There’s a rainbow over the Staybridge Suites in Maumee, Ohio. There’s a black Toto dog sitting next to you on the passenger seat. You park the car and walk into the hotel. There’s no one at the front desk, but a skinny guy with a greasy ponytail who’s drinking a Bud light and watching NASCAR on the lobby TV greets you. This is definitely not Oz.
Still, leaving Park City on a cross-country road trip to Rochester, New York, it’s impossible not to think there’s no place like home: The new one you’re leaving or the old one you’re returning to.
The act of driving across country is a kind of do-it-yourself project, the kind that makes the reward when you finally reach your destination so much sweeter. Along the way, anything can happen. Just you and your trusty sidekick. The freedom of the open road. The wind in your hair. The ever-changing golden landscape. Really cool sunglasses.
About 25 miles in, you suddenly feel less Thelma and Louise and more Dumb and Dumber. You can get your kicks on Route 66. On Interstate Route 80, you’re just hoping for a pulse. Something, anything, to keep you awake.
Life is what you make it. And the tender at the cowboy steak joint in Cheyenne is asking everyone at the bar if they want to make it a double. When you order a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, he asks if you want a shot on the side. Toto, we’re not in Utah anymore.
Then there’s the water towers. Hey, Moab might have that red-mud-caked Titan Tower. But Nebraska’s got one that looks like a teapot! One with a yellow smiley face! There’s a spaceship one! Gee, that pastel-painted one looks like where Barbie would live if she got evicted from her dream house!
Along with lots of corn fields about to be planted, in Iowa, you’ll find the convenience store chain Kum ‘n’ Go. It was presumably named after the founders realized that “Wham Bam, Thank You, Ma’am” wouldn’t fit on a sign.
Then there’s Fallen Timbers, somewhere outside of Toledo, Ohio, the location of your final overnight stop. Turns out, when faced with the challenge of honoring the final battle of the Northwest Indian War, you do what any self-respecting real-estate developer would do. You build a mall. The Shops at Fallen Timbers is quiet and eerily deserted. Barnes and Noble, Dillards, Journeys … all closed.
But then you see it. The harbinger of springtime in the Midwest. It’s a Red Robin gourmet burger joint. Striding to the front door, a young server with a mustache that looks like it’s been attached with Elmer’s Glue rushes to hold the door and says he likes the “stringy things” on your suede fringe jacket. He might not be able to recommend a menu item under 2,400 calories, but at least he’s got good taste.
The next day, you reach the Angola rest stop on Route 90. About 85 miles to go. You’ve driven about 1,895 miles and now you’re so close, you can almost taste the chicken wings and garbage plates of your hometown dreams. You park your car and cross the bridge that carries you over the thruway to the restrooms on the other side. This time, you’re careful not to make the mistake you once did of crossing the bridge to the wrong side of the thruway and were convinced that you were either in a parallel universe or your car had been stolen.
Back in Rochester, a friend says, “Welcome home, even though I know you don’t think of it as that anymore.” But she’s wrong. It feels more like home than ever.
At least until it’s time to get back on the road to Park City.