Before checking out we wandered over to Peet's Coffee to get a civilized cup
of coffee, and we picked up a pound to leave with my old Navy buddy, who we
were going to be staying with next in New Pekin, Indiana. His name is Dan, or
as we say in New Pekin, "Dayan". We made typically slow progress getting
through Chicago, but once we got out of Illinois and their delightful system of toll roads, we made good time. I noticed
that now that our windshield was periodically colliding with a different type of bug that would bounce off the windshield
rather than making a big mess on the windshield. This was obviously happening too fast to get a good look at what type of
bug it was, or if it was a bug at all rather than a pebble of tar being kicked up by another vehicle, but they always
appeared
to be descending when the collision occurred so I was proceeding on the
assumption that it was some sort of scarab or similarly hard-shelled insect.
Just before we got to Indiana I saw this truck getting towed. I don't know why
it caught my attention but it did.
On Dan's recommendation I took the 265 bypass around Indianapolis to avoid
roadwork but I was not able to avoid the rain because sure as god made the
little green apples, it does rain in Indianapolis in the summertime. As soon
as I turned on the windshield wipers, my windshield was smeared with a bunch
of black streaks that appeared to be tar. At this point I was unable to
decide whether the aforementioned bugs had in fact been pebbles of tar, if
they had been bugs that left a tar-like residue, or if the two phenomenons
were unrelated. Anyway, in the course of the next fifty miles of drizzle
interspersed by heavy cloudbursts - the windshield-wipers very slowly rid the
windshield of the mess, and the windshield was once again clear by the time
I rendezvoused with Dan in Salem, Indiana.
Salem is a substantially larger town than New Pekin and even has a couple of
traffic lights. It also has Amish residents - although we didn't see any as
we cruised through town. What Salem doesn't have is cell phone coverage, so I
had to call from a pay phone to set up the rendezvous. Dan told me to go
about 8 miles and to meet him at the liquor store where the highway meets with state highway 335. In the heart of Pekin I
saw a liquor store but no highway
335 so I kept going. When it appeared that I was leaving Pekin I decided to
turn around and return to the liquor store to see if I had overlooked the
intersection. When I got back I confirmed that there was no highway 335 so I
decided to go inside and ask.
It was not a typical liquor store as it had no windows that you could see in,
and when I entered I realized it was more of a bar than a liquor store. I was
wearing my best wife-beater undershirt and I immediately realized that I was
over-dressed for such an establishment. I asked a guy that was sitting at a
table if he could tell me whether I had missed highway 335, but it was
difficult to make out his answer through the few teeth that he still had
remaining. I then asked the guy behind the bar, and he explained that I had
to continue out of town and I would find the highway right at the liquor
store. Even though New Pekin didn't have any traffic lights, it did have more
than one liquor store.
Sure enough, once I continued to the outskirts of town I saw Dan's Ford F-150
parked at the liquor store. We exchanged pleasantries (he threw a pack of
cigarettes at me) and then I followed him up some back roads, over hill and
dale (where I almost ran over Chip 'n Dale), and eventually arrived at his
home.
He and his wife own a house situated on a hill overlooking a pastoral scene
of rolling hills, grazing livestock, and mobile-home pads that have had their
trailers ripped loose. Dan's wife, Lona related a story about the time she
came home from high school on a day when they had had tornado warnings, only
to discover that her home was no longer there. For whatever reason, their
current home had managed to escape fairly unscathed through 115 years of
varying incarnations. The original structure was that old, and had consisted
of only three or four rooms. Over the years the house had been added on to,
eventually extending all the way out to the bathrooms. I would estimate the
square footage of the primary structure at around sixteen hundred square feet,
and there were several additional garage-sized structures situated about the
property, which Dan estimated at about three acres. The estate also included
a propane tank, a septic tank, a cistern and a well, although they now were
getting their water piped in. Among its more modern amenities, the place had
air conditioning and DirectTV. He also had one of those lawn mowers that you
can ride, which helped keep the task of mowing the lawn down to a manageable
three hours. I'm not sure how frequently he executed that task but he had
apparently done it recently because the grounds looked like a golf course.
Except for the oppressive, swamp-like humidity, the place was truly beautiful.
I would estimate that a similar patch of land would fetch at least a couple
million in Los Altos Hills.
Beginning with the evening that we arrived, we drove into Louisville each day
for our dining and entertainment needs. The first night we went to Joe's Crab-
shack, where I was tempted to buy one of their charming "Got Crabs?" T-shirts,
but thought better of it. The fish was good, the beer was good enough (Sam
Adams), and the entertainment was watching an electrical storm from our perch
overlooking the Ohio River.
Distance this day:
Total distance:
312 miles
2900 miles
Wednesday & Thursday, July 16th & 17th
Indiana & Louisville
In this part of the country at this time of year, you pretty much want to
confine your activities to air-conditioned spaces, and my arm injury
precluded us from bowling or billiards. There are of course other reasons that
would have precluded us from bowling, such as my distain for the sport - which
may or may not be related to my abysmal skills, but for the sake of moving the
story along we will attribute it to my injury. Instead, we chose to go to the
movies. On the first day we saw my choice, "Finding Nemo", which I enjoyed,
although not as much as I had expected. On the second day we saw Dan's choice,
"Pirates Of The Caribbean", which I enjoyed more than I had expected. I
recommend it to anyone who doesn't have difficulty with the willful suspension
of disbelief.
In addition, I gave Dan the boxed set of the first season of The Sopranos, which he had never seen. We watched the first disc with him - to be sure the hook was in before we left.
