, a take-out supper I could eat at the motel at my leisure in air-conditioned quiet. Little did I know they were also a package store. And even less did I imagine they would ask to see my ID (which clearly shows I’m 43 years over legal drinking age) for buying a single pint bottle of Guinness to accompany my meal. Now the meal, the pint, and this report are finished.

Birdsong

When the red, red robin comes bob-bob-bobbin' along... along;
There'll be no more sobbin' when he starts throbbin' that old... sweet song:
'Get up! Get up! Get out of bed...'

BOOM!

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

It Could Only Happen to Me

Winter in northern Pennsylvania is what separates the ‘ridge runners’ from the ‘flatlanders.’ People who were born here say that’s what distinguishes the two, but to most of us, it’s the ability to thrive despite almost-daily snow and temperatures in single digits. Even some of the locally-born folks migrate south in the winter, but those of us who stock up, bundle up, and dig out secretly believe those people can’t hack it here. Privately, we consider them little better than camp-owners.

However, even I admit this has been a harsher than average winter. After the usual several months of almost-daily lake-effect snow, we’ve been hammered lately by Alberta Clippers dropping up to fifteen inches of snow per storm, one after the other, about twice a week, with the days in between often having low temperatures in negative-double-digits, high temperatures that usually but not always get above zero, and wind-chills breaking records in the minus-20’s and -30’s. The last storm was followed by a day so cold I put on an extra layer and used chemical hand-warmers in my gloves while I shoveled, hauled a bucket of feed to the deer feeder, and filled the bird feeders.

Yesterday’s twelve-degree high seemed like a heat wave. Even so, I put on my usual mid-winter working-around-the-house clothes: a long underwear top, and, that particular day, Tree-bark camo thermal-fleece men’s pajama bottoms (comfy whether I’m lounging or working) and a cheerful tie-dye t-shirt sporting Native American pictograms. Yeah, it was a Clash Day contest winner outfit, but I seldom even think of bothering about color-coordinating on days I’m staying home and not expecting visitors.  Indoors, I kick around in lined Crocs, but when I went out (as I did several times that day), I changed to the knee-high hunting-camo Muck boots I keep in the garage, with Yak-trax permanently strapped to them for traction on ice and snow. I had just come in from a prolonged and very physical session moving heavy equipment outdoors, hung up the stained denim jacket I use for dirty work, and was headed for tea-time, when a THUD against the living room window told me a bird from the feeders had flown into it. Maggi went over to see if it was alright, and made a sound of dismay.

I walked over to look, and saw a crumpled junco sprawled in the snow. Was it dead? I thought I saw a twitch of movement, but wasn’t sure. Neither one of us could tolerate the possibility of the poor thing freezing to death if it was still alive, so I sighed and headed for the garage and my boot box. Time was of the essence if the poor critter was stunned, for it could easily go into shock and freeze to death. So I pulled on my boots again, but, at twelve whole degrees, above zero, didn’t bother with coat, gloves, or hat. I grabbed a feed scoop to pick the bird up with and slogged out to the feeder area in front of that big bay window.

The snowbird was still there, position unchanged. I scooped it up, getting a cup or so of snow in the process, and carried it back to the shoveled area in front of the garage door where I examined it. Its eyes were open and it blinked at me. It was alive! Gently I scooped it out of the cup with one bare hand, leaving the snow behind, and it settled into my cupped palm, wings closed, watching me. With the forefinger of my other hand, I gently stroked its head and back, feeling for deformities, watching its reactions. I smoothed each wing, noting a few bent secondary feathers, but nothing obviously broken, and straightened out the tail. Carefully I checked underneath for signs of blood. Nothing. No bird poop, either, and I hoped in passing that would not change. Except for the possibility of internal injuries, it appeared the only thing wrong with this poor wee thing was shock. The treatment? Warmth and security. Holding the bird cupped in one hand, covered except for its head with the other, I held it against my chest for maximum warming action. 

