A view of the unusual infrastructure investment in Toledo, OH, home of the Rockets, and just before the Big Left Turn out of Michigan and onto the Ohio Turnpike. Photo white-knuckled ay 75 knots in the Bluesmobile by Socotra. The mirror image of the bridge is reflected in the trooper blue paint of the hood of the Crown Vic P-71.
Youngstown, Ohio. Sad town, decent Holiday Inn Express. Matt was very kind at the front desk, and the complete uncertainty of throwing myself off the road and into a box for the night went splendidly.
Youngstown is one of several sad towns I flew through between the Little City by the Bay and Your Nation’s Capital. Saginaw, Bay City, Flint, Detroit, Monroe, Toledo, Cleveland. I am actually in North Lima, the site of a documentary made by an acquaintance that spelled it out: Lima/Lost in Middle America.
I was not lost. Pittsburgh is ahead, and soon if I get my ass in gear.
I was shifting colors from the Little Town By the Bay to home port. Just shy of 800 miles, according to the nice people at Google, door to door. It will be 2100 miles on the Crown Vic in the last ten days.
Damn, I hate that drive. And love it, when it is behind. With each mile, I thought of Raven and Big Mama, but the immediacy attenuated as the cities rose up and passed behind.
Youngstown is where the light died suddenly. It had been gray on and off all day, rain in sprits and torrents and blue skies alternating. I watched the rear-view as the salmon-and-gray horizon faded to black. I had hoped to make Cranberry, Pennsylvania, but it was not going to happen.
I liked that damn bridge at Toledo. The rest? All the same. So much sand and scrub pine, and that bedraggled old Detroit as I passed through the once-mighty industrial juggernaut north of Windsor, Ontario.
Just at the 7.3 hour mark, the blackness swept in. The Bluesmobile had performed well under my toe and heel, but needed gas at the 458 mile mark, 350 from last fill-up in West Branch, MI, just north of where that asshole Ogemaw County Mounty stakes out the northbound lanes of traffic on I-75.
Hours and hours later, 19 chapters of my MP3 audio book, I was waiting for the “Low Fuel” light to come on from my couch-like bench seat in the big Crown Vic, and the events and the turnpike construction in Pennsylvania inclined me to just get the hell off the road and give up for the day.
Baseball is pretty cool, and Game Six between the Cards and the Rangers was amazing.. I may even get to watch Game Seven- just think for a moment, when this phase of the project began, I was praying for Detroit to beat New York.
Thank heavens for small favors.
There is an event I would like to get back to this evening, at home, blessed home, and with 308 miles to go, am just going to get the hell on with it.
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com