Great American Road Trip: Travel books for the road. 1 of 4: Sun After Dark

by Jamie Rhein on

I’m one of those people who haul books when I travel. I am ambitious, imagining hours of page turning. Usually, though, I barely crack a book. One advantage of riding in a car across a good portion of the United States, as I have recently experienced on my family’s road trip to Montana, is the hours for reading.

There are miles and miles and miles between Ohio and Montana, particularly if you head north to take in North Dakota.

On the way back, Iowa can feel endless. Indiana–dreadful. (Not to put down those lovely states, but at the end of a trip, even with stops, they seem bigger than they are.) As wonderful as scenery is, a book helps move the pavement along, particularly if the book is written by a person who is also on a journey. I brought four such books on my cross-country jaunt and recommend each of them. In the next three days, I’ll be posting on each one.

Here is the first one. I read this one through Minnesota and North Dakota.

Sun After Dark: Flights into the Foreign—Pico Iyer

An excerpt: “We travel most, I mean to say, when we stumble, and we stumble most when we come to a place of poverty and need (like Haiti, perhaps, or Cambodia): and what we find in such confounding places, often, is that it is the sadness that makes the sunshine more involving or, as often, that it is the spirit and optimism of the place that make the difficulties more haunting.”

Pico Iyer is one of my favorite travel writers and this book of essays does not disappoint. As he explains in the first essay, “The Place Across the Mountains,” the book is a result of his desire to travel to some of the poorest corners in the world in order to shed light on their importance and as well as add to the understanding about what poverty means.

Lest you think that this is a depressing missive that will leave you weeping over your backpack or pull-behind suitcase, chastising yourself for the delight you feel about your own travels when parts of the world have such problems, this is not the case. Iyer’s lyric quality is luminous in its prose and if nothing else, gives the awareness to the reader that hope prevails.

Sun After Dark makes a worthy book for the road because each essay is a stand alone piece. This means that if you put it down for a few days, you won’t feel lost when you pick it up again. The culmination of the essays as a group offers a variety of Iyer’s experiences that range from the fantastic to the simple.

It’s also a good book to share. Once on our trip, my husband didn’t have the books he was reading with him. I handed him this one because he could read an essay or two and it wouldn’t interrupt the flow of the other books he wanted to finish before embarking on another one.

One of the sections that hit a high mark on the unusual travel experiences spectrum is Iyer’s account of his visit to a Bolivian prison. Since Iyer had seen all that he had set out to see, more or less, the prison was at the tail end of his trip. This was one of those ideas that after wards makes one think, “What was I thinking?”

Also enjoyable are Iyer’s in depth accounts of his visit with the Dalai Lama and his time at the same Zen retreat center as Leonard Cohen. Along with the descriptions of the settings are insights into the workings of these men and Iyer’s own musings about how he fits into the scheme of existence.

As usual, no matter where Iyer goes, he sees the wonder and the beauty of humanity, even in those places that are troubling. This is a book to read if you like to think about where you are traveling, as well as, the mysteries and nuances of life.

Great American Road Trip: St. Cloud, Minnesota, yak meat and Hoopers’ Christmas Tree Farm

by Jamie Rhein on

When we pulled into the driveway of our friends’ house in St. Cloud, Minnesota, as part of our Great American Road trip to Montana, we didn’t have any plans except to visit. The last time we saw them was at our house in Columbus, and since then they had moved from State College, Pennsylvania to St. Cloud.

As with any visit, there’s always something new to find out. about the town where friends land. People who live there know the insider info that may not show up in a guidebook. Such was the case when I found out were were having yak meat for dinner.

I’ve been to Nepal where yaks seem as common as cows. While there, I never had yak meat. As it turns out Hoopers’ Christmas Tree Farm in Cold Spring, Minnesota has a herd of 60 or so yak making this the largest yak herd in the eastern part of the U.S. Who knew?

Our friends have toured the farm and loved it. John Hooper, the farm’s owner has worked with The Yak Company in China as a consultant. While there, he lived with Tibetans and, as a result, acquired an interest in Tibetan culture. My friend says that the ranch reflects this exchange.

Hooper sells his yak meat at various farmers’ markets in the area. We ate yak sausages, hot dogs and marinated meat. All quite delicious. Here’s a link to the page that tells all about yak farming.

Photo of Hooper and one of his yaks is by Lucille Guinta-Bates who was kind enough to email it to me.

Talking travel with pro motorcyclist Erik Buell

by Jerry Guo on

I’m here with Erik Buell, a former AMA racer and engineer for Harley-Davidson who now runs his own subsidiary, Buell Motorcycle Co, which produces the only sportbikes made in the US. He’s also happens to be an avid road-tripper–of the two-wheeled variety–and has cruised almost all the back-roads of America.

What got you interested in motorcycles?

Freedom to explore and experience the world at low cost! I grew up out in the country on a farm, and although it gave me a great work ethic, it also gave me a great need to see more.

Is a cross-country roadtrip by motorcycle possible? How would the logistics of that work? I’m assuming step one is lose the suitcase.

