If you want to see the real Midwest, the "Heartland" of the United States, get off the highway.
A giant tortoise and I shared a moment at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. At first glance he was massive and not particularly attractive. Kneeling to his level, I caught his eye as he munched on the greenery. There was a gentle spirit about him. I remembered the story of Owen and Mzee, the 130 year old tortoise who befriended the baby hippo, orphaned in Kenya after 2004’s massive tsunami. Unlikely kinships form when we take time to see another’s essense and try to absorb it. With animals, all is not what it seems.
The Australian Adventure featured Sulphur-crested Cockatoos bobbing and chatting on a branch, rotund koalas perching in a eucalyptus tree, and athletic wallaroos bounding across the open fields. Lingering near a kangaroo, I was drawn into his world. Chewing leaves, he eyed me knowingly, then fell, free-falling, into a shrub. With graceful locomotion, he upped and bounded away in a flash. Like an outsider at an Amish picnic, I knew I didn’t belong to his fraternity, but for a few moments I understood what his world was about.
Heading west, we eventually left the interstate and poked along the backroads. Today’s destination - James Dean’s hometown in tiny Fairmount, Indiana. But getting there was part of the fun. There’s a sameness among the cornfields - at first it’s jarring (how do they survive without Bloomingdale’s?); after a while it’s comforting, hypnotizing, and the golden beauty hits you. Looking forward out the car windshield, the cornfields appear as one giant golden blanket covering the earth. Out the side window the even rows dance, stepping sideways in rhythm as you drive forward. This land can envelop you. Even on the road, you’re disappearing into these cornfields, a little speck on the highway.
Land down here looks essentially the same as it has for generations. I like my Starbucks and Google as much as the next guy, but sometimes, when traveling, it’s nice to step into a place that holds the past, the present, and the future all in one hand.
Spouse is a space buff, so what better way to break up the day’s drive than a pit stop at the Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum in rural Wapakoneta, Ohio? It’s all there - the moon rock, the flight suit, the Gemini Spacecraft. Who would have guessed a boy born on his grandma’s farm in this small country town would be the first human to walk on the moon? Date: July 20, 1969. Mission: Apollo 11. Fate: forever immortalized in history. Sorry, Buzz. Neil Armstrong is the name every wide-eyed grade schooler commits to memory. Never underestimate the power of a cornfield.
Mid-afternoon we touched down in Fairmount, Indiana. I’d been to Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles where they filmed Rebel Without a Cause. I’d been to the junction of Highways 46 and 41 near Pasa Robles, California where, in 1955, at dusk, he sailed from his silver Porche 550 Spyder into the Great Beyond. But now I was coming home. James Dean was born in rural Fairmount, Indiana in 1931. Long time ago, no doubt. He made only three films (East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant). But he hit a nerve that still speaks to many today, more than 50 years after his death.
Fairmount pulls out the stops in September with it’s James Dean Festival: 50’s car show, James Dean look-alike contest. But on a steamy July afternoon you can still catch a whisper of the small town life from which the boy emerged. The motorcycle shop: brick front, deserted back road location, where he bought his yellow and brown cycle and first learned to ride. It stands quiet and still. The Winslow farmhouse: white front porch, small road out past town, where his aunt and uncle took him in at age 9 after his mother’s death from cancer.
Downtown antique shop: a Dean Look magazine cover story or two, but mostly glass bottles, hubcaps, simple things, where shopkeepers conversed about kin in twangy cadence.
James Dean Memorial Park: a tiny tree-lined square featuring the identical monument with bust and star, sculpted by Kenneth Kendall, as found outside Griffith Observatory.
I don’t know what was better - the personal treasures at the Fairmount Historical Museum (yes, there was a small room featuring Jim Davis, creator of the Garfield cartoon, also from Fairmount), or the charming personal tour by the elderly, knowledgeable woman running the place. We’ve found our small town America, stifling and reassuring, and it dots the landscape all across this country of ours.
Next day was the last adventure before the drive-on-through-Wisconsin-nonstop-to-get-home-to-Minnesota-already ending: the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Yes, we duned back in Michigan. But here, nestled between Chicago and the smokestacks of Indiana, was a National Park that provided memories all its own.
Tromping up a steep, sandy incline 123 feet to the top of Mount Baldy, massive dunes engulfed us. Here, after making sand angels, my son discovered a clear, ringing tone. Turns out the combination of quartz crystals, moisture, pressure, and friction from his bare feet created a musical tone, known as "singing sand". Only a few beaches in the world sing in this way.
Down the other side of the dune lay sparkling Lake Michigan. Squint left: you can see the Chicago skyline. Look right: nature’s beauty is oddly juxtaposed with an industrial smokestack. Nature and commerce side by side. Heron Rookery and Gary, Indiana. Pinhook Bog and Midwest Steel.
Perhaps it was an apt ending to a varied trip through 2 countries, 7 states, and various states of mind. Because nestled within the necessities of sustaining an everyday existence lay the wonders of this country, there for those who seek them out - the Great Lakes.
