Day 28: Driving Down the Clock

So I’ve come to the almost end of the journey. I’m due to hand back the keys of the car (I won’t yet commit to the car still being the Dodge by then) to Hertz at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Monday morning at 7am. Until then however, I must finish out the days with as much as I can pack in. I’d already provided for so-called “buffer days” in the schedule which allowed me the flexibility to stay extra nights in different cities depending on how things were going or how tired I was etc. However I am ahead of myself (as usual) and now faced with an uncertain path. I woke this morning in Northern Detroit and for the first time in as many days, decided to have a little lay in. I didn’t rush out of bed or think immediately that I have to be somewhere because the truth is, I’ve more or less accomplished what I set out to do. If you look at the map, I’m about 4 hours drive from Chicago with 4 days to go. So what should I do? Where should I go? The answer is I’m not entirely sure. My contingency planning allowed for a rather ambitious trip around some other states in the mid-east of the country which served to really only increase the tally of states I’ve visited. Aside from New England I’ve got a pretty impressive score, save for a few severely land-locked states in the centre of the USA (and the two states which are impossible to visit by car for most of the time, Hawaii and Alaska).

I decided in the end to go with the flow. I had intended going into Detroit to check out the city, but I had no real desire to explore the city. And so as I set off from the hotel, I didn’t really know where the Dodge would take me. Detroit is a funny city, perhaps in some part it’s because Michigan is a funny state. Detroit’s past is colourful, and much has been made of the city’s attempts at renewal where the core of the downtown district is undergoing a face-lift in an attempt to relaunch the city. Movies have mocked the city, most notably the Robocop series which called it ‘Old Detroit’ in favour of the new metropolis which would be built by the corporation – Delta City. In the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy, Detroit is referenced highly and featured extensively in the opening scenes of the first movie. Detroit is the home of the automobile in America, with all three of the major manufacturers being based here; General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. The term ‘motor city’ was coined in reference to the influence on employment these three companies had in the past. This was colloquially adopted in the music scene in the 1960s and 1970s as ‘MoTown’ to describe the movements of some of music history’s most famous acts. In more recent times, the movie ‘8 Mile’ starring controversial “rapper” Marshall Bruce Mathers II (or ‘Eminem’ as he’s more commonly known) was based on the young Mr. Mathers’ childhood growing up on the “tough streets” of Detroit. Indeed they still are tough streets as I drove down part of 8 Mile Road this morning. Further into Detroit I saw little improvement. The city more closely resembles a ghost town. At that hour of the day, about 11am, few people walked the sidewalks. I’m not entirely sure what everyone was doing, but it was almost surreal. Unlike most other cities I’ve been to, the downtown area doesn’t have tall skyscrapers around every corner. The skyline is dominated by the GM towers but beyond that and much closer to the ground, much of the buildings and architecture are older, predominately red brick and sadly mostly derelict or in a state of advanced disrepair. There are the usual state buildings which are constructed of limestone and other materials found in most if not all public buildings, but between them and the rest of the city, lies the evidence of a very neglected past. To be fair, I didn’t spend much if any time around the city, and I must admit to not getting out of the car at any point, instead opting to drive around. In truth, nothing really compelled me to stop and walk around – I felt uncertain and to some extent, unsafe, in this strangely quiet and sparsely populated city. It’s sad to see a city in such a state of decay. I’m sure the efforts of rejuvination are bearing some fruit, but on the whole I came away with an analysis of the city needing at least two generations to repair itself – largely due to the re-population and the volume of work necessary to complete the task.

Shortly after driving around the city I decided to head further south. Toledo seemed like a good stopping point, just across the border in Ohio, a state I’d not visited and interestingly the state to which the first car, the beloved Ford Fusion, was registered. Along the way the maiden of Starbucks called to me and I answered, but after about an hour I was parked on a street in Toledo, Ohio. Here again however, I was confounded by a genuine concern that I was missing something. Walking around Toledo I couldn’t help but notice, there were no people. I did however observe some of the most widespread parking lots I’ve ever seen in a city – almost all of which were operated by the same company and each one was pretty full. Honestly, I lost count of the number of lots I saw, but suffice it is to say, there were many of them. And while all these cars were surely not there by accident and were driven there by at least one occupant, I could only surmise that the entire population were working in the buildings that to me, looked empty. It really was surreal. There were no tourists, nor were there any signs of tourism active an present in the city – no marketing and to be frank, nothing stood out as appealing from a restaurant or store point of view. Yelp provided me with an option of ‘Pam’s Corner’ which supposedly served some good food, but after eventually finding it closed for the day because of ‘maintenance’ I walked back to the car. What I did notice was an extremely beautiful courthouse and also a very impressive public library, the likes of which every city should have. I’m certain no such public library exists in Ireland to this scale or modernity, and I was heartened to see it filled with people taking an active part in the knowledge chain – so much of the commentary in America is about the ‘uninformed’ and yet here, I could see people taking it upon themselves to do that.

Back at the car, I was still uncertain of my plans. I decided to head south toward Dayton, and contemplated visiting Columbus, but as I went further south, the sky darkened with rain-soaked clouds and after checking the weather ahead, I decided to veer west toward Indiana and avoid the rain – such is my general fear and hatred of precipitation. I pulled in to check the maps and figured out that I should probably do a figure of eight pattern in the coming days. I had intended visiting St. Louis, Missouri and Louisville, Kentucky on this ‘additional trip’ but the weather forced me to do this in reverse, which I quite like as it means I may cross over somewhere I’ve already been. I genuinely considered driving all the way to St. Louis today, but the distance and ETA put me off, and so instead I decided to go toward Indianapolis, Indiana. But a check of the hotels there proved fruitless and frankly expensive. I pulled over to grab some food at this point, observing that it was about 6pm. After a rather odd combination of fried chicken and poached eggs where hashbrowns, cheese and bacon were all married together, I ate an indulgent dessert and went back outside filled with satisfaction, a great deal of sugar and a pinch of regret. By the time I approached Indianapolis however I was unsure of what I should do. Looking again at the maps and hotels, I decided the best thing to do would be to continue along the current path and stop half-way between St. Louis and Indianapolis. This allows me to take advantage of keen hotel prices and also, given I slept in this morning in Detroit, I could afford a few more hours behind the wheel. To be honest the trip was pretty boring save for the constant stream of road works, until the GPS threw its only second curveball of this entire trip. There was an incident earlier in the week where it led me astray in Washington D.C. while searching for a gas station, but this time it meant business. The hotel I’d booked was supposed to be in Effingham, Illinois, which I deemed to be half way between St. Louis and Indianapolis. But thanks to Hotels.com’s loose affiliation with distance, I was actually staying about 20 miles north of Effingham, off the interstate. The Garmin however wanted to go the quickest way, which involved some rather hairy back roads. In fairness it was a nice diversion, but the darkness didn’t help. I did see two young deer so I guess those signs along the road can be right sometimes, and I did also have to drive about 5 miles on rough aggregate, the result of an early-stage resurfacing attempt – which was also fun in a car with a pretty raucous ability to handle changing road conditions. Up through the ‘small towns’ that Jerry in Las Vegas was talking about, I was glad I wasn’t staying in a city tonight, instead the small town of Mattoon, Illinois will do very nicely. Tomorrow St. Louis (primarily for some barbecue ribs) and then who knows! The rough plan is to head south maybe as far as Memphis, Tennessee and then up through Louisville to get in Kentucky and possibly from there via Columbus or Indianapolis and hopefully more north toward Wisconsin before going back to Chicago on Sunday morning. This should be interesting!