Cross country trips on motorcycles are the very best. When you are inside your Hummer with tinted narrow windows, a big GPS screen, dashboard and controls, face it, you might as well be at home on the couch. On a motorcycle you roll through valleys and hills and your senses feel the changes in temperature, you smell new-mown hay, and as you idle through little towns you listen to kids playing and maybe get splashed by a sprinkler as you ride by. And you can either use a backpack to travel light or get saddlebags, top box and tank bag and have all the clothing you could want in case you want to go to a fancy restaurant in St. Louis, or go to a play in Seattle, or even pull out your backpack guitar and sit in with some guys jamming on the street corner.
What are some of the best motoring routes in the states?

Anything with less than four lanes! And for me, the wigglier it looks on the map, the more appealing.

I’ve heard of epic adventures motorcycling across South America and Asia. What parts of the world are most friendly to motorcyclists and any particular routes you recommend?

Interestingly, motorcycles are very accepted all over the world, since many people ride in less affluent countries, where fuel is expensive and transportation more of a necessity than a luxury. Motorcycles are more green than any other motorized personal transport, and as such people see you not as an invader, but as a fellow individual traveling through life.

What about Europe? What’s their deal with motorcycles?

Europe is a great place to ride. Once again, they have been living with high fuel prices forever, and lots of city congestion and narrow roads. So although they may be affluent, the perspective on economy and personal footprint is much in tune with motorcycles. The terrain is also wildly variable, with lots of hills and mountains, so it is a spectacular place to ride.

How much training goes into riding a motorcycle, let’s say for a roadtrip?

Basically, anyone who starts riding should take a really good initial training class like is offered by Harley-Davidson through the Rider’s Edge program. Beyond that you need to simply get some riding experience. Not much takes the place of simply riding on a regular basis so the controls are all natural. If you want to go further, Harley-Davidson has the advanced Rider’s Edge course and, of course to become expert, you can take a training course at one of the Buell Inside Pass sessions at racetracks around the country.

What about speed vs cruising? Is there always a trade-off?

Well, sport bikes and cruisers appeal to different riders and are suited to different roads. All motorcycles, like all cars are capable of significant speed. Cruisers are best suited for interstate type roads or putting down the beach front, as the riding position is much like an easy chair. Of course such motorcycles can go 150mph on the Autobahn in Germany if needed! Sportbikes on the other hand are light and nimble and athletic, so they are the best for the winding roads through the Alps, or slipping through the traffic in Milan or in Los Angeles.

Worst accident on a bike for you? I’ve heard it’s inevitable that sooner or later you’ll crash and burn if you own a bike (but hey, I like danger).

Riding on the street it has been a long time since I had an accident, but I did have a couple big ones on the racetrack!

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.

Great American road trip: Wisconsin curds and Georgia O’Keefe

by Jamie Rhein on

Even when whizzing through a state on the way to somewhere else, it’s possible to make observations. One can discover something new or remember a detail known, but forgotten.

As I am writing this, we are whizzing through Wisconsin on our way to Minneapolis after a night at La Quinta Inn in Madison. This is one leg of our road trip to Montana. No time on this leg for stops–except to pee and fill up on coffee and gas. We’re on a schedule with people to visit by dinner.

Still, I want Wisconsin to have more impact than the breakfast we had this morning which was just like the breakfast we had at a La Quinta in Denver two summers ago.

La Quinta Inns might be the same everywhere, but I’ve noticed a difference in barns. In Ohio, where I live, most I’ve seen are white. In Wisconsin, red seems to be the most common. I’ve also thought about the cheese curds that I bought near Wisconsin Dells three years ago when we also took this route. We didn’t have time to linger back then either.

At a rest area stop this afternoon, I picked up a brochure for Sun Prairie, the birthplace of Georgia O’Keefe. Sun Prairie is not far from where we are at the moment. Her grandparents who were Irish immigrants who settled here in 1848. O’Keefe was born in 1887 and grew up not far from her grandparent’s farm. According to the brochure, O’Keefe’s family’s house burned down in 1976, but there is a historic marker in its place. The town also has celebrations in her honor.

As we’re whizzing through Wisconsin, I’m noticing the scenery and can see why O’Keefe might have been attracted to New Mexico where she spent years painting the desert. Although Wisconsin’s land is covered with green lushness, the shape is similar to many of the hills in the Southwest. There is a craggy quality. Peel off the trees and you could be at the back of the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque. Wisconsin and New Mexico are like the yin and yang of landscape.

Years ago, a woman I knew who lived in Albuquerque said she was moving back to Wisconsin, her home state, because New Mexico was too frightening and harsh because of its lack of trees. Wisconsin is like a mother, she said-with fewer sharp edges.

I’ve heard people from the desert who live in the Midwest speak of feeling boxed in and smothered by trees. They miss the vistas.

As we flew by the Dells’ exits, my son salivated over the water parks. Every hotel seemed to have one. “Can we come back sometime?” he wondered.

“Yeah, maybe.”

He’s heard a lot of maybes. Fortunately, hotel water parks are not particular to Wisconsin’s scenery. I sure wish we had found the time, though, to stop for those cheese curds.