The View

Modest Mouse The View

August 21, started with waking up parked between two motor-homes, the wind howling and my waking abruptly, thinking I'd fallen asleep at the wheel... but let's rewind it a bit.

It started on August 9th, my good friend Molly, and the reason for this trip, and myself set out on the road, stopping at the family home of some good friends, Johnn and Angel, in Green River, WY. We enjoy some really good burgers cooked on a grill and just kind of talked about plans for the trip, about cheese, and I enjoyed a really good drink, though I can't recall the name of it. Molly sets off driving from there and after a few hours, we trade shifts and I begin my shift on the road while Molly sleeps... a theme that continues for much of the trip.

At some point in the night during August 10th, we pass through Nebraska, with Molly only waking to say stuff like, wow, it's really foggy, glad you're driving, and wow, it's raining pretty hard, glad you're driving. She doesn't recall this, but I got a laugh out of it, also being glad I was the one in control. The fog was thic in Odessa, NE, and when I posted a video on Snapchat, I was thoroughly surprised at the amount of people commenting on my voice, apparently I rarely speak on there. We drove through Iowa and Illinois for much of the day time. 

With a new Friday hitting us as we entered Andover, Ohio, I never looked forward to sleep on an air mattress as much as I did then. It was about 1am, maybe, and we were in the car for a long time. As the morning greeted us hours later, I met Molly's grandpa Don before heading to lunch to meet her Aunt Amy, as well as her four kids. We ate pizza at a place called Covered Bridge, a place I'd been hearing about since before this trip was imagined. After lunch we ended up at a jewelry shop by the name of Hofstetters, incidentally a place I'd bought a gift for someone. It was really nice to put faces to the voices I'd spoken with over the phone. Afterward, Molly, her grandfather, and myself all ended up going to the Ashtabula County Fair, a sight I'd never seen in such a small scale. We finished the day out, the long day, with dinner with some of Molly's family friends, the Gary's and such. We were there for dinner, and almost breakfast time, when we finally left about 2am.

Saturday we had lunch at the Covered Bridge again, followed by a drive out of town, and state, to Pennsylvania to go to the closest Walmart. The night was followed by meeting Molly's best friend Jen, dinner and then drinks to celebrate her birthday. It was very interesting how small places were, how interconnected the people and places seemed to be, there was always some story about some passing person or some incident that happened that was being talked about. 

Majority of August 13th was an open house, showing off the remodel Molly's grandfather was doing on the house Molly actually grew up in. I can't say I ever knew what the house use to look like, but it is a gorgeous house now. 

The next eventful day started with meeting Jodi and her sons, we all had lunch, deep dish pizza Molly's grandfather made. My biggest regret is only having one slice of that pizza, but it was incredibly filling, as well as very tasty. After lunch we went to see the sucky fish, these carp that are crazy big and go into a fairly intense frenzy when food is dropped into the water. It was a fascinating, as well as a somewhat disgusting, sight to see. We finished off the adventure with Yorkie's Ice Cream, a delicious end to the day.

One of the other things I was looking forward to, the first being the deep dish pizza, was seeing the numerous covered bridges this area was known for. We spent much of the day chasing them around the county and through dirt roads, stopping to take pictures and just admiring them. After checking out bridges we had dinner with one of Molly's old teachers, Jen. Later we headed to Wild Side to visit with Molly's friend Garrett and meet his fiancee, both working at the bar. We talked, listened to stories about a cellphone debacle, and finished it off with talk of me possibly doing photos for their wedding.

August 16 we took the opportunity to check out Ashtabula Harbor, which was smaller than I imagined, but still a very interesting looking place architecturally, not to mention I seen a bridge that raised and lowered, so that was a pretty cool thing to experience. After a few hours checking places out at the Harbor, we headed back to Molly's old house to have dinner with the Amidons, a family she grew up with for some time, in the same house as a matter of fact. We would spend the night getting packed up, hitting the road the following morning.

The morning of August 17th we left Andover, stopping at the grocery store Molly used to work at, Sparkle, and said our goodbyes to those we seen on the way out. We took a pit stop in Cleveland to checkout the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a great way to spend quite a few hours. From there we went to Lansing, Michigan to visit Jason, a friend from Utah that was out this way for work. Funny story, he's the same Jason from [Read My Mind]. We ended up having dinner at a Mexican restaurant and a few cheap margaritas, a great way to catch up on things as well as see a familiar face I hadn't seen since his wedding the month prior, though it felt like longer.

