Lawrence, Kansas, 594 miles out.

I'm writing from an Econolodge in Lawrence, Kansas, getting ready to sit down to a dinner of leftover ribs from an East St. Louis BBQ joint.  I've driven about 594 miles since leaving Chicago 2 days ago.  Considering I'm retracing the path of a man who was walking all this distance, yes, it is a little weak to complain that all this driving is tiring, but it is.

Before I say anything about Illinois and Missouri, I want to point out something about Lummis's experience during this early portion of the Tramp.  As Robert E. Fleming notes in his introduction to Lummis's A Tramp Across the Continent, Lummis devotes a mere 10 pages of his book to the entire Tramp through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, and then just another 10 pages are to Kansas (out of a book of 200+ pages).  So obviously, Lummis's interest increases as he moves West, and indeed, Chapter 2, which describes his first entry into Colorado, is entitled "Really 'Out West'".

So one question going through my head as I begin this "tramp" is, are these states really so uninteresting?  Do we just fail to find the interest and beauty in them?  And if they are so uninteresting to us, is it something inherent about them, or is it just because we are accustomed to them?

Goodbye Chicago

I set out from Chicago on a bitterly cold, grey day.  This week has been filled with goodbyes and last hangouts.  The night before setting out, a palpable feeling of leaving Chicago began to hit me.  I’m not good at goodbyes.  Not good with pleasantries.  But I’m sincerely going to miss all the good friends I’ve made in Chicago.  Call me in Arizona and we will hang!

I failed to get up at the crack of dawn as planned, and by the time I finished loading my UHaul trailer, it was already after noon, with my goal of St. Louis ahead of me.

A word on this trailer.  I decided to take most of my things with me to Phoenix, so the option I settled on was renting a 4x8 trailer from UHaul (the size my car is rated to tow).  Pulling this trailer with my smallish car was one of my chief sources of anxiety going into the trip.  But this small trailer o' mine has been doing great.  Yes, acceleration and stopping is slower, gas mileage is down, but otherwise driving isn't so bad.  It stays close behind me as I make turns, and it's small enough that I can see pretty well around it in my side mirrors.  Probably the biggest headache is parking, because the trailer doubles the length of my vehicle.

Leaving Chicago-- Chicagoland is a better word-- on a cold, grey winter day is not the most uplifting start to a roadtrip.  It's many miles of unattractive scenery of car dealerships, fast food joints, powerlines and other miscellaneous stuff along the road that's not particularly pleasing to the eye.  And it goes like this for a long time.  What's interesting though, is that when the city and suburbs do finally give way, they really give way.  Once you're clear of the suburbs, you quickly feel like you're in the middle of nowhere.  It seems so vast, and in the winter so desolate.  Also striking is the fact that it's like this almost the entire 6 hours to St. Louis.  As you traverse the middle of the state, it's all ultra-rural, flatness.

This is one part of the trip that may not have changed too much since Lummis (although I'm sure all these lonely farmhouses have cable and Internet).   After crossing the Wabash river into Illinois he notes, "For three or four miles there are various faint attempts at hills; but thenceforward you might almost see across to St. Louis."  Lummis is like me and is sentimental about mountains.  "The flatness hangs over at the edges.  I would have given the heel off one of my shoes to see a good old scraggy New England hill dumped down the middle of that howling area of monotony."  Ouch (but in a couple states he'll forget all about those New England mountains).

Lummis's chief concern in Illinois (and other places leading up the to the Presidential Election of 1884), is politics.  He talks a lot about the political winds in the state, and each candidate's chances.  Lummis himself is a staunch Republican, and abhors Democrat Grover Cleveland.  He also notes that, "Farmhouses have been my chief reliance across Illinois, for the stations are so far apart that it is often hard to make the distances fit in right".  I thought it was interesting that he could stay in farmhouses out in the country, and I wondered if this is an established custom, where farmer's let travelers stay with them to make a little money, or if it was out of friendliness and something Lummis had to cajole each night?

I hate to cast judgement on the landscape of Illinois, and undoubtedly it has its virtues, but I'd have to agree with Lummis, I found the countryside to be dull (although I bet on a mild summer evening it might seem very lush and tranquil).  The most interesting part of drive for me were the huge modern windmills off in the distance in Odell, Illinois.

These things are massive and beautiful.  Especially when they are spinning.  And it's renewable energy.  There's something cool and almost unearthly about seeing that much kinetic motion in something so large.  They are beautiful and I like t hat it is green technology.  I got off the highway to try to get close to one.  I was able to get close, but the back road I was one was a little icy and snowy and narrow, so I didn't want to stop the vehicle.

St. Louis


After a great night's sleep at my brother's house in St. Louis, I hit the road determined to see a bit of St. Louis before pressing on west.  I had planned to do the Budweiser brewery tour, but I got sidetracked by a bit of Lummitology that turned into a wild goose chase.

Lummis's route through Illinois is pretty far down state from Chicago, so I decided I would just take the direct route to St. Louis and pick up his tramp there.  So St. Louis was my first opportunity to truly "walk in Lummis's footsteps".  What I wanted to do was locate the train tracks Lummis would have tread on in 1884 when he came through the city, see what was around them now, take pictures of the tracks, symbolizing my first contact with Lummis.  Brewery tour got sidelined for a stop at the Missouri History Museum at Forest Park (with the thuggish web address of MoHistory.org).  I walked up to the information desk with Letters from the Southwest in hand, query on my lips, and was then directed to the Library and Research Center also in the park.  The library is an interesting building, built in 1927 as the fourth permanent home of the United Hebrew Congregation.  One dominating feature is a large central dome, with a star of David at the apex.  It seems they have left the interior decoration largely intact, which is good.

I learned something, it's hard to play History Detective in under an hour.  But you'd be surprised what you can accomplish in a relatively short time.  With the help of the librarian, in about 20 minutes I had a Rand McNally map of the railroads from 1884 spread out in front of me, with inset details of major cities (St. Louis included).  One quick observation: Illinois appeared totally saturated with capillary like railroad lines, which struck me as odd considering it looked like a whole lot of nothing from the road.

What I was hoping to get from this was the location of the rail line Lummis walked in and out of St. Louis on, and ideally with a address I could punch into my GPS.  For that, the helpful librarian brought me a modern map of St. Louis.  The problem was the inset of St. Louis was not very detailed, but with that bare detail, Lafayette Park here, a major street there, by comparing the old and new maps I did come away with an address that stilled exist and should be close to the old rail line: 100 Market St.

The GPS is speeding me to this location.  I'm going downtown, getting closer to the Gateway Arch, but then veering north, now moving farther away from the arch, buildings get a little more rundown, definitely away from the main downtown area.  I turn onto Market Street and, lo, tracks galore.  But there's the rub. There are plenty of train tracks, but I have no idea how recent these are, which are going where.  There's a train track on a trellis overhead.  There's train tracks in front of me, tracks behind me.  There's a scrap metal place around here with noisy machines shuffling scrap metal into piles, and convoys of trucks are moving in and out of a blocked construction zone identified as some sort of riverfront project.  The Gateway Arch is visible in the distance.  I'm expecting to get yelled at by an angry worker as I poke around for a minute or two with my camera.  I realize I'm hungry and get out of there pretty quick.

Here's where the ribs enter the story.  I ended up taking a wrong turn and end up on a bridge going back over the Mississippi into East St. Louis in Illinois.  I'm hungry, so I start looking for McDonalds on the GPS, but then I think, screw it, I should get some local flavor and settle on Sandy's Suthern Style BBQ.

Anyway, it's time to check out of the hotel and launch into Kansas.  So as the French have it, au revoir.

SHU