On The Road

Yes, dear readers, I'm guilty of neglecting my blog. Since I went back on the road March 15th I have not had so much time to wax eloquent. Monday, March 15th, as planned, I pulled up stakes and headed south on I-35 for San Antonio. The number of speed traps along the highway impressed me but I gave them no cause to have an interest in my affairs. Signed into the KOA after braving the inner city expressways and was assigned a well-drained site on a rise above a small river or large stream, significant as it rained that night and all next day. Until Wi-Fi failed spent some time catching up. On Wednesday the 17th I took the bus into downtown to tour the Alamo, walk the Riverwalk, and catch noontime mass at San Fernando Cathedral. On the return journey the coach passengers were entertained by some impromptu local colour. Rested up for the next day's drive.

Driving three hundred miles is one thing but fighting traffic is quite another. Even at 10 in the morning getting out of San Antonio was a challenge as was the drive through Austin on I-35 but it was the ten-mile jam on a four-lane section of I-35W in Fort Worth caused by a collision that took the cake. I was thankful to cross the Red River into Oklahoma and meet the Welcome Centre. Finding my campground in Marietta a few miles on proved a challenge. The place was small, had poor Wi-Fi, and poorer services; it's for sale if you want a tiny poorly located campground. Fatefully decided I didn't want to drive the next day and although I enjoyed the walk about the property on a graded walkway discovered a spring blizzard was on the way which ocassioned a further stopover.

When I did get off again discovered why Oklahoma City got 5 inches of snow and Marietta a dusting. The drive was uphill all the way, though calling the ridge a mountain may be overstating the point. Oklahoma City had a pall of smog hanging over it and the look of the one campground that was open did not appeal to me especially since there was no one present to sign me in. Decided to drive on to Kansas discovering that I-35 was the only expressway in Oklahoma that isn't a toll road. Upon entering Kansas I was met by the gal at the Toll Road Booth and then got to visit the Welcome Centre. It had a gift store packed with green witches and Dorothy Dolls. My objective was Lindsborg, the little Sweden of the plains which rises out of prairie farmland like a mirage amid the blowing dust with its tallest structure the grain elevators one of which leans at a 10% cant.

I spent 2 weeks in Lindsborg walking and biking about town. A 'city' of 3300 tall blonde Swedes with unlocked doors and people who wave on the street. My campground was a parking lot behind the motel whose owner is a Bangladeshi refugee. Bangladeshi TV is available by cable. It is not convenient for it to be necessary to walk to another location to use the internet. Scott's Grocery stocks Swedish specialties and Wisconsin Cheese--a 50 lb block of cheddar in the meat department. Convenient to have a grocery store open across the street. The two churches and college were a short walk from my site. Downtown, paved with bricks was lined with art galleries, a handful of restaurants, and the usual hardware stores and gift shops. The Post Office has a sidewall mural painted by a famous local artist, the library boasts significant artifacts, and the Bank of America had carved doors and sign reading Farmer's Bank along with significant art. Toured several art galleries, museums including the rolling mill which made flour, and biked all over town. Attended Holy Week services, the Messiah, Saint John Passion, a recital, theatre, and the art exhibit. Found my way to the Smoke River Auditorium for a high school production of Our Town by Thornton Wilder, the play seeming apt for Lindsborg. Lenten Service began with a lasagna dinner with salads and Easter Brunch proved to be biscuits and gravy.

Hitting the road again was a bit of a wrench but I headed north and then east to Independence Missouri. Even the campground was owned by the Mormons now styled the Church of Christ. Needed some help to find it. The other industries in Independence appear to be nostalgia and Harry S Truman. After visiting the now 20-year-old Temple dedicated to peace for the daily prayer for peace ceremony and taking the tour spent a day visiting the historic C&A Railway Station, the National Trail Centre and a flour baron’s 20-room mansion. After getting personalized tours of the two museums the Trail Centre seemed rather impersonal. A walk uptown led to Clinton’s Soda Fountain which gave Harry his first job, little has changed since save for the demise of the adjoining drug store. The streets were lined with flowering shrubs and trees.

Driven from Independence by the ‘World Conference’ I drove up to spend a quiet weekend surrounded by cornfields, flowering redbuds, and magnolias in a bucolic campground outside Springfield, Illinois. Too far from town for easy access I biked the countryside admiring this lakeside resort area. Little else to do and internet service made dial-up look lightening speed. The coal-fired generating station south of town spewed a cloud of evil smelling by-products. Lincoln and state government are the principal employers. Not much to see on the drive up to Lake Michigan but farmland. Springfield may be the state capitol but Chicago sprawls over 3 states and my route skirted the industrial south-east before heading East on a 12-lane toll highway amid busy truck traffic.

Michigan City is a small town just East of the newly formed Indiana Dunes National Shoreline. The National and State Parks serve to protect the dunes and 600-ft Mount Baldy and keep the shorline in the public domain as even now rows of cottages dot the park interior. I was charmed to drive through a mile-long swamp alive with blooming marsh marigolds. The Michigan City Campground south of the interstate was gearing up for the coming season but I was pleasantly surprised to see wildflowers blooming under the trees in a neglected fencerow including red and white trilliums, bloodroot, meadowrue, may apples, wood anenomes.

I’ve come to dread cinderblock highways. The constant chunk, chunk, chunk caused by eroding chinks between the concrete blocks becomes extremely enervating. Interstate 69 is groved and the constant vibration isn’t long in taking its toll. The highway wends its way past the Michigan State cities of Kalamazoo and Flint. The demise of America’s once-proud automotive industry has led to the emptying of entire subdivisions in Flint and a proposal to bulldoze entire neighbourhoods and return them to greenspace. My tolerance for the road vibration ran out just east of Flint and having researched the fact that it was open headed north to the small ‘town’ of Otisville and down a dirt road to a Free Methodist Summer Camp called Covenant Hills. Led to the active RV Section by a gold-ear ring clad senior I camped in solitude waiting in vain for ‘he’ who would collect my fee. Never did find anyone and left next morning feeling well rested.

An hour later I crossed the Bluewater Bridge at Sarnia and cleared customs after being asked if any of my new friends in Austin were drug dealers. The Rev. Karl Gronberg and Kent Bohls would not feel complimented. Driving East on the 402 one meets Toronto’s garbage headed for upstate Michigan and later the stench of farmers spraying pig manure on their fields. Welcome to Southern Ontario. The next 10 days were spent with 10 months of mail, 2 banks, shopping and a bit of visiting. Drove up to Kitchener now part of Waterloo Region it seems to get my RV maintained under warantee and camp at what I remember as being a Mennonite Farm north of Waterloo between St. Jacobs and Hiedelberg. It’s a strange feeling to feel ill at ease in one’s own bed, certainly it was quieter in North Waterloo County. After one more night home picked up more mail, visited another bank, picked up groceries and headed east across the top of Toronto. The core lanes moved along at the limit but there was plenty of congestion on the collectors.

I should know enough to double-check the GPS but followed it as it led me into Prince Edward County through the middle of the city of Belleville. I’m camped in a 250-site campground with only the woodpeckers and kildeer for company. Down the way are close to 500 year-round and 3-season park model trailers ranged in tight rows like a small city complete with lawns and paved drives, TV Satellite Dishes, propane tanks, water shut-off valves, and the other utilities. Next door is Sandbanks Provinicial Park and inches from my driver’s side door just to make me feel at home is a healthy patch of poison ivy. Early tomorrow I hope to head out for Bromont PQ. The Maritimes beckon.