The following morning was rainy and wet as we headed toward Dubuque, Iowa. First stop was in Naperville, Illinois, to visit a friend named David, one of my friends that was originally from Illinois but had moved to Utah for a short while in 2010/11 before I actually helped move him back to Illinois. I hadn't seen him in years, we'd only talked briefly over the years and he didn't recognize me haha. When he last seen me, I was scrawny, clean cut, not much to say in terms of facial hair, clothes hanging on my body rather than actually fitting. Upon seeing me now, hair long, a full beard, clothes fitting rather snug in a bit of a balance between muscle from my days as a stripper, and a bit of chub gained after my trip to Philadelphia and the hearty eating in Ohio. We talked for maybe a half hour before Molly and I hit the road once again, stopping for lunch in Rockford, Illinois to visit Danielle, Molly's friend that she went to school with in California. Danielle was cute, interesting too, though her conversation with Molly was entirely lost on me, they reminisced about times past and people they'd known. I didn't gather much from the conversation outside of her having a boyfriend and being into rock climbing and would be up to checkout Utah for the outdoor stuff. We had lunch at Steak 'n Shake, a personal favorite of mine when I'm somewhere they exist. We eventually got to Molly's Aunt Karen's for beer and pizza with a bunch of her family that could come and meet up. It felt like exactly what I was in the mood for after a long drive, just something simple, beer and pizza and just hanging out. As evening hit, we checked out downtown Dubuque, as well as this street elevator, taking you from the lower neighborhood area to an overlook higher up with a nice vantage point of the city and Mississippi River. We also did a quick run into Wisconsin, just to show how close it was.

We spent Saturday checking out the Farmer's Market, I gave one of Molly's cousins a piggy back ride, picked up some beard wax and honey candy for myself. From there we went to checkout the Fishtival... which incidentally had no fish.. I have no words about how sad I was about this. We ended up driving around for a lot of the day checking out places, grave sights, historical markers, and tourist traps, like The Grotto. Afterward we checked out the county fair, to see the Renegade Band, Molly's Uncle being a member. We finished up the night by swinging by a campsite to see a few more of Molly's family we weren't able to at the time.

Sunday August 20th we left Dubuque and headed for home, though we got side tracked. With no real agenda or need to get back immediately, we decided to check out Wall Drug, a tiny old town known for giving out free ice water in the day to attract customers and travelers. From Wall Drug, we headed to Mount Rushmore, adding on hours of travel but having the opportunity to see a sight I feel grateful to have been in the area to see. I am glad I took the opportunity to see it while we were out that way already, however it wore me out. I took a road I felt would be faster than taking main roads back, and drove as long as I could, eventually getting into Wyoming but being unable to continue, my GPS not showing were I was or how far till the next town, so a little picnic area turned out to be a rest stop, bringing us to the start of this post.

August 21, started with waking up parked between two motor-homes, the wind howling and my waking abruptly, thinking I'd fallen asleep at the wheel... I remember feeling dizzy, feeling my heart racing, thoughts unable to be formed in the early hours before day light even fully started, just the pitch black darkness and light from cars on the highway reflecting off other parked vehicles. My blunder the night before when leaving Mount Rushmore ended up being a blessing in disguise, as the Solar Eclipse was this day, and our route took us through the direct path for the Total Solar Eclipse, something I'd never seen before. We reached Casper, the city in the direct path, also on our path, a couple hours early. We found a University that opened their parking lot to people for the eclipse, and just crashed for little while, a nice power nap  before the big event. To be honest, it was more interesting than I can express, it was amazing that it really did go from day to night, complete with temperature drop, I have never seen anything like it before. From there we headed to my house to drop me off, a place I find hard to call home, but it's the best I've got right now. I dropped my suitcase and camera bag on the floor upon reaching my room; tired, unemployed, unsure of what to do.

“Life it rents us.
And yeah I hope it put plenty on you.
Well I hope mine did too.

As life gets longer, awful feels softer.
Well it feels pretty soft to me.
And if it takes shit to make bliss,
Then I feel pretty blissfully.”

— The View - Modest Mouse