Current location: Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin
Time / distance traveled since last post: About 5 hours, about 300 miles
Total time / distance traveled: About 93 hours, about 6150 miles
I write to you tonight from the Russell family home in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, where I am currently sitting in my late grandfather's chair, drinking a half and half (Guinness layered on top of Bass, not to be confused with a black and tan, which is Guinness and Harp) and watching the news, which is currently alternating coverage between the disastrous tornadoes of the American south and coverage of the royal wedding (a cumbersome lot of news to balance). It's hard for me to verbalize just what this house and the people in it mean to me, but I'll attempt that later. First, I have some serious comments to make.
As you well know from my accounts of days 3&4 of my trip, I had an incredible visit to a small western Alabama town called Tuscaloosa, home of the University of Alabama, whose locals welcomed me with open arms and helped me have what was unquestionably the best night out of the entire trip. This afternoon I was shocked to find that several tornadoes of unprecedented size and power had ripped through the south yesterday, leaving lines of destruction from Louisiana all the way up to Virginia. Having traveled through these states very recently, all of a sudden these disasters seemed that much more real than Katrina or anything of the like ever had before. I was particularly disheartened to find that the hardest hit state was Alabama, with almost 200 confirmed dead as of the broadcast, and instantly I thought of Ella. Just looking at the path lines that CNN was drawing for the various tornadoes it appeared as though Tuscaloosa was safe, but that her home in northern Alabama may have been hit. My heart raced as I frantically rummaged through my emails for her phone number. Right before texting her I looked back up at the television to find that Tuscaloosa was actually the hardest hit of the storm, with almost a mile-wide funnel that completely wiped-out much of the town. Quickly I thumbed together some semblance of a message and sent it to her, waiting nervously and hoping for a quick reply. Very soon she sent a text back. Good.
Ella is safe.
She had explained to me that though much of the town is entirely leveled, her personal side of town wasn't hit by the touch-down and thus she and her property are safe and sound. Judging by her good humor on the matter it would seem as though the majority of the people for whom she cares are likely safe and not amongst the most heavily impacted themselves. As I breathed a huge sigh of relief, she continued to describe the area that had been hit the hardest, which was where I had spent my early evening before going to the bar district that night, and where I had worked-out the following morning. It's so surreal that a place that I had visited so very recently for the first and possibly only time, which had been developing to the state at which I saw it over countless years, is suddenly leveled. That really hit me hard.
Prior to this trip I was always immensely nostalgic when it came to places I had been, almost to a fault. Any time that I would be leaving a place for what could likely be the last time, such as a house at which I had spent a lot of time that was being sold or a city to which I may not ever return, I would always turn and look back as I departed, trying to leave the perfect final snapshot implanted in my memory. Maybe I would end up missing the place, maybe not, but never after the fact did a feeling ever come over me that even touched on the feeling I would have just as I was leaving. I kind of view the amount of emotion that I put into locations to be rather silly, kind of how its silly to think of how a hoarder couldn't bear to throw out some misshapen wood block of no sentimental relevance whatsoever. The true motivating factor behind this trip has been the need to finally squash this unnecessary difficulty in leaving things behind and just moving on. The mechanism of this evolution is to tie-together the country in my mind as a place that is very tangible and very reachable, understanding that though I leave one place that it continues to go on without me, possibly as though I was never there, BUT THAT'S OKAY! I need to really get through to myself to say that it's all going to be okay whenever I make any decision that leaves an untraveled road behind me. You can't travel every road, after all, and even if some day on your dying day if you were to say that you traveled them all, you can't say that you ever stayed on the same one, if only to see what that road presented in another time.
Shit's getting deep, son.
What I'm trying to say in all of this is that on this trip, for the first time in my life, I do not feel the need to look back as I'm departing to get one possibly final glimpse of my surroundings, because I realize that I've no clue what the future holds and that as we may all die at any moment, every time you leave somewhere could be the last time that you do it. The destruction of Tuscaloosa was a huge test of this new found clarity, and though a disaster that is hurting so many people (to whom my heart truly does go out) has rendered my experience in T-town impossible to ever relive, I know that the place and time in my memory is forever unique and intact. Kind of cool for at least a little bit of a silver lining to come out of this cloud, right?
