Two Crappy Pages

I’m in Wisconsin, somewhere between a farm town and another farm town, parked in what’s called a Forest, meaning also a farm, but for adolescent telephone poles. Mostly here there are farms, and I drove past a great many of them, lush and green and punctuated by silos and barns as though a child painted them. A talented child, but there does seem to be a theme.

I prefer farms to interstate highways, and, though I don’t have the time to cross the entire country on back roads, I do what I can to wander windingly.

I’ve started in the middle again, mostly since that’s where I am, or by mileage more like a thirdle.

I’ve not written in a while, because … well because reasons.

I have felt
uninspired.
tired.
mired in the work of existence, and lacking the
desire?

no, not that. I do desire

I feel like I’ve gotten over my skis a bit. I have expectations of myself that I find difficult to fulfill.

Once in a while I say something I like, and frequently I think things I don’t.
It’s stifling.

But, here I am, by the old graveyard, collied inside by flies. (It’s fortunate that the baby jesus invented window screens.)

And I told myself I can’t do this trip and not write, when the point of the thing is the thing. So I’m following a piece of advice from Struthless, a YouTuber whom I heartily recommend, from Tim Ferris before him, and likely someone else before: Write two crappy pages per day.

Why crappy pages? Well writing good pages is hard, but especially hard when not actually writing.

I am not actually sure how to count pages in this writing style, so I’m ignoring the instruction and doing it my own way, a habit I staunchly defend, frequently to my detriment, but often to eventual benefit.

And still here I am in the thirdle without the firstlebits.
So, let’s rewind, and see if I can get some good ole crappiness into this.

This trip started with a weekend in Vermont, in a cute town called Chester in a terribly expensive house made affordable by splitting among a dozen friends, and then only for a period of four days. It’s the old mill, and is huge and interesting with beautiful stream-side property. As one would expect, on account of mill. We played a bunch of role playing games and sat in the hot tub and I contributed to the making of delicious foods mostly by eating them. It was delightful.

Next down to Northampton to visit my partner and enjoy the town which always feels like home to me. There was a bookstore, which contributed to my habit of buying books I mean to read and habitually do not. It’s about a hike of an ancient road in Japan. I look forward to not getting around to reading it soon.

Next, west, to a night in a random upstate NY rest area, followed by the next in Allegany State Park, a word which took me three tries to spell, even with help. I take consolation in the fact that the name isn’t proper anyway, as the indigenous bilingual signs there suggest. At least I think it was an indigenous language… there were a lot of apostrophes, so it could have been a lovecraftian cult at work. More instigation is needed.

Next was a trip to the first National Park of my journey, that of Cuyahoga Valley. There’s no entrance fee, and no camp sites, but there is a lovely flat parking lot with a bathroom, both of which are greatly appreciated. Unfortunately the park itself is… nice. I mean it’s nice! But, it’s just… nice. It’s a pleasant river valley with trees and ducks and river otters and birds and things, and that’s all… nice. I think it suffers from lack of views and organization. Also I definitely suffered from lack of kayak, which is likely the whole point of the thing. Regardless, I’m glad the park exists, and I’m sure it’s fantastic for Cleavelandites to visit on a very short day trip. Cleavelanders? Cleavelandovians? Cleves.

The next day brought me to the RV Museum, which is apparently a thing, and most crucially a thing which is right off the highway and has free overnight parking. It became unfree when I paid admission in the morning and wandered around the exhibits. There was one specific RV I saw in Quartzite that I had hoped to see, but instead there were lots of others that were quite interesting. The very old ones with the wood stoves, alsowood cabinetry and hand pumped sinks feel like mobile cabins, that remind me a little of the one I used to visit in Montreat, except with more wheels.

I also stuck my feet in Lake Erie that day, which I’m reminded of because the following day I stuck my very same feet into Lake Michigan, in Indiana Dunes National Park, which is ALSO totally a thing. It’s absolutely the best national park ever which has a fantastic view of a nuclear power plant. It was raining so no one else was there, which was great. A seagull snagged a doritos bag and I followed it for a while trying to get it to drop it, reminding it along the way that I was a persistence hunter. It then proceeded to remind ME that it could fly and circled around over the ocean, doubling back to thwart me. I tried.

The sand had the consistency and color of brown sugar, all sticky and clumpy, but not in an unpleasant way. The rain probably contributed to that. I’m sure the Tusken Raiders would have a totally different name for it, and not call it “sand” at all. The signs were not bilingual, so I can’t be sure.

