Road Trip, Final Installment

The next day's drive was only 330 miles or so, so I didn't set my alarm for the morning. When I woke up I headed down to a park I had seen on the side of the road on the drive to Pier W. I headed down some stairs and walked out onto an old pier jutting out from the beach with a bagel and cream cheese. I took my time eating, carefully avoiding the lapping waves and seagull crap as I gazed out across Lake Erie. After a good 20 minutes or so I jumped back in the car and entered the highway for the last time. The drive went so smoothly I forgot to stop for lunch, and the gray storm clouds and rain which had dogged me from the moment I entered Nebraska finally let up. It was a beautiful day as I entered Pennsylvania, and once I got into the hills of Upstate New York I really started to get excited. When I saw the first sign for Ithaca I almost yelled with glee. Our old Golden Retriever Jenny used to bark and scurry around in excitement in the back of our car when we were making our final approach to our cabin in Idaho, and I suspect I felt a comparable emotion as the end of the trip finally came in sight.

I saw Cornell in the distance first, and then I started passing a few familiar stores until I finally got within sight of the main section of town. I stayed in my friend Connor's house that night, since I got there a day early after cutting out NYC from the itinerary, but the next day I helped him and his housemates move out (since it was a sublet and their lease had ended), and they in turn helped me move my stuff upstairs. Walking through the front door for the first time filled me with absolute elation, and the place is still as cool as I remember it being way back in February. It is a little creaky and rickety, the fridge is way too big for the kitchen, and the walls in the living room seem to have undergone at least four or five very unprofessional college kid paint jobs, judging by the various missed spots on the walls and accidental brush strokes on the molding. None of the previous residents seem to have ever heard of painter's tape before. But there's an undeniable charm to the place, and the location can't be beat. I'm going to very thoroughly enjoy living here.

I took almost three hundred photos along the way. Every 100 miles I'd take a photo of both me and the scenery. Uploading all of those would take forever, though, so here are a select few of the ones I took, plus some shots of the apartment and the Commons. For some asinine reason Photobucket decided to send the ones I rotated right side up to the front of the list, but aside for the first three all the photos are in order. The itinerary I took for the trip can be viewed here.

I'm glad I made the drive, but I wish I'd taken a bit more of an interesting route. Grandpa recommended staying "on the blue roads," and if I did it again I think I'd seriously consider doing that. The only big city I passed through on the entire trip was Cleveland, but aside for that all of the little towns along the way were pretty much identical. Their economies depended entirely on the highway for survival, and didn't have much going for them culturally. I guess you can only experience so much of America at 70 MPH, but there'd probably be quite a bit more to see and experience on the less traveled roads.