Nebraska to Mohamet, Illinois

We've traveled a few weeks to come across Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois, and have found the landscape to be a lot more varied than I expected.  Each state seems to has it's own distinct character, each of which we've had several days to soak up as we ride.  We've come to the start a new chapter of the trip; The Visiting of People We Know.  We've crossed a wide part of the country where we haven't had any acquaintances, and we've arrived at the home of Megan Holland, my best friend Elliot's older sister.  In the coming weeks we'll be visiting friends and family in Chicago, Indiana, Ohio, and North Carolina.

We've been doing a fair amount of reading on the trip, some of which has seemed very relevant to the experiences we've been having of the land, the process of taking a journey, and the identity of America and Americans.  Over the next few posts we'll probably be sharing some quotes and poems from the authors we've been enjoying.  Below are some excerpts from John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, a personal account of his travels around the country in 1960 with a french poodle as a companion (followed by trip pictures!). 

-Dave

“A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperment, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”

“A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase in life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not wan to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage.”

“I know people who are so immersed in road maps that they never see the countryside they pass through, and others who, having traced a route, are held to it as though held by flanged wheels to rails. I pulled Rocinante into a small picnic area maintained by the state of Connecticut and got out my book of maps. And suddenly the United States became huge beyond belief and impossible ever to cross. I wondered how in hell I'd got myself mixed up in a project that couldn't be carried out. It was like starting to write a novel.”

Carhenge!  Say what you will about Alliance, Nebraska, but don't think that they lack in kooky art.

We saw an almost unfathomable amount of coal being moved by train in Nebraska, day and night without end.

The sand hills of Western Nebraska

Dinner time!

The Missouri

Storm clouds in Iowa

The Mississippi

Repairs?  Or wild "I am the wheel"meditation time?

Windmills in Illinois

Lots of tiny graveyards dot the countryside in Iowa and Illinois, often far from any communities.