Stories from the Road (1)

Here’s the next in the “Sunday Story” series.  This is about four guys seeing the country for the first time.

Road Trip

Four twenty-something teacher/coaches rent a van and drive across America.  What could possibly go wrong?  

It was 1982, a time in high school athletics when summer meant vacation.  It was before camps and pre-season conditioning, summer programs and Junior Olympic competitions.  When school was out for the kids, it was out for the coaches as well, at least until August 1^st.  And for two football coaches, a basketball coach and a track/cross country coach from Pataskala, Ohio; it was time to hit the road.

Our Itinerary

We rented a van for a month, and packed it with our stuff:  clothes, camping gear (I think we used the tent twice), and beer, lots of beer.  And then we headed out, on the road with no particular deadlines.  The “rules of the road” were set. Jerry drove first and I took the second shift.  That put Odell and Greg in the afternoon and evening shifts, while Jerry and I sat in the back and watched the nation go by.  We might have had a beverage or two along the way.

The goal was to cross the country – East to West, North to South.  But our itinerary also reflected our diverse interests.  Our first destination was to Detroit, to visit Jerry’s Lebanese relatives who made a special kind of amazing bread.  Then it was on across to South Bend, Indiana.  Greg wanted to see the “Touchdown Jesus” at Notre Dame’s football stadium.  Next it was Chicago, four young guys touring the big city, then onto Wisconsin, with a stop at the Wisconsin “Dells”.  The tour wasn’t much, but the “duck boats”, old World War II landing craft converted for tourist use, were pretty cool.

Wall Drug 

Interstate 90 – a very long, very flat, very empty road across the Northern Plains.  We drove across Minnesota, then into South Dakota.  Somewhere in the middle of that massively long state, there is a store – Wall Drug.  It’s a tourist trap, an old country store and gift shop, snack bar, truck stop, and whatever else.  You’d drive right on by if it were in Western Pennsylvania or Michigan.  But it’s not – it’s in the dead middle of South Dakota.  For hundreds of miles you’ve passed the signs – VISIT WALL DRUG – every few miles.   They often are the only thing that broke the unending horizon.  So, even though you know – you stop anyway.

Badlands and Bad Dreams

But get past Wall Drug, and on into Western South Dakota and the world gets amazing again.  The first stop was the Badlands.  We wandered around the “moonscape” hills and gullies (the Apollo astronauts actually came here to train).  And just south of the Badlands was the Ogallala Sioux Reservation.  The stark reality of what the United States did to the Native Americans was clear to see there.  They were placed on reservations that didn’t have a chance of self-sustainment – the US put them next to the Badlands.  The poverty there was very apparent.

We stayed in a hotel in Sioux City.  We were cheap, four of us in one room.  Greg and Jerry were bigger guys, Odell and I were smaller.  So Odell slept with Greg, and I slept with Jerry.  Abraham Lincoln supposedly once said, “You don’t know a man until you sleep with him”.  That was from a lawyer who rode the circuit from town to town, sleeping in taverns.  It cost extra to get a bed, even if you had to share it.

Western South Dakota is amazing, from the Badlands to Mount Rushmore to the Devil’s Tower (think Close Encounters of the Third Kind).  We hung around and explored for a couple of days, and went to a movie one night.  I remember it well, because I don’t ever watch “scary” movies.  But Poltergeist was just out – I can still remember the key line; “They’re here”.  Even with three sleeping companions very nearby, I didn’t get much rest that night.

Yellowstone and Beyond

Our next stop was to be Yellowstone National Park.  But first we had to spend the night in Bullhead, Wyoming; just a stop on the way.  There’s not much I can say good about Bullhead, we checked into the hotel, located at the bottom of a long mountain decline.  I seemed to remember we had to chase a few bugs out of the way before we got in the door.  But the beds had machines attached to them – vibrating devices that shook.  I had to know!!!  It cost a quarter, but then the machine didn’t seem to ever want to stop.  I took a lot of grief for dropping that quarter, but I’d never seen a vibrating bed before.  Luckily, we found the plug; Jerry and I didn’t want to know each other that well.

Yellowstone:  the first thing we discovered is the sheer size of the place.  There are the tourist places, Old Faithful (the geyser), the Yellowstone Falls, the “mud pots”.  But they are dozens of miles away from each other.  You have to drive to see Yellowstone, and wait in the inevitable “buffalo jams” as herds of wild buffalo meander down the same road you’re using.  We broke the tents out for the first time at Yellowstone; it was the only way to stay in the Park.

But the park is also up in the mountains, averaging over 8,000 feet.  Now I was a backpacker, and had the right kind of sleeping bag for all conditions.  But my companions, not so much.  I remember the gruff “get up” at five in the morning.  There was ice in the water, and Jerry built a dawn fire to try to get warm.  We finally got the coffee going (yep, even then we were coffee fanatics) and decided to cut our camping experience short.  It was time to move on.

Headed to Track Town

The next night was in Idaho along the Snake River valley.  It was a lot warmer, and camping was more comfortable.  We were now on our way to the West Coast.  This was my choice in the itinerary; we were headed to Eugene, Oregon, home of Oregon University and “Track Town USA” even then. 

We wandered around the famous “County Fair” track at Eugene, the home of the US Championships and Olympic Trials.  It was also the home of Steve Prefontaine, the premier US distance runner of the 1970’s who tragically in a car accident just a few years before.  That was all about my interests, it would be seventeen years before I would return to Eugene, this time with a track team in tow.

Then it was head for the coast.  Our next goal was the drive down Highway 101 – The winding two lane highway that meandered down the coast of Oregon, through the small fishing towns and across the border into California.  We stopped at the Redwood Forest, then onto Highway 1, the coastal highway that would take us to San Francisco.

Flowers in Our Hair

It was 1983, and the hippie era was over in the Bay City.   We made our way across the Golden Gate Bridge, got to our hotel, then took a cab to see the seamier side of the town, the Tenderloin.  We were the essential “boys from the Midwest” seeing the “big city”.  Our goal: to see Carol Doda, the legendary stripper who was one of the first with silicone breast implants.  

We found the “club” and were ushered to our table.  Our drink was a small water glass full of beer, and we were told that those would be kept  refilled at all times, and at $15 a glass (note: that was in 1982, and $15 would be $30 in 2021 dollars).  No one watched Carol without paying the “tab” in water glass beers.  Carol was still a legend even in 1982, but her prime was in 1965 when she was in her twenties.  We were disappointed, both by the show and the beer, and headed out to see what else San Francisco had to offer.

Taking the Tour

The next day we went to Alcatraz, just recently opened as a National Park.  Our guide was Frank, a former guard when the island was a prison in the 1940’s and 50’s.  Frank lent his personal experiences as a young guard of Al Capone and more recent interactions with actor Clint Eastwood in  the filming of the movie Escape from Alcatraz.  I’ve been back a few times since, and now the “tour” is all “canned” on headphones.  Frank is still heard in the narration, but of course, he passed away decades ago. It was very different face to face.

We did all the “tours” in San Francisco, from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Muir Woods.  I don’t remember if we ate on Fisherman’s Wharf on that trip, but on some trip I discovered a stop you need to make. It’s Neptune’s Waterfront Grill at the end of the pier.  The view is spectacular, the food is great, and while it’s not the cheapest place, the folks are friendly and it’s worth the price.

We were headed South – San Francisco was about the half way point on our great adventure.  And that’s a good place to take a break.  Come by next week for the second half of the story.

The Sunday Story Series

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road (1) – 4/11/21