As minutes passed, I pondered my options. There was no place snow-free outdoors to sit the bird down once it began to show signs of recovery, except the concrete apron in front of the garage doors, and I was hesitant to leave it so exposed. In addition to killing cold, there was a sharpshin hawk hanging around the yard almost daily, and other predators would come out at night. Indoors, I have five cats. (Not to mention the pandemonium that would ensue when the bird came out of shock and went into panicked flight.) I stood there, getting gradually colder myself due to my underdressed state, cuddling the bird, absently talking to it in a calm, quiet voice, and thinking.

You all now know the back-story. But the driver of the UPS truck that came up my driveway and pulled onto the concrete apron did not have that advantage. I wasn’t expecting a delivery (with five new inches of snow I wasn’t expecting anyone) and was quite startled, but that was nothing compared to the poor UPS guy who came out of the truck bearing a smallish box and an indescribable expression when he saw an aging hippie in tie-dye and camo, coatless outdoors, cradling a bird against her bosom. Of course, I knew the back-story, having lived it, and wondered what the heck his problem was.

Oh, yes! I smiled and said, “Hi. Please excuse the bird.”

“Uh. Do you have an actual mail box? I mean, is that one down by the intersection yours?”

I removed one hand from sheltering the snowbird to point. “No. Ours is that-a-way, on the main road, in a clump of three mailboxes by some big evergreens. You might find it easier to wrap future deliveries in plastic and leave them there.”

“That’s for sure,” he said fervently. I figured he was talking about the steep slope up the side road to our lengthy, currently snow-covered, driveway.

The box was shaking in his wavering hands. It was just a little too large for me to handle with one hand. Luckily my housemate Maggi came out just that moment and took it. She was a bit less Bohemian about her color choices than I, but had wrapped herself in a shawl as her only protection from the cold and was wearing floppy slippers the color and texture of Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. “How’s the bird?”

“See for yourself,” I told her. She cooed at it and stroked its little head. The UPS man was hastily climbing into his truck, backed with a crunch into a plow mound while turning, then gunned his engine furiously and fishtailed down the driveway and away. Meanwhile we’d brought the injured bird into the garage so we could be a little warmer while I continued to treat the bird for shock and discussed the next step. It was moving a little more, actually standing on my hand instead of having its legs tucked beneath its belly, so I knew it was feeling a little better. We decided to put it on the screened-in porch, where it is at least a couple degrees warmer than in the open, and it would be safe from predators even with the door propped open so it could exit once it felt able to fly again. 

Taking a couple of tablespoons of birdseed from the bin and a rag for a warm nest, I carefully carried the bird to the porch, made sure the door would not close, and settled the little thing on a bench with the seeds nearby. When I went to tuck the rag around it, though, the junco fluttered away in alarm, of course heading the opposite direction from the door, bounced off a screen, and ended up perched on the railing. All right! If it could fly, it could survive. As the sun was nearly down, I placed a small cardboard box out there as a tiny shelter, next to the pile of seed, just in case the little fellow did not find its way out of the porch door by sunset.

Periodically as I was making dinner I looked out the kitchen window where I could see the snowbird, first in its spot on the rail, later huddled under a pile of plastic porch chairs. Finally Maggi observed it was gone, and I later confirmed that. Our patient had survived and had gone back to its natural environment, no doubt with a tale to tell its buddies about being abducted by aliens and taken to strange places with no sky.

Most of the evening I just enjoyed the warm glow of having saved a life, but at some point the incident with the UPS man popped into my mind in all its weird glory. I realized what he must have seen and thought, and remembered his reactions. How strange must I have looked to this random stranger who burst upon just that scene at just that time? It seemed a rational chain of events that had led me there, from my point of view, but he walked into this scene of the movie of my life in the middle; and, like the junco, had a bizarre tale to tell that he would remember and relate for some time to come.

“Damn! I’ve done it again!” I thought. (“Again?” you ask.) “I’ve been doing something perfectly rational and had someone come into it at just the wrong moment, the moment guaranteed to give the impression of maximum weirdness!” And I smiled. Yes, there’s a part of me that was upset, thinking “oh, no!” But a larger part of me was amused, and the largest part appreciates being different enough from “normal” to be memorable; to make someone’s day different, special, and give them a story to tell.