Tuesday - August 1, 2006

Today is dedicated pretty much to one sole purpose, driving from southern Ohio to western Illinois. There we will dedicate the day to several Mormon heritage sites and some much needed relaxation away from the road. That means little in the way of small towns for our itinerary, just hour after hour of interstate driving. The day started off hot and stagnant; the entire country has faced weeks of heat wave. We're lucky, though. We've only faced a few days of its brunt, and we're heading toward a cold front that might bring rough weather but will cool us at least.

One essential aspect of our day's journey includes a morning stop in Athens. The Wood family spent four years there from 1994 through 1998. We were poor, overworked, and often miserable. We lived in a rattrap apartment for a year before transferring to an equally dilapidated rental house for the duration of our time there. But we built many happy memories there, too. I remember evenings of conversation with my grad school buddies and Jenny fondly recalls the raucous Halloween carnivals on Court Street. Vienna looks back on the fireflies that danced over our yard that opened upon to a cow pasture. And from this place in 1996 the Wood Family took its first serious road trip, a journey along Route 66 and back. So our return to Athens was thick with recollections.

We found after eight years that little has changed, aside from the addition of a Super Wal-Mart. Downtown still offers a bewildering assortment of bagel cafes, head shops, and college bars. We spotted a t-shirt that summarizes the role of alcohol in social lubrication around these parts: "Athens Ohio: A Small Quaint Drinking Town with a College Problem." We stopped by our old haunts, taking a few moments to reminisce with people whom Jenny knew at the Pizza Hut where she worked. Breakfast led us to the gleaming stainless steel Court Street Diner that looks as original to red brick Athens as a Martian spaceship. But the place offers a great meal at a decent price and an atmosphere that evokes the past without overdoing it. We chatted with Vienna about OU as a potential college, and she seemed intrigued by the possibility. But Jenny insists she also consider BYU, which seems fair enough.

Pretty soon our schedule demanded a return to the road. That afternoon was dedicated to following dots along the map, speeding up and slowing down as construction and traffic demanded. For Vienna, the only hope for solace was a stop at Fazoli's, home of the nearly endless supply of hot Italian breadsticks. Inside we met a manager who saw from our map that we were travelers. "How you doing?" I asked. She replied: "Fabulous. At least that's what I'm telling myself today." Her smile was honest when she said how much she'd like to visit California one day. We enjoyed chatting a bit and I couldn't help but compare her to the waitress at the Lisbon diner we visited last night. By inclination, I tend to romanticize the small town diners and bypass interstate chains like Fazoli's. But she proves that you can meet a nice person pretty much anywhere.

We managed to survive the passage through Indianapolis, whose convergence of four interstates and numerous other U.S. and state highways result in a torturous web of roads that seems determined to render a straight shot through the city impossible. Moreover, as we began our western exit, we saw a sign warning that one stretch of road on our way was entirely blocked due to a traffic accident. We figured on taking another interstate connector toward our destination but found that the good folks of Indianapolis hadn't seen fit to allow that detour. At this point, I thanked the gods of travel for my map.

We exited the interstate and took a detour through fields and tiny burgs that cried out for John Mellencamp. So we cranked up the Scarecrow album and enjoyed a slower path through Indiana. Before long, though, we returned to the interstate and crossed the Illinois border by late afternoon. At last we departed the slab and rode along US-136, a quintessential pre-interstate road that allowed us to visit tiny towns that dot the landscape under a warm setting sun. Evening-time found us on the other side of Illinois, resulting in a crossing of three states in one day.