A Nod to the Drive-By States

We have stayed in so many different places at this point in our journey, and yet whole states go by the window without us really stopping for more than a cup of coffee or to use the bathroom. I've been reflecting on this the last few days. I wanted to give a nod to the states that we only glanced at from the minivan windows.

Alabama was supposed to be a chance for us to stop in Birmingham, and stretch our legs, and see the Civil Rights Institute. By the time we reached Birmingham the museum was closing. So, I quickly got out and looked around while Elijah sat in a meeting in the car, and the kids finished up a movie. Afterwards, we stopped for a cup of coffee, and Izzy threw a tantrum which turned into our first back seat time-out of the car ride.

South Carolina was the next state where we made only a brief stop. This time we had intended to camp in a wilderness at the top of the state that was in both North and South Carolina. The rain was so intense all the way through the drive north that we changed our plans. We stopped in Greenville, SC to have dinner and try to figure out a new plan. We had a great Indian meal, and drove around the town more than once. It's a very sweet little town, with lovely buildings, and very good services. We almost decided to stay the night just based on how inviting it felt, but we didn't.

After Maryland we drove through Pennsylvania but didn't stop. We noticed several bridges in Delaware as we attempted to navigate through them. And we got incredibly lost in New Jersey, just where Elijah said we would, because that spot on the map was incredibly confusing. As a result we ended up driving very close to Princeton University, though we never actually saw it. When we got back onto the highway it became a progressively more and more expensive toll road. We did get coffee in New Jersey also, and we almost stopped to get the boys a haircut, but we decided it was best to keep going. Elijah and I were having a good conversation that couldn't keep.

We spent a lovely mid-day in Connecticut with family for lunch, and then drove through stunning little New England towns as we made our way up through Hartford, and finally into Massachusetts and Boston.

We had dinner with family in New Hampshire. We also had coffee and drove through Portsmouth before arriving for dinner. Then much later in the night, while driving to Vermont, we got lost for a moment trying to find coffee, thinking that the exit number was enough to determine the necessary place to get off the highway.

We stayed overnight in Vermont, having driven through the whole southern mountains in the night. Even by moonlight it was beautiful, with lakes and little villages, and obviously lovely wooded hills. We only stayed for half a day before driving back into upstate New York, but Vermont is simply breath-taking, and somehow homey. I always love to visit it.

On our way from Niagara to Detroit we drove through Pennsylvania. We stopped in Erie for lunch. Then we drove along Lake Erie through Ohio, stopping several times for food and bathrooms. Both places boasted very nice people and a surprising number of colleges and universities of note. It's so clear that once upon a time the cities by the Great Lakes were very powerful centers of industry, just as the cities along the Erie Canal and the Hudson River had once been. The industrial beginnings of this country have not necessarily fared well with time. Many towns rise up in one's sight along the highways with beautiful old buildings. Buildings that no longer house the great and powerful elite who originally required that these places be built. The infrastructures are falling apart, the streets hold more potholes than people, and the businesses that put these places on the map have either shrunk or been forgotten. Williamsburg and Fort Pulaski reenact the past in costumes and teach of a time before the industrial revolution at the beginning of the country, or in the struggles of the early years, but the manufacturing cities and shipping yards of the founding industries don't yet claim enough historical significance to warrant a lucrative tourist trade. Only time will tell whether places like Syracuse or Detroit can become a fascination for tourists based on the powerful markets they once represented. Perhaps someday the Erie Canal will have mule barge reenactments, where you can spend a week pulling a barge up the canal as part of an industrial experiential vacation.

The country is a very big place. For all of the sites we have seen there are, every day, another hundred or so that we pass up. One could spend years wandering the United States and never run out of new sites to see. And so I wanted to just give a nod to those states we have passed by with little more than a thought for how to get through them and on to the next state. Someday perhaps we will stop in Cleveland and see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Perhaps like our babysitter Melissa just did, one of our kids will choose to go to college in the Mid West, and we will find ourselves visiting a city we never thought we would get a chance to know. For now these places will have to remain simply interchanges in our memory. Some of them the kids didn't even look up from what they were doing in time to see. Some of them they slept through.