Sweet Home Chicago

I have made it back to Chicago. It was a grueling three days of traveling, especially after I ran out of downloaded podcasts by lunchtime yesterday. However, it was also an amazing drive. We really do live in a magnificent country. For reasons that are more than coincidence, it seems that some of our most unpopulated states are also some of the most beautiful.

One observation that I saved for this last post was that if I had done this roadtrip in Europe, the drive from Chicago to Sorrento is about the same distance as Edinburgh to Istanbul. In Europe, I would have passed through 11 countries that speak more than 11 distinct languages. However, in North America, I only passed through two countries and only encountered one language the whole time. While this is largely due to to the unfortunate (historical) American belief in "Manifest Destiny," the scale and size of the United States and Canada really is breathtaking.

Anyway, here's the final stretch of my drive:


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When I got up in the morning in Sioux Falls, I decided that I had time to stop by the falls on the Big Sioux River. It was strange seeing a waterfall in a park in the downtown of a small city. But, apparently, it was even stranger a few hundred years ago for European settlers to encounter a waterfall in the middle of the prairie. Other than this attraction, Sioux Falls didn't have a ton going on. It's the corporate headquarters for CitiBank, which I already knew from mailing in credit card bills every month. The city has also been growing a lot every year, but they still have less than a quarter of a million people in the town.






As you could see from the map above, Sioux Falls is right by the border into Minnesota. When I entered the state, I decided it would be appropriate to listen to Dylan albums across the entire state, since that's where he's from. This was a good strategy since, as I mentioned earlier, I was running dangerously low on podcasts. I had already listened to about 15 episodes of Car Talk, the new This American Life episodes since I was on the farm, all of my RadioLab episodes, and 6 months of fiction readings from The New Yorker. Everyone who was big into roadtrips recommended books on tape for my trip--now I understand the advice. When you're along in the car for many, many hours, it's nice to hear human voices rather than the same songs over and over again. Car Talk from NPR was probably the best show for this, because the entire show is basically a series of genial conversations in which you feel involved.

At lunchtime, I stopped in LaCrosse, Wisconsin for a bite to eat and then continued on to Madison, Wisconsin to meet up with an old friend from college. It was really nice to see her--we talked about what we're up to now, reminisced about college, and took a walk through her neighborhood. LaCrosse and Madison were both really nice towns, and really close to Chicago. I think I'd like to go back in the near future to spend some more time there.

After driving the 4960 miles, the last part of my journey was to offset the carbon that I had my car pump into the air on the drive. I know carbon offset calculations are supposed to be somewhat dubious, but it seemed hypocritical to spend three weeks working on an organic farm and enjoying the natural beauty of British Columbia without doing this. It was less than 20 dollars to offset all 5,000 by funding reforestation efforts around the world. Reforestation seemed appropriate after seeing all of the logging that was going on up in Canada.

The last thing I thought I might reflect on was whether this roadtrip was the adventure I wanted it to be. Whether I learned what I wanted to learn, experience what I wanted to experience, see what I wanted to see. Ira Glass had a great quotation about roadtrips in Episode 102 from This American Life, but I'm not sure I agree with it anymore:

"Any roadtrip is going to feel longer than you think it will. And you'll be tired and you won't get a meal exactly when you're hungry, you never find a bed exactly when you want to go to sleep, and you're probably not going to find out what it is you got on the road to find out in the first place. And you know that--you know all that going into it. And you still, we all still, buy into the cliché about roadtrips: that what a roadtrip stands for is hope. That somewhere, anywhere, is better than here. That somewhere, on the road, I will turn into the person that I want to be. I'll turn into the person that I believe I could be, that I am. And, come Memorial Day, we hit the road, you and me, and a whole great nation, with high hopes and new expectations for the future."

You see, my problem with this quotation is that, for the most part, I did eat when I was hungry, I did sleep when I was tired, and I did find out what it is I was hoping to find out on this roadtrip in the first place. Though, to be fair, the one night that I didn't get a meal when I wanted one, I got pretty crabby. Kristin can attest to that... But, despite the fact that not every roadtrip can live up to the cliché, the American fantasy of the open road, this particular journey was exactly what I hoped it would be, and, before I even got home, I was thinking about where I'd like to drive next.

And with that, I am signing off. Thank you all for reading. I have found that the process of documenting my experiences has been a fulfilling one. Hopefully my journal entries have been worthwhile to you as well.