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming:
When last I wrote I was bedding-down in another Days Inn in the eastern Iowa town of Davenport. Not five minutes after clicking "Publish Post" I was asleep, and seemingly not five minutes later I woke up (actual time, 7:15am). After showering, dressing, packing, and even a quick nibble at the "continental breakfast," I was off. My first stop was the Valvoline in town, as I had run my car almost 1000 miles over the recommended 3000 per batch of oil (it had been largely agreed and later confirmed by the mechanics that with all highway driving over a short period of time that this was perfectly fine to do). Freshly lubed, oiled and filtered, I was back on the road by 8:20am, which had me 40 minutes ahead of schedule to meet my surprise special guest in Chicago by noon. A few minutes later I found myself crossing the Mississippi River into Illinois:
As you can see, it was a bit rainy. Evidently I have been cursing the lands to which I have been traveling with dismal weather since San Diego (and I suppose the entire south if you put enough of a time delay on the initial stages of the effect). The rest of the ride through Illinois presented much more of the same with corn fields and cows to boot. Upon getting closer to the Chicago metropolitan area, a sad thing happened. I paid a toll for the very first time on this entire trip, including travel across bridges, through tunnels, etc. Granted, the tolls were only a few cents a piece and my EZ-Pass picked-up the tab, but it does go to show that tolls are a very eastern US concept. It also goes to show that if you want to drive from coast to coast without paying tolls, go through the south (just watch out for tornadoes). Moving closer to the city I began seeing more and more housing developments that faded into towns that faded into ghettos that faded into Culver's locations, that eventually faded into the city of Chicago itself. Maneuvering (slowly) through the city, I found myself at the threshold of the Hampton Inn on the corner of Illinois St. and Dearborn Ave., in the swanked-out River North neighborhood of the city. Dropping my car off with the valet (who was visually shocked by the heavy packing thereof) I went into the hotel and ascended to the room where my special guest was staying. Stepping out of the elevator I could see her down the hallway: my mom!
Due to an unfortunate combination of phobias, my mom hasn't flown in over 15 years, and as such has not been farther than a day's drive from Ambler, Pennsylvania in a good while, which means that she has not been to the Russell family house in Fort Atkinson, WI for a visit in far too long (since well before my father was buried here). Upon my offer to drive her back home if she could just suck it up (perhaps with the influence of some liquid courage) and fly-in one way, she was very intrigued. Alas, instead of the
dangerous 2 hour flight to Milwaukee, my mom opted for the much more, in her mind, reasonable route: a train ride from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, 4 hour layover, and overnight train ride from Pittsburgh to Chicago, with a duration of 21 hours. Still, I love the woman, and she IS footing the bill for the hotel and food in Chicago, so I won't bust her chops too badly!
After quickly settling-in to the room in by far the ritziest (and most expensive) hotel in which I had stayed on this trip (even more so than the Monte Carlo in Vegas), we set-off for our day out. Hailing a cab so as to avoid walking in the dismal weather, we traveled to lunch about 10 blocks south of the hotel. During this ride I was able to get my bearings as being in the middle of downtown Chicago (which is a huge metropolitan area outside of downtown), complete with countless blocks of swanky restaurants like The Chophouse and Harry Caray's and skyscrapers, including the Sears Tower itself (now called the Willis Tower, an updated name which I shall choose not to use):
After a short ride we arrived at our destination: Berghoff Restaurant. A restaurant as old as Chicago itself, the German fare of Berghoff had carried the once pub and brewery through the prohibition years, during which time the joint served near-beer (and probable bootlegged out of the basement I'm sure). Finally, upon repeal of prohibition, Bernhoff was the first to get in line for its liquor license, earning them the unique liquor license number 1, which it still keeps on display:
Considering that the bulk of prohibition era gangster folklore takes place in Chicago and the almost certain shady involvement of Berghoff, we thought this would be the perfect way to start the Russell takeover of the town. My mom had been smart enough to book a reservation for lunch, seeing how it is secretary's week, and we were quickly seated at a strong wooden table in a restaurant that seems to have tried its very best not to evolve alongside society. We were quickly presented with a basket of German rye bread, and placed our orders.
