Roadtripping

Some random observations after out trip:

Roads: Obviously an important component of a road trip. It's amazing the thousands of miles of paved road in this country, from turnpikes to scenic routes. In particular, the opportunity we had in Wisconsin and Michigan to travel some very beautiful two-lane roads with hardly any other traffic made for an enjoyable trip.

On the turnpikes and interstates, however, there was an amazing amount of work being done, though none of it really slowed us down. It's probably good that this much upkeep is going on.

The only real problem we had was Chicago, which was the most horrific traffic experience of my life. It took us fully four hours to get through Chicago. Freeway traffic leading into what we have since learned is an infamous interchange known as the Circle was at a virtual standstill. After an hour of crawling only a couple of miles, we saw an electronic sign that time to the Circle, just a mile away and almost visible, was 22 minutes, so we opted to take a free lane to get off the freeway. However, every other route was similarly jammed.

Not only was it Friday the 13th in early rush hour traffic punctuated by cloudbursts of rain, it was also the middle of Taste of Chicago. But, we were told afterwards, traffic at the Circle and in Chicago in general is always terrible. It's a shame. I've always had Chicago in mind as a great city to live in, but you'd have to be crazy to put with traffic like that. There's no excuse for inadequate infrastructure like that. It may be stupidity or incompetence, but I have to suspect it is simply corruption that accounts for lack of adequate planning. My brother said no one has any money to build new infrastructure and my retort -- unfair to him but part of my general frustration with our misguided political priorities -- was, Is that because we're such a poor country? The answer, obviously, is no, but way too much money has gone to making some people super-rich at the expense of a huge economic inefficiency that afflicts the millions of Chicagoans who have no choice but to put with hours lost in traffic.

Bottom line for me: Avoid Chicago like the plague. Don't drive near it or through it. I don't even want to fly in and out because of the traffic to and from the airport. It may well be a great city, but I can live without it.

Food: This may turn into another rant, but I'll try to keep it short. For whatever progress is being made in some trendy cities toward healthier eating, the food available to the traveler is by and large execrable. That fact lays bare the reality that except for those privileged enough to afford alternatives, industrial food production is the only choice for most people.

So dinner our first night at was at Roy Rogers at a rest stop. Our mantra was it keeps body and soul together, but in fact it is a bit soul-killing to eat food that bad. The rest stops in Pennsylvania and particularly in Ohio are new, modern, clean, efficient. But the ubiquitous fast food outlets are hopeless.

Things aren't much better elsewhere with bread, potatoes, grease and fat an important part of every oversized meal. Aside from the great but hugely expensive meal at L'Etoile, the best meal for me (aside from Darras's excellent grilling at the RV) was the fish boil in Door County, a refreshingly simple and hugely inexpensive meal. As I detail elsewhere, the food at Vinology was too gussied up to be completely enjoyable. By far the worst restaurant meal was the one on Mackinac Island at the Gatehouse, which is supposedly affiliated with the Grand Hotel. They should be ashamed of themselves and I would never trust them for anything after the poor excuse for a brisket sandwich they gave to us.

Global climate change: Visible everywhere in the dead grass and stunted crops brought on by a drought that has made one-third of the country an emergency area. Killing heat that limits normal recreation. Climate change deniers are in the same category as Holocaust deniers, imho.

A gloomy post, I guess. In spite of my reservations about this and that, however, it was a great road trip.