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A rocky start, to our next fugue. Our original plan was to replicate our European fugue either in South America or Europe again, so much to still see https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2020/06/we-will-always-have-frankfurt.html . We still rented out our house with the goal to begin a year-long meandering trek through the US/Canada to meet up with our daughter /son-in-law/granddaughter who were relocating to Amherst, MA from Saarbrücken, Germany. Unfortunately, we are living in (hopefully the last vestiges of) a Trump America where nothing is normal. Plans just can’t exist. Sur-reality has taken over.
For the returning ex-pats, it was a good-bye to a great German preschool and low Covid rates (a final maskless walk around her block) and hello to long flight with inconsistent masked passengers, although the 3 year old had it right. And, a dog in need of a tree.
So, in June, we successfully rented out our house, put everything we owned in our converted garage, bought a car, and loaded the car with everything else for daughter 1 in Amherst and daughter 3 in Minneapolis, a stop in route. We locked the door and left a week later then planned.
Unfortunately we did not head to the majestic vistas of Glacier National Park and Yellowstone as hoped, but to the Best Western in Salem OR. Fortunately, since our goal was to spend the year traveling and seeing America, our first stop was essentially was Anywhere, USA. A Best Western Hotel in Salem, Oregon. From our hotel window, we could gaze at the Costco across the street and the Denny’s in the shared parking lot. A stone’s throw away was Walmart, where we did walk to get the oak-barrel vanilla Talente gelato (one can pretend it was being eaten elsewhere eating After a vigor’s Chlorox wipe down of every surface, and replacing their sheets with our own, we were ready for our first meal of the American Adventure; a tin of red chile flavored smoked oysters, goat cheese plus zucchini, snap peas and basil from our left-behind garden.
Why Salem, Oregon. With no history, a few days before we were to leave, Nick was hit with kidney stones. 4-5 stones that needed to be blasted away which was problematic since Nick weighs 10 stone. With our house rented out for the next year, it was Kaiser Salem for treatment and a few day stay, followed by Hillsdale (just outside of Portland) for recuperation.
After kidney blast off, we traded our Denny’s parking lot for a business center Hampton Inn for a few days and then hit the road with a lovely Oregon sendoff.
Trying to make up for lost time, and concern for exposure, we abarrled through Oregon, Washington, Idaho and half of Montana, making it to Butte the first night. We finished crossing Montana, to spend the second night in Jamestown, North Dakota, birthplace of Nick’s father. Like all of North Dakota, it was remote and sparsely populated. It’s understandable that his father never went back after leaving for college. We were graced with a nice send off- a tiny rainbow, just under the cloud to the side of the Mac sign.
Seen from the car, Montana and North Dakota were really beautiful.
Based on our amateur sky observations we determined that North Dakota’s sky was almost as big if not equivalent to boastful Montana’s sky. As we passed towns with known names (Missoula, Billings, Butte, Bismarck) it was a bit remarkable how small they all were, and yet they all seemed to have a Walmart and a Denny’s.
We also began our train spotting as we entered Montana and we were really struck by the number of long trains in each state as we sailed across the country to Amherst.
We rolled into Minneapolis for 3 days to visit our youngest daughter Simona for a very enjoyable tour-break. Our stay here was in the guest room of Simona’s building- an iconic Co-op apartment building (she rents) built in 1930 to be the fanciest apartment building in Minneapolis. It felt like a combination Del Coronado + Fountaingrove Lodge https://thechosenfugue.blogspot.com/2019/10/living-lodge.html tempered with the faded glory of Sunset Boulevard (movie not street).
She was very pleased with her recent move here especially nice as she has rarely been able to leave her apartment since she moved in on the first night of lockdown.
The Twin Cities is in a major state of flux and recovery. Driving around the protest signs were encouraging , yet the empty and boarded up buildings a reminder of how much needs to be done.
Yet again, we were given a stellar send off, this time from outside of Simona’s kitchen window
After the Twin Cities, we did a marathon 14 hour drive to Erie, PA trying to quickly get through Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana,Ohio and Pennsylvania (just a sliver), with their confusing toll roads. As Californians, we were raised on freeways and not used to toll roads/turnpikes. Considerable amount of high anxiety resulting from toll booth confusion and a sense of imprisonment with the toll road guard towers, well maybe they were actually tollbooths, at each exit. We raked up $43 in tolls while we were road-trapped. Although the toll roads seem to skirt the cities, we did manage a brief side glimpse of Cleveland and the baseball stadium (Progressive Field).
An overnight stop in a rural NY oasis to visit Patricia’s sister + brother-in-law and enjoy a room that did not need to be Chlorox-wiped/stripped down plus a meal which included greens from the garden and grilled haloumi- a better reminder of past travels then the ice cream at Walmart. It is a pretty idyllic spot.
Our only tourist stop on the journey was Watkins Glen in the Finger Lakes area. https://parks.ny.gov/parks/142/ (check for more pictures). A crazy naturally sculpted sandstone and limestone gorge, like a combination of Frank Lloyd Wright, Disneyland’s Swiss Family Robinson and Nirvana (the state of mind not the band, or both because it wasn’t really hard rock).
Unfortunately, it was tainted by crowds which included many unmasked people, despite signs stating masks required and presence of park rangers (although they did not seem to be enforcing). It felt like a big open bar, so we moved quickly.
After 10 to 14 hour drives, the last day\’s 3.5 hour sprint to Amherst went quickly. More trains, more tollbooths, then Massachusetts and more tollbooths.
We drove up to our daughter’s house, the end of the rainbow, dropped our remaining cargo for them in their driveway and then drove off to wait for their 14 day quarantine to end.
Chosen Fugue 
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