Oct. 7
The road was damp, a light mist was falling and a sigh escaped from my lips at 6:35 a.m. when I pulled out of Smitty’s parking lot all geared up for road knows what. If East means home, West means wanderlust.
Leaving Wayland and heading to Wayland. If Dorothy was right and “there’s no place like home,” I guess I was going find out how far this adage can be pushed.
Before my thoughts of “what am I doing?” could gel, I was turning onto the all too familiar four lane New York exit strategy that Route 17 is. This route has always been the “birth canal” of my many westward adventures and I know it like the back of my brain.
Over the decades, this newly christened Interstate 86 (rumor has it that the feds took it over so they would have jurisdiction of this highway to allow them to stop Seneca Indians from repeating a tire burning protest that shut Route 17 down in 1997) has been redone and what a relief. Though there are still a few obnoxious sections, mostly gone are the miles and miles of mind jarring ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bumps we exit-ers had to put up when 17 was wholly a concrete highway.
When I first hit the radio’s scan button at mile 110 (which will happen hundreds of times on such a trip) I could only smile when Steppenwolf’s “get your motor running” lyrics came out of the speakers.
A traditional stop to gas up at the Indian owned Salamanca gas station (though the price wasn’t the once 20 cents or so cheaper of before) and the Welcome to Pennsylvania border sign flew into view at mile 148. A beautiful line of blue sky colored the view at mile 154 and my faith in weatherfolk was renewed from their promised forecast of sun for the rest of the day.
I am going to try my hardest to stay away from super slabs as much as possible on this trip, small town America and the secondary and back roads the gist of the inspiration mill as it were. But, getting to Michigan from home on the first day of this long plotted and not really thought out trip meant I wanted to put serious miles under my belted tires the first day to give it the reality that I was actually on my way. So, I cheated a bit to get through PA and Cleveland.
PA is a beautiful first cousin to we western NY-ers since it shares that whole glacial created landscape thing, but once into it I rolled onto I-90 for the 44 plus miles it takes to cross the land it grabbed from NY to lay claim to some Lake Erie shoreline and the city that shares the lake’s name. This shortish means of entering and exiting a state that adds to the tally of states one covers on a trip is bested only by the mercifully quick jaunt to claim Texas by way of the panhandle (if you haven’t traveled from Houston to El Paso several times – you can’t imagine the boredom of singing “I saw miles and miles of Texas” for hours and hours).
The Buckeye State took over I-90 at mile 192.5 and Commander Cody’s “Hot Rod Lincoln” blared away just outside Cleveland before I lost this station. The scan stopped at Mexican Radio (the most easterly point I have ever heard one) and the sounds of an accordion-based love song wafted my way.
I popped onto Route 20 (the same as in NY---Route 20 runs across the country from Boston, Mass. to Newport, Ore.) outside of Sansdusky on the way to Toledo and the Michigan border. I saw some photo ops, but the only one that really begged for a stop was the above Speed Trap Diner with the old cop car on top.
Hit Michigan at mile 396 and started to see NY town names fairly quickly. Palmyra, Batavia, East Leroy, Albion made me shake my head in wonder as to whether they were first populated by NY-ers or if coincidence was in play.
As will happen, I missed carefully written down turns, but the drive through Battle Creek wasn’t bad considering all the cereal boxes I had read in my youth. Serendipity in direction is the key to a good drive-about.
Like in Ohio, corn and soybeans were being harvested and the back roads were filled with grain trucks loading at the field and crowding the highways on their way to the big elevators that dotted Michigan and Ohio.
My goofed up directions didn’t stop me from using the old trick of keeping the sun to my right (west—heading north) and I finally found my way to Wayland Township (mile 550), Route 131 and the Brikcrete Motel and the day’s end.
Leaving Wayland and heading to Wayland. If Dorothy was right and “there’s no place like home,” I guess I was going find out how far this adage can be pushed.
Before my thoughts of “what am I doing?” could gel, I was turning onto the all too familiar four lane New York exit strategy that Route 17 is. This route has always been the “birth canal” of my many westward adventures and I know it like the back of my brain.
Over the decades, this newly christened Interstate 86 (rumor has it that the feds took it over so they would have jurisdiction of this highway to allow them to stop Seneca Indians from repeating a tire burning protest that shut Route 17 down in 1997) has been redone and what a relief. Though there are still a few obnoxious sections, mostly gone are the miles and miles of mind jarring ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bumps we exit-ers had to put up when 17 was wholly a concrete highway.
When I first hit the radio’s scan button at mile 110 (which will happen hundreds of times on such a trip) I could only smile when Steppenwolf’s “get your motor running” lyrics came out of the speakers.
A traditional stop to gas up at the Indian owned Salamanca gas station (though the price wasn’t the once 20 cents or so cheaper of before) and the Welcome to Pennsylvania border sign flew into view at mile 148. A beautiful line of blue sky colored the view at mile 154 and my faith in weatherfolk was renewed from their promised forecast of sun for the rest of the day.
I am going to try my hardest to stay away from super slabs as much as possible on this trip, small town America and the secondary and back roads the gist of the inspiration mill as it were. But, getting to Michigan from home on the first day of this long plotted and not really thought out trip meant I wanted to put serious miles under my belted tires the first day to give it the reality that I was actually on my way. So, I cheated a bit to get through PA and Cleveland.
PA is a beautiful first cousin to we western NY-ers since it shares that whole glacial created landscape thing, but once into it I rolled onto I-90 for the 44 plus miles it takes to cross the land it grabbed from NY to lay claim to some Lake Erie shoreline and the city that shares the lake’s name. This shortish means of entering and exiting a state that adds to the tally of states one covers on a trip is bested only by the mercifully quick jaunt to claim Texas by way of the panhandle (if you haven’t traveled from Houston to El Paso several times – you can’t imagine the boredom of singing “I saw miles and miles of Texas” for hours and hours).
The Buckeye State took over I-90 at mile 192.5 and Commander Cody’s “Hot Rod Lincoln” blared away just outside Cleveland before I lost this station. The scan stopped at Mexican Radio (the most easterly point I have ever heard one) and the sounds of an accordion-based love song wafted my way.
I popped onto Route 20 (the same as in NY---Route 20 runs across the country from Boston, Mass. to Newport, Ore.) outside of Sansdusky on the way to Toledo and the Michigan border. I saw some photo ops, but the only one that really begged for a stop was the above Speed Trap Diner with the old cop car on top.
Hit Michigan at mile 396 and started to see NY town names fairly quickly. Palmyra, Batavia, East Leroy, Albion made me shake my head in wonder as to whether they were first populated by NY-ers or if coincidence was in play.
As will happen, I missed carefully written down turns, but the drive through Battle Creek wasn’t bad considering all the cereal boxes I had read in my youth. Serendipity in direction is the key to a good drive-about.
Like in Ohio, corn and soybeans were being harvested and the back roads were filled with grain trucks loading at the field and crowding the highways on their way to the big elevators that dotted Michigan and Ohio.
My goofed up directions didn’t stop me from using the old trick of keeping the sun to my right (west—heading north) and I finally found my way to Wayland Township (mile 550), Route 131 and the Brikcrete Motel and the day’s end.