Being a big fan of craft beer and authentic German food, I ordered a Berghoff Dark Lager and a Schlattplatte with a side of
Spätzle. The beer was a clean lager with above-average hopping and heavier malts than your typical lager, resulting in the darker color and a certain maltiness that lends flavor without lending weight to an already heavy meal. The Schlattplatte is a mix of different German meat dishes, including Bratwurst (white veal sausage), Knackwurst (a kielbasa-like pork sausage) and cured pork chop, all mixed together in a heaping bowl of Sauerkraut (in German you capitalize all nouns, FYI). The pork chop was tasty, with just a hint of ham flavor to add salt and moisture to the meat. The Bratwurst and Knackwurst were by far the highlight of the dish, and were some of the best I had ever sampled, each having more of the flavors of their natural meats with accentuating but not overpowering spices and seasonings in the sausage mix (which often end up so over-seasoned that the meat flavor is lost entirely and all you have is a fancy hot dog). The Sauerkraut was outstanding, cooked with caraway seeds and I do believe a little brown sugar to cut the heavy pickled flavor and reduce the vinegar presence to just the right point. The Spätzle is a side dish of egg "pasta", much more akin to a gnocchi than to a noodle, which serves as the perfect starch to a German feast bereft of potatoes.
My mother's choice was the J
ägerschnitzel, which was a sauteed pork cutlet served with mushrooms and roasted root vegetables in a J
ägermeister-infused sauce, with the tang of an Asian glaze and the weight of a gravy, also served with Spätzle. From my bite of the Schnitzel, I will only say that I will be looking-up recipes for Jäagerschnitzel the next time I buy a bottle of Jäger only to realize that it is a horrible, liquer.
Overall we were VERY satisfied with lunch, and next walked through the rain and the street corner preachers (complete with open guitar case for tips... kind of takes away the impact there, bud) to the Art Institute of Chicago. My mother and I both revere fine art and enjoy museums, so we decided that this would be a good rainy day activity for us to share. Little did we know what an incredible collection of works we were soon to behold.
After paying $30 for admission (only $12 of which was for me, since I've retained my student ID through the years) we immediately walked towards my mother's top destination, Grant Wood's
American Gothic. A few steps later and there they were, the farmer and his pitchfork with his unwed daughter in front of their Gothic country home. Upon admiring the fine detail of the work, yet noticing some very human flaws in some of the brushwork, this began my thinking about what it is that I personally like about fine art. After all, I can see almost perfect scans of these pieces all over the internet, so why bother to see them in person? Over the course of many exhibits and collections it became clearer to me that I admire art much as I admire music, from the perspective of the artist, wondering forever "Could I have made this?" Though visual art is not my medium by any means, I do enjoy seeing such iconic pieces in person so that I might realize that they are so very human and flawed, and that I shouldn't be too hard on my own works for having flaws, seeing that the standard of greatness is not infallible.
Throughout our walk through the museum my mother and I did not always agree on the pieces we beheld (she took a much more "I wouldn't pay a penny for this whole collection" perspective of certain modern art works than I as I grew bored of beholding the renaissance tapestries that she adored) we were both blown away by the size and significance of the museum's collection. Amongst countless works to the likes of Kandinskys, Pollocks, Dalis and the sort, paintings like Picasso's
The Old Guitarist and Monet's
Waterlilies and
House of Parliament series' took our breaths away to see in person, and then we walked into a room of a dozen original pieces by Vincent Van Gogh, including my all-time favorite of his self portraits (link here http://redtreetimes.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/van-gogh-self-portrait.jpg ). Naturally I had to get a picture with Vinny himself:
No trip to Chicago would be complete without the reenactment of at least one
Ferris Bueller's Day Off scene (and since I didn't know of any parades scheduled for that day)...