That brings us to today, where I woke in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel, after a rather nice sleep, and decided to give them my business for breakfast, since I’d run out of the giant log of apple cinnamon bread I’d been passing off as breakfast all week. I had a suitably fatty cheesy gloppy thing that was exactly what I had in mind when I walked in the door. Before I walked OUT of the door I checked out the shopping area, since that’s what you do, and picked up a couple of Bundaberg sodas to try, since I’d never seen them before aside from Adam Savage drinking them on camera. I got both the Ginger Beer and the Root Beer. I don’t know if they have a Cream Soda, but that’d have been my preference if they did. I also noticed they have Burt’s Bees, Duke Cannon, and the Stranger Things soundtrack on vinyl. ? They’ve moved up in my chain-store hierarchy.

I’ve just managed to write more about breakfast than I did about a national park. Make of that what you will. (Note to Cuyahoga: Bacon.)

Next I went to Dr. Evermor’s Sculpture Park, home of the Forevertron, and though I sincerely doubt his medical credentials, I can affirm his ability to weld giant metal things to other giant metal things in fascinating creative ways. If you’ve ever wanted to see an ostrich with scissors for a beak and a tuba for an ass, this is the place you need to go. It’s a magical tetanus farm, and I love it. I spent some time talking to his wife and daughter, and marveled at the traveling BBQ fit for an army. I picked up a book about the late artist, which I’m also looking forward to not reading any time soon. Joining it is a small sculpture and a t-shirt. I pinged my fellow travelling-friend, telling him to visit next time he’s in the area, and he pointed me to two nearby spots, one which was too far away and one which wasn’t.

I had no idea what to expect from the House on the Rock, which I’ll get to in a second, after I casually mention that I drove by Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s estate, and nearby buildings. I didn’t have time for tours.

I’ll have to be brief, about the House on the Rock, because it’s a staggering experience. Having done no research whatsoever I was a bit surprised at the $35 entrance fee, but was glad I had the whole afternoon to get my money’s worth. And BOY did I.

The self guided tour starts with the gardens, which are in Japanese style and are lovely, and then of his house which is built into the rock, as advertised. It’s quirky and homey, and has a maze of rooms which look like lovely places to hang out and sit by a fire. Lots of stone and wood and odd angles and interest at every turn.

Then there’s a room pulled from Willy Wonka’s fever dream. It’s hundreds of feet long and narrows to a point at the end, and there’s a window in the floor which looks down at the tops of the trees it towers above. It has great views out beyond the cliff, and I briefly pondered whether his engineering ability matched his creativity before retreating to a more comfortable area at the base, where there’s a set of instruments which play themselves.

Then, there is the … museum? Collection? Eccentric madhouse?

This has to be seen, I cannot do it justice so I’m going to just try to list some of what’s here… A life sized elephant in a suit of armor whose trunk is suspending a knight in midair. An enormous steam powered still that would dwarf a locomotive. A locomotive. Several. A Calliope with a dozen life sized musicians. Several dozen pipe organs. A carousel with a hundred unique and sometimes terrifying figures. Three dozen angels. A model of a circus the size of a ping pong table. Six more similar circuses, complete with train. An entire not-model street of old timey shops, including a fire house, a dentist, an apothecary and a theater. A whale being attacked by a giant squid, both of which are significantly larger than life sized. A hundred model ships, some of which are twenty feet long. A gullwing mercedes 300sl. A Lincoln Continental covered in mosaic tile. Many many more cars. Another locomotive, this one a giant rube goldberg contraption. A whole wing of quite large dollhouses. A room with a hundred guns, antique, scrimshaw, gun-cane, false-leg-with-hidden-gun. Japanese puppets. Several complete coin-operated rooms which each play an orchestra of actual instruments of all descriptions. Animatronic fortune tellers, love strength testers and handshake evaluators. A set of twenty kettle drums forty feet tall. The crowns of fifty rulers. Faberge eggs. A diner. More full size elephants. A hundred moving desktop displays advertising diamonds in different styles, from flying saucers to gnomes to brides and grooms in diving helmets. Eight complete Burma Shave highway sign sets. A butterfly collection. Sixteen antique cash registers. A steam powered hearse. Another dentist shop, this one with more extracted teeth.

There is virtually no signage and no distinction between priceless antiques and items created for the fanciful displays. The whale for example is a giant sculpture only tangentially related to any living species. The forty foot long canon with the ten foot wide barrel can’t be real, but the much smaller West Point mortar outside most certainly is.

I bought the book. Well, two… One about the madman, and another with better photos of the collection than most of the hundreds I took on my phone. I look forward to not getting around to reading them any time soon.