John Mellencamp – Pink Houses (Ain’t that America)
Louisiana
So if you’ve read many of my recent essays, you know that my wife Jenn has taken in a “rehab” dog, Louisiana. Lou was rescued from Baton Rouge with two broken legs and a dislocated hip. A team from Lost Pet Recovery, the group that Jenn and I volunteer with, went down to pick him up. OSU veterinary care patched him up, with a plate in one leg and hip relocation surgery, and now he’s doing his second “rehab” stint here at our house.
Lou’s up early, and needs his “big” walk of the day as part of the rehab. Then he takes a bunch of drugs to keep him quiet so he can heal. It takes a while for him to settle down again and he needs company. We’ve turned Jenn’s office into his rehab facility, and we take turns “hangin’ with Lou on the daily shifts. He wants us there, you can tell from the Cajun accented howls if we leave too soon.
But it’s a good time to get some writing done. I’m sitting here in Jenn’s office at 5:30 in the morning, staring at her map of the United States on the wall. There are pushpins in all of the places she’s gone. Most of them we’ve visited together. There are pins up the coast of California, from LA to San Francisco from when Jenn, our son Joe and I drove the Pacific Coast Highway through Big Sur. We made it to Yosemite National Park on the trip as well.
Packed with Stars
The first night near Yosemite we stayed at a hotel just outside of the Park. Yosemite National Park is huge; maybe thirty miles from the Park entrance to Yosemite Valley and the amazing waterfalls and cliffs. The hotel was “rustic”; it kind of had that old summer camp look. It was somewhere my Dad would have taken us on a road trip back in the early 1960’s with rough pine log beds and wood paneled walls.
We arrived there with a couple of steaks we picked up in a little town called Manteca on the way over from San Francisco. That was our stop to do some laundry and shopping. We also brought some bottles of wine from the Hearst Castle winery in San Simeon just south of Big Sur.
After grilling steaks, potatoes and green beans, and knocking back a couple of bottles of Chardonnay, Jenn, Joey and I decided to climb “the mountain” behind the hotel. It was really a hill; we were already in the mountains. But our adventure led us to the stars of Yosemite, far away from the city lights. It was amazing, from the Milky Way to the constellations to the planets: stars packed the sky from horizon to horizon.
We woke up slow the next morning, sore from the stumbling journey back down, and from the chardonnay as well. We would see Half Dome, Bridal Veil Falls, El Capitan and Glacier Peak, that next day, and they were amazing. But nothing was quite as striking as all those stars, up on the hill above the camp just outside the Park.
Solitary Drive
There’s another pushpin in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jenn and I, and Dash and Buddy, our two dogs at the time, drove out to Telluride, Colorado, to visit my sister and brother-in-law. We travelled out through Missouri, Kansas and Colorado, but decided to return on the “Southern Route” through New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma.
So we drove out of Western Colorado, past ancient Mesa Verde and into the high desert Navajo Country in New Mexico. We made the long empty drive down US 550 diagonally through the plateau country, from Farmington to Albuquerque. It was empty land on an empty road, dry red high country. It was remarkable for it’s quiet solitude, as if no one had walked those hills before.
We stopped at a gas station in the middle of the journey, the only stop for a hundred miles. The blaring heavy metal rock coming through speakers in the store contrasted with the ultimate quiet of the squared off mountains all around. The kids working the store seemed surprised by the interruption – a customer they didn’t know. But they were polite, and directed us to the Port-a-Potty in the back.
Twelve Hours
And there’s a pushpin in one of our “go to” places, Pensacola, just twelve hours from gray Pataskala winter to the white beach and sun. It’s a fun town, part beach, part Navy, part Southern charm and part New Orleans.
There’s a park nearby, just across the state line, the Alabama Gulf State Park. The Lodge there is isolated on the beach, half a mile from the next nearest structure. The hotel is wonderful, the Gulf of Mexico just outside the room windows. You can sit on the balcony and watch the waves come in. And while the restaurant is a little “too” gourmet for our taste, there are plenty of other places to eat not too far away.
That was the last trip we took, just a couple weeks before the world changed with COVID.
Just Folks
In all of those places, from Big Sur to Yosemite, Telluride to Albuquerque, Pensacola to Gulf Shores: no one ever asked if we were Democrat or Republican. We were all just “folks”, enjoying the scenery, the food, the life and the people of those very different places.
So when I get too wrapped up in the politics of the moment, on what damage might be left to do before this President leaves office, and how my family, friends and neighbors will react to our shockingly fragile government and life, I think back on that map, and Jenn’s pushpins. It’s still an amazing country, with lots to see. When COVID is over, and maybe our politics get back to “normal”(whatever that might be now); there’s Boston and Seattle, back to New York, and maybe Big Bend National Park way down in Texas. There’s a lot of America to see, and Americans to meet. And maybe we can all be just “folks” again.
I’m looking forward to that.