Staring at Seraut's
A Sunday on La Grand Jatte was pretty cool, regardless of photo op. This was by far the most impressive museum collection I had ever seen, even compared to the MoMA in Manhattan where I had been graced by
Starry Night and
The Persistence of Memory. During a final pass through the north wing of the museum I looked at what was the most beautiful wall-sized mural of the Chicago sky line, complete with bright blue skies accented by fluffy white clouds. Taking a closer look I all of a sudden realized that this was actually a lightly frosted window, and that I was actually looking at the city itself! Nice, the weather had cleared out!
Uplifted, we left the museum and walked-out into a partly sunny Chicago with a perfect mid 60s temperature that all of a sudden brought color and life to the city. Taking advantage of the weather, we began walking north through Grant Park towards the Navy Pier, which juts out from the river into Lake Michigan. In the park there were several sculptures and fountains that a few tourists like ourselves, who were brave enough to venture out in the weather, were enjoying. The park provides an excellent view of the Chicago sky scrapers, which envelop it on three sides. In the center of the park is a large sculpture of a scalene metallic ring that is highly reflective such as to provide a greater panorama of the scenery in a single field of view, revealing the tasteful flirtation of post-Chicago fire 1900s architecture with modern glass and metal skyscrapers. It ALSO just so happened to be a large part of the film
Source Code, which I saw with Missy on the very first night of this trip. I couldn't decide which was my favorite shot, so I included them all:
The obligatory self-portrait:
We then crossed the river and proceeded east to the Navy Pier and Lake Michigan, passing many expensive condominiums along the way, about which both my mother (who relentlessly confessed "I do love this city so much more than Philadelphia...") and I fantasized about owning. Progressing finally to the quarter-mile long pier (at which point my mother's poor choice of wearing sitting shoes as opposed to walking shoes, to my typical male annoyance). Much as though the Baltimore Inner Harbor, the pier was adorned with restaurants and shoppes of every price level as well as tour boats on either flank of the pier. Also, unfortunately like the Inner Harbor there was an abundance of chain restaurants, which seem to be quickly reducing every city's waterfront to the same uninspired environment. Still, the Navy Pier had a festive atmosphere, largely due to the Coney Island inspired amusement park in its center. Walking out to the end of the dock I snapped the best shots of the water and the skyline that I could:
Our legs now growing tired, we returned to the hotel and relaxed a bit as we contemplated our next meal. Since we had began the day with authentic Chicago fare of old, we thought it appropriate for our evening meal to be pure modern Chicago. After a few shakes of my Urban Spoon app, we had decided to go for true Chicago style deep dish pizza at local chain Lou Malnati's (which is renowned for defeating Bobbi Flay, whom I despise, in an episode of Throwdown). Only 2 or 3 blocks away, which was the perfect walking distance given our sore feet and legs, the restaurant environment was just as any good casual Italian joint back east, so we were instantly comfortable. Ordering a pizza called The Lou, which was a composition of spinach, mushrooms and fresh tomatoes (in a healthy contrast to the traditional sausage and butter crust) with fresh mozzarella and cheddar cheeses, we were informed that the baking process takes a good 35 minutes, so we got a salad to split. "A salad" is not the best way to describe this family-style heaping bowl which is intended to serve 4-8 (my mom and I thought that the waitress was well underestimating how heavily we eat veggies). This is what arrived after my mother and I had each dished-out two servings:
Complete with Gorgonzola cheese, olive-oil drenched diced tomatoes and crisped salami (salami pan-fried to provide a tasty crunch that well exceeded an bacon bits salad item I had ever enjoyed), we didn't view the excess as a waste, considering the petty $10.95 price. Almost filled on salad, the pizza finally arrived and we quickly made room to tuck-in. From the description you can imagine how the pizza tasted, but I do want to emphasize just how fresh all of the ingredients tasted, which is really what set this meal apart.
