Some time after midnight a tired father and daughter checked in to a roadside motel.
Jack Kerouac first came into my life roughly three years ago, and from the very first moment I was smitten. I was going to be a beatnik; without the rampant sex, drugs, and alcohol that is. There were a few problems with my whole ‘beatnik’ plan however; most notably perhaps the fact that it is no longer nineteen-thirty-something and there are no milk trucks to hitch a ride in the back of, alongside a bunch of itinerant men talking loudly and peeing off the side, while I scribble in a grubby notebook.
The first thought in my head when the idea of a year in San Francisco was proposed to me was not of school, Alcatraz, or the Golden Gate Bridge; but that Kerouac drove there from New York City, and that I needed to find where Neil Cassidy’s home was, along with their other haunts.
And so, with a week to go before my expected arrival at university my dad and I became beatniks; we went ‘on the road’ and took our own Kerouacian journey from Toronto to San Francisco.
We left Toronto at roughly 18h on Friday the 21 of August. It was slow to leave the city and our first stop was at the home of a student of my father’s to drop off our dopey, but lovable, galumphing dog.
The road from the city to the border is not a terribly scenic one, but we filled the time with good conversation, and when that failed good old CBC radio, Canada’s national broadcaster.
The first night of our journey we made it as far as Windsor, Ontario. The next morning we woke up around 6h and drove to the border at Detroit. Because I am Canadian, I did not need to go for an interview in order to obtain my visa, I just had to have it confirmed at a point of entry. Border crossings are one of those things that are consistently, unnecessarily stressful. I completely understand and support the core value of ‘vigilance’ upheld by homeland security, but I don’t understand why there is an insistence that all border crossing guards act intimidating.
It took around an hour for my visa to be processed, and then we were off on our great American road trip.
First stop: Chicago!
This was my first visit to the windy city and I am certain that it will not be my last. Chicago is known for its incredible architecture, and for good reason. It is more than just impressive buildings and the el-train tracks, which make the city so special. It seems to be a forever-reoccurring problem in the great cities of how to combine the old and the new, and Chicago does this perfectly.
The first place we went was Millennium Park. It is truly amazing because it has been integrated into the habitual routines of local people. It was a beautiful day, and everywhere you looked there were families out enjoying the park, from playing Frisbee on the Great Lawn in front of the open-air stadium, to toddlers running around in the giant, sculpture-like splash pad.
The major attraction in the park is the Cloud, a giant mirrored sculpture that tourists and locals flock to in order to observe their reflections, or the reflection of the city, in the glass; similar to a funhouse.
The Chicago Institute of Modern Art is beyond words. It is impossible to describe what it is like to walk from room to room and be surrounded by every major work of art from every major artist you could possibly imagine; from Kandinsky to the Water Lilies, the museum is a cornucopia of major works.
I have a great appreciation for modern art, but my heart forever lies with the impressionists. Their soft, dreamlike images and pastel colours call to me. The paintings capture life through a hazy lens where reality and reverie are intertwined, as though they are painted through the eyes of those first moments of consciousness when you are not sure whether you are still in the land of dreams or not.
It was a great day in Chicago, but when 17h rolled around it was time to get going, or so we thought. As it turned out the westbound ramp onto the I-94 was closed, and so we spent an hour driving in a circle before deciding to take the eastbound ramp.
Somehow, I’m not entirely sure how it happened; we ended up turning onto I-55 south towards St. Louis. It turned out to be a really good plan because it took us in exactly the direction we were meant to be going. In addition to that we were able to get our fix on route 66, or at least take some pictures by one of the signs before getting back on the I-55 south, and then the I-80 west towards Iowa. We drove late into the night and stopped at a Super 8 Motel in Le Claire, Iowa; a small town on the border of the Mississippi River.
Due to our late night arrival in Le Claire, we really had no idea where we were, and were quite pleasantly surprised to wake up in a quaint tourist town for seniors. We drove along the main street, one of those where if you blinked you would miss it, and got out to see the paddleboat that cruises down the Mississippi from Iowa to Louisiana during the warmer months. Once we saw all there was to see of a place we never thought we’d come to be at; we were on our way once more.
In Polk, Iowa, we stopped to see a car show. Locals had brought their restored antique cars, rarities, and hot-rods to the parking lot of a Bronze Armadillo Antique Mall to show off their pride and joy, as well as converse with others who shared their passion for automobiles. Car lovers ourselves, it was enjoyable to talk to the owners and hear their stories of the care, time, and love that went into making their cars beautiful.
There is very little else to say about Iowa. It is long and flat, but rest assured America: you will never run out of corn, oil will be depleted and their will still be corn in Iowa stretching farther than the eye can see. When the dust settles from the nuclear apocalypse (if ever there is one) the only remaining marks that we existed will be Twinkies and the corn in Iowa.
As we drove through Iowa it was impossible to avoid noticing the elements that, in many ways, make up America, and the way that they fit with one another. The radio is an endless stream of gospel and bible stations, out the window on either side are seemingly endless cornfields. And those fields, which feed the country, are littered with signs for the Adult Superstore.