Great American Road Trip: More road kill woes and how to clean a car

by Jamie Rhein on

The first mishap was when we nailed a possum in Illinois east of Chicago the first night of our road trip to Montana. The critter was lumbering across the interstate about 10:30 p.m. That was a sad moment.

Thursday, driving to and from Regent, North Dakota we had several sad moments. Honestly, there are some things that can’t be avoided.

I already posted about the two pheasants we hit. The chipmunk and the blackbird came later.

We didn’t hit them all at once, but over the course of several miles. Such is one of the realities of traveling on small two-lane highways–but this was ridiculous. Particularly when two raccoons made a mad dash in front of us as I was typing the previous sentence. The second one didn’t make it.

With each thump, I’m shouting out from the passenger seat, a strangled “Arggh!” Seriously, it was a nightmare. “That’s one way to damage a car,” I said.

“It’s not like I’m trying to hit them,” said my husband. It’s true, he wasn’t, and swerving too much is dangerous. He pointed out the deep ditch on the side of the road.

My son, the six-year-old wanted to stop for feathers and fur.

My daughter wanted to know why I’m making such an awful sound.

Turns out, I was onto something. While my husband was filling the gas tank in Miles City, Montana after dropping us off at a McDonald’s so our son could let off steam at the indoor playland, one of the pheasants was still with us. It had broken the grill a tad–just big enough to become wedged behind it.

Two truckers, noticing the predicament, exchanged their road kill tales with my husband and helped him figure out how to remove it. The windshield squeegee handle was somehow involved. I didn’t want the specific details.

When my husband showed up at the McDonald’s parking lot with the pheasant in a plastic bag with grand plans of showing it to our friend in Billings, I shouted, “Arggh!” and ran in the opposite direction. “No dead things in the car. Absolutely not,” I shouted from where I stood, still ready to flee if he stepped one foot closer. I hate dead things.

The pheasant was left in a garbage can in Miles City. There are a couple feathers in another bag behind the driver’s seat, but I’m trying not to think about them.

A woman told us, as she was sliding into her truck after hearing about our pheasant mishap, “Watch out for deer.”

The photo is of my son trailing his hand out the window for a moment to catch raindrops, one of the pleasant aspects of the day. Not pheasant–pleasant.

The great American road trip: Montana here we come

by Jamie Rhein on

With gas prices fluctuating between $3.95 and $4.09 in Columbus, Ohio, we’ve embarked on a road trip to Montana, cruise control set at 65 mph.

Right now we’re driving into the sunset on I-80 near Fremont, Ohio, home of Rutherford B. Hayes. My laptop is resting across my lap. We’re passing yet another white farmhouse with a barn silo. Our goal is to make it to La Quinta Inn in Madison, Wisconsin. It has a pool, WiFi and free breakfast. Wheee!

If we don’t make it, we’re out $100. It’s 8:52 p.m. If you do the math, you’ll notice that we won’t roll into the parking lot until at least 2:00.

The relatives we just left in Brunswick at a high school graduation party for one of our ten nephews gave us hugs and waved us off. “Of course, you’re driving to Madison tonight,” was the general response.

The graduation party stop, two hours after I shoved our last belonging in the car in Columbus, was a quick one-just enough time to say our congrats, have a swim in a backyard pool, eat our fill and head out.

The stop was a chance to regroup. Leaving Columbus was not the smoothest. We left pillows and umbrellas behind. By the time we made it to the entrance ramp of I-71 north, I was ready to call it quits. This was not even a mile from our house.

My mom just called to tell me the things she did that we forgot to do. Things like emptying the coffee grounds, turning on an inside light, changing the bulb of our porch light and turning that on, and watering our flowers. The neighbor kids will be by in a couple of days, but the flowers looked limp as we pulled away.

But, we are off in our Ford Taurus station wagon with a new set of rear brakes and an oil change. This car has made the trip two other times, the first time all the way to California and onto New York when our son was a year and a half and our daughter was ten.

This time we have broken our no DVD player stance. Our son is watching Chicken Little, but he had to wait to be plugged in until we left Brunswick and turned onto the highway. The idea is to parcel it out so he’ll notice the scenery and we can visit which is part of the purpose of a road trip.

Tomorrow, we’ll be in Minneapolis, the city filled with outdoor art, visiting two sets of friends. One set who used to live on our street before we moved to Taiwan. Their son was our daughter’s best friend when they were five.

The other set was friends of ours in Singapore. Back when we hung out together, they were kid-less and so were we. We spent one Christmas together hiking between Jomsom and Pokhara, Nepal.

Catching up with friends we haven’t seen for awhile is another road trip purpose. As a person who has had a life of travel and moving, these visits offer me some sense of continuity.

But, for now we’re floating on the highway, the sun is gone and the moon is up, a crescent in front of us—good company for a night of driving. [The photo is what Chicago looks like at 1:00 a.m. I would have taken the photo myself but I was in a road-hashed stupor. This shot is of evanembee’s view from his condo.]