After dinner we retreated back to the hotel, where my mother bedded down for the night. After checking the score of game 7 of the Flyers - Sabers playoff series, and finding that the Flyers were winning 3-0 in the second intermission, I fumbled through the channels to find that the hotel did not offer the channel VS. Intent on seeing the end of the game, I adorned my Flyers hoodie and walked around the block in seek of a sports bar which would likely be playing the game on at least one of their TVs. Finding a worthy bar, I walked in to find a swarm of Blackhawks (who defeated the Flyers in the Stanley Cup last year) and Bulls (who are in the NBA playoffs) fans who turned an evil eye to me. Negotiating my way to the back of the bar, I found a small Flyers fan club huddled around a single television broadcasting the game. Watching with glee as the Flyers took the win, we all celebrated in true Flyers fan fashion: high fives to complete strangers and shit-eating grins to naysayers. Minutes after the final buzzer I returned to the hotel and soaked for a few minutes in the hot tub spa before settling into bed for the evening. It had later been brought to my attention that the Blackhawks got knocked out of the playoffs later that night :).
The next morning we awoke to find that the good weather had since passed, and that a cold drizzling day was before us. My mother had purchased tickets to the afternoon's Chicago Cubs game a few weeks earlier, and so we were intent on getting to the stadium regardless of weather. After a breakfast of leftover pizza and certain elements of the hot breakfast offered by the hotel, we were bundled-up and headed to the subway stop one block over, where I coached my mother in the purchase and swiping technique of a metro card (there was a bit of a learning curve but she got it). Less than a dozen stops later we stepped-off the train into the neighborhood appropriately called Wrigleyville. The weather was as of this point holding out, and so we smiled as we approached the legendary stadium. Before entering we decided to walk around the perimeter and take in the environment a bit more, finding sports bars and souvenir shops along our way. Passing by the outfield we first beheld the legendary rooftop seats. For those of you who don't know, Wrigley Field is a small stadium in the middle of the city, so the rooftops of the adjacent townhouses are actually higher than the outfield bleachers and so have excellent views of the game. The owners have all since erected bleachers on their rooftops and begun charging admission to take-in the game from across the street:
After taking a full lap of the stadium, we proceeded to the main entrance immediately behind home plate. Entering Wrigley for the first time, I was absolutely astounded by just how small and quaint it was as compared to any modern stadium. It almost felt as though I was transported back in time to when ballparks were little more than neighborhood parks with a few extra bleachers and hot dog stands to designate the team as a slightly bigger deal than your local little league troop. Walking up and down the halls (which do not wrap all the way around the stadium as any modern stadium does) we grabbed a couple of Old Styles (the home beer of the ballpark, which tastes like any other American piss-lager) we finally emerged at the right field foul line to behold the inside of the stadium, the seating capacity of which well exceeded what I had expected from the halls. We walked through the seat paths to our seats, which were ten rows back behind the center of the Cubs dugout on the third base line. We sat for a moment before I ventured-off to grab a couple of authentic Chicago style hot dogs with which to wash down our beers. Waiting for an hour before the set first-pitch time of 1:20pm the weather was holding-out, but it was announced 10 minutes before game time that the start would be delayed due to "rain in the area." Quickly I snapped this pic:
What do you notice here? The tarp is still down, the training equipment is still out, and there's no players warming-up or running sprints. It is at this point that we realized we had been had. Delayed due to rain in the area!? Play the game until it rains! I should have noticed that they had never intended to start the game, and when it started raining 20 minutes later any glimpse of hope for the game to go on was quickly fading. Nevertheless we did the true Cubs thing to do: we sat in the rain waiting in vain for something good to happen. About an hour later the game was called, and we began ushering ourselves out of the ballpark. Even though we never got to see a single pitch, we had a good time and were able to appreciate what a game at Wrigley is all about: quaint nostalgia and disappointment. Being the poor weather fan I am, this helped me to decide that I am now officially a Cubs fan, and so I bought a faded-blue tee shirt with the 1984 Cubs emblem of a bear cub trying its best to look tough but only looking pathetic in the process:
Soon thereafter we made our way into the subway station amidst a swarming crowd of fellow game patrons with the same idea. We had been smart enough to buy our return passes in advance, so we were able to bypass much of the line and were able to pack ourselves into the very first train as 2 of the last sardines to fill the can to capacity. As the train took-off those of us who had no hand holds flew into one another, but we were so tightly packed that no one flew too far. I saw some distinct discomfort in my Mom's eyes, especially as one punk kid took a swing at his buddy right behind me who was picking on him (fortunately it was a single swing, because that kind of bullshit in a train with plenty of women and kids pisses me the hell off), but with each stop the train began getting a bit more roomy and soon we were at our stop.