Lake Michigan
Lake Huron
Lake Ontario
Lake Erie
Lake Superior (Note: a separate trip)
A giant tortoise and I shared a moment at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. At first glance he was massive and not particularly attractive. Kneeling to his level, I caught his eye as he munched on the greenery. There was a gentle spirit about him. I remembered the story of Owen and Mzee, the 130 year old tortoise who befriended the baby hippo, orphaned in Kenya after 2004’s massive tsunami. Unlikely kinships form when we take time to see another’s essense and try to absorb it. With animals, all is not what it seems.
The Australian Adventure featured Sulphur-crested Cockatoos bobbing and chatting on a branch, rotund koalas perching in a eucalyptus tree, and athletic wallaroos bounding across the open fields. Lingering near a kangaroo, I was drawn into his world. Chewing leaves, he eyed me knowingly, then fell, free-falling, into a shrub. With graceful locomotion, he upped and bounded away in a flash. Like an outsider at an Amish picnic, I knew I didn’t belong to his fraternity, but for a few moments I understood what his world was about.
Heading west, we eventually left the interstate and poked along the backroads. Today’s destination - James Dean’s hometown in tiny Fairmount, Indiana. But getting there was part of the fun. There’s a sameness among the cornfields - at first it’s jarring (how do they survive without Bloomingdale’s?); after a while it’s comforting, hypnotizing, and the golden beauty hits you. Looking forward out the car windshield, the cornfields appear as one giant golden blanket covering the earth. Out the side window the even rows dance, stepping sideways in rhythm as you drive forward. This land can envelop you. Even on the road, you’re disappearing into these cornfields, a little speck on the highway.
Land down here looks essentially the same as it has for generations. I like my Starbucks and Google as much as the next guy, but sometimes, when traveling, it’s nice to step into a place that holds the past, the present, and the future all in one hand.
Spouse is a space buff, so what better way to break up the day’s drive than a pit stop at the Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum in rural Wapakoneta, Ohio? It’s all there - the moon rock, the flight suit, the Gemini Spacecraft. Who would have guessed a boy born on his grandma’s farm in this small country town would be the first human to walk on the moon? Date: July 20, 1969. Mission: Apollo 11. Fate: forever immortalized in history. Sorry, Buzz. Neil Armstrong is the name every wide-eyed grade schooler commits to memory. Never underestimate the power of a cornfield.
Mid-afternoon we touched down in Fairmount, Indiana. I’d been to Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles where they filmed Rebel Without a Cause. I’d been to the junction of Highways 46 and 41 near Pasa Robles, California where, in 1955, at dusk, he sailed from his silver Porche 550 Spyder into the Great Beyond. But now I was coming home. James Dean was born in rural Fairmount, Indiana in 1931. Long time ago, no doubt. He made only three films (East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant). But he hit a nerve that still speaks to many today, more than 50 years after his death.
Fairmount pulls out the stops in September with it’s James Dean Festival: 50’s car show, James Dean look-alike contest. But on a steamy July afternoon you can still catch a whisper of the small town life from which the boy emerged. The motorcycle shop: brick front, deserted back road location, where he bought his yellow and brown cycle and first learned to ride. It stands quiet and still. The Winslow farmhouse: white front porch, small road out past town, where his aunt and uncle took him in at age 9 after his mother’s death from cancer.
Downtown antique shop: a Dean Look magazine cover story or two, but mostly glass bottles, hubcaps, simple things, where shopkeepers conversed about kin in twangy cadence.
James Dean Memorial Park: a tiny tree-lined square featuring the identical monument with bust and star, sculpted by Kenneth Kendall, as found outside Griffith Observatory.
I don’t know what was better - the personal treasures at the Fairmount Historical Museum (yes, there was a small room featuring Jim Davis, creator of the Garfield cartoon, also from Fairmount), or the charming personal tour by the elderly, knowledgeable woman running the place. We’ve found our small town America, stifling and reassuring, and it dots the landscape all across this country of ours.
Next day was the last adventure before the drive-on-through-Wisconsin-nonstop-to-get-home-to-Minnesota-already ending: the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Yes, we duned back in Michigan. But here, nestled between Chicago and the smokestacks of Indiana, was a National Park that provided memories all its own.
Tromping up a steep, sandy incline 123 feet to the top of Mount Baldy, massive dunes engulfed us. Here, after making sand angels, my son discovered a clear, ringing tone. Turns out the combination of quartz crystals, moisture, pressure, and friction from his bare feet created a musical tone, known as "singing sand". Only a few beaches in the world sing in this way.
Down the other side of the dune lay sparkling Lake Michigan. Squint left: you can see the Chicago skyline. Look right: nature’s beauty is oddly juxtaposed with an industrial smokestack. Nature and commerce side by side. Heron Rookery and Gary, Indiana. Pinhook Bog and Midwest Steel.
Perhaps it was an apt ending to a varied trip through 2 countries, 7 states, and various states of mind. Because nestled within the necessities of sustaining an everyday existence lay the wonders of this country, there for those who seek them out - the Great Lakes.
Lake Michigan
Lake Huron
Lake Ontario
Lake Erie
Lake Superior (Note: a separate trip)