Another reason why flying is frustrating and driving is a plus

by Jamie Rhein on

When I lived in Albuquerque, going to New York to visit family meant flying there. It’s too far to drive for a quick trip. Then, when I moved to Singapore from Albuquerque, flying was a definite must. The first time I visited New York after moving to Ohio, my brother asked me in a phone conversation, “So what time is your flight?”

‘We’re driving,” I said.

“Oh, that’s right. It seems weird that you’re driving.”

It did seem weird, but what a relief to not be rushing out of the house to try to catch a flight. When the car is loaded, we go. If we forget something and remember it by the time we get to the highway, we go back and get it. If we leave by 9 a.m., we arrive (with stops for a sit down lunch and gas) about eleven hours later. Along the way, we can see where we are going and know what has passed behind us.

There is such freedom in driving knowing that one can control time variables–unless of course, there is road construction or a wreck that slows down progress.

My dad about an upcoming trip that has reminded me, once again, why we’ve decided to drive to Montana this summer. In May, my dad is flying to Albuquerque from New York on a vacation, and he just received notice from Delta that his 6:40 a.m. flight is now at 6:00 a.m. His new departure time means a three-hour wait in Atlanta. As he said, “You can’t count on airlines when you’re making plans.” Because he has to drive a couple hours to the airport, this earlier flight is not welcome.

The unforeseen travel circumstances because of flying is one reason we’re getting our car tuned up and relying on our own volition to go from point A to point B during our summer trip. Flights have gone up in cost. Baggage costs more and delays are almost guaranteed. The past two years, we’ve flown, but it doesn’t seem worth it.

One beauty of driving is that we get to choose the places we may want to hang out for three hours or so to break up the scenery. My choice is an historic site over an airport. We’ll depart when we leave, and we will arrive when we get there. We can chose our route. Simple. We don’t charge extra for more luggage either.

The thing about driving, though, is that you have to have enough time to get there. We have the time and have friends we can stay with along the way to cut down on motel costs. Sometimes, you have to fly. In that case, make sure you check your departure time. It may be earlier than you think.

Check Flight Arrivals.com. It’s a Web site that lists the commercial flight schedules in the U.S. and Canada.

CNN reporter and business travel expert gets caught with meth in Central Park

by Jamie Rhein on

When we were in Montana two summers ago, I noticed anti-meth billboards everywhere. The billboards were part of a media blitz to get teens and adults to not start this dreadful drug habit that rots teeth, creates pock marks and wastes away ones body and mind. For people hooked on methamphetamine, the aim was to get them unhooked. In the small town in Montana where we go each year, I have known people who showed the signs of being addicts, and it wasn’t pretty.

According to this Billings Gazette news story from last September, the media blitz has worked and meth use is down more than 50% in Montana. With the news stories about the hazards of meth use that have appeared, it always surprises me to find out when prominent people with much to lose dabble in the stuff. Such is the case with Richard Quest, a CNN International reporter.

Quest, who hosts “Business Traveler” and another program called “Quest,” was in New York City’s Central Park at 3:40 a.m. this morning and was arrested, according to this New York Times tidbit. You aren’t supposed to be in Central Park after 1 a.m. or before 6 a.m. That’s one no-no. The other no-no involves the Ziploc bag with meth in it that Quest had in his pocket. These two missteps have him facing drug charges. He did say the meth was in his pocket before the police found it.

Since methamphetamine is not particularly helpful in the long run for travelers–it may keep you feeling peppy for awhile, but can lead to memory loss and a myriad of other woes, I wonder what Quest was thinking. Not to mention that having a drug record gets in the way of travel to the United States. Quest is British. Look at Amy Winehouse who couldn’t attend the Grammy Awards.

Either life as a prominent CNN reporter is not as terrific as it looks and makes chilling out difficult, or it helps one lose track of common sense. Or, I have no idea. And one more thing. What was Quest thinking when he headed into Central Park in the wee hours of the morning? That’s nuts. Doesn’t he pay attention to the news?

Wolves: Oscar winning material and no longer endangered

by Jamie Rhein on

At the end of this year’s Oscar winner for Short Film–Animated, “Peter and the Wolf,” the wolf goes free even after he made Peter not too happy. (Sorry if that ruins it for anyone.) The tolerance for the wolf is one that has been hard won.

Tolerance hasn’t been totally won, although, through the Endangered Species Act, government regulations have helped the gray wolf population grow in the Northern Rocky States. The population has grown so much that Interior Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett said the gray wolf is a “conservation success story.” For this reason, the wolf is being dropped from the list of endangered species, perhaps never to return.

When we went to Yellowstone National Park a few years ago, we did catch site of a gray wolf, one of the animals we were looking for. Unfortunately, wolves like to eat livestock, so farmers and ranchers in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming aren’t thrilled with wolves who encroach on what they rely on for a living.

The wolf saga is an example of the push and pull between environmentalism and business. The tourist industry doesn’t have much pull in this battle, but maybe the wolves will get a hint that hanging around Old Faithful isn’t a bad idea.