Getting back into the hotel, my mom and I both went down to the "fitness center," which was a set of dumbbells and a couple of treadmills. After what could arguably be considered a workout, I hopped in the pool and then hot tub before coming back up to the room and getting ready for dinner. After much deliberation, it was decided that we should pursue a cuisine decidedly un-Chicago in order to add some balance or contrast to the past few days of food. We found a highly reviewed Indian restaurant not two blocks from the hotel and went on in. After analyzing an almost overwhelmingly large menu, we ordered an appetizer, two entrees and an order of tandoori vegetables, all to split. So far as Indian goes, the dishes didn't break any new ground, but the complementary naan served with masala for dipping was a cool Indian interpretation of the typical bread and olive oil presentation you might find in western cuisine. All of the food was fresh and well seasoned, and it was all together a bountiful and well balanced meal.
After dinner we returned back to the hotel where my mom retired for the night. Not quite ready to resign to the same, I went back to the fitness center for another workout and then one final dip in the hot tub. Getting back to the room I had the difficult decision of whether to stay in and blog the night away, or to go out one last time while I'm in civilization. After a little deliberation, I hopped in the shower and got ready to go out.
Walking outside with little to no direction, I realized that I had seen no bars in all of my time in the area that qualify as an establishment to which I would go were I at home. Everything was so expensive and bourgeois, so much so that I needed to find a good local dive. As I walk a few blocks away from the tallest of buildings (I had figured this would bring me away from the class and tourism and into the bar neighborhoods). Several blocks later I still saw no signs of Chicago underlife, as the restaurants were still swamped with suits and money. I may enjoy a little taste of high society here and again, but deep down I'm a grungy metalhead skater boy who uses his brains to maintain employment so that I don't need to worry about my next paycheck while enjoying the fruits of my culture. I was quite discouraged by the sights, and so I just kept walking. I don't know just how far I walked, but if the best way to measure distance in a city is the number of Starbucks' passed, then the answer is 5 (6 if you count Barnes and Noble). Finally I came to a small pub called Bootleggers across the street from a strip club. PERFECT!
The place wasn't very busy, but they poured a decent Guinness and the young bartender talked to me as though interested in what I was saying, so I had a good time (plus over the course of 2 beers she "bought" me three shots of Jameson's). Apparently the people who go into non-college town dive bars on weekdays are people having affairs, so the people watching was fantastic! After about 2 hours I thanked my bartender, left a $10 on my $7 bill (you know, for the free shots) and hailed a cab to take me back to the hotel.
The next morning we woke up early to grab a quick breakfast (including the leftover Indian) and had the valet bring my car around. My mom and the valet were quite impressed to see how I crammed all of our bags into the car (making room for a passenger for the first time this trip). Soon I had taken us out of Chicago and into Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, a small ski resort town in which my family will having a reunion this August, in order for her to see the sights of a town she once enjoyed and to survey the area (I am very pleased to find that they have a skate park in town). We had a quick brunch and then were back on the road towards the Russell family house in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin!
As I am currently in Fort (as we call it) and wish to have one complete entry for my visit, I'll leave the entry at that for the moment and publish a new one tomorrow. Sorry for the delay, but thanks for reading!
Stay posted!
