DeConstruction of the Sekuatean Empire

28 July 2023

On The Road Again - 6

My Summer Road Trip, part 6

I wasn't planning to visit Yellowstone National Park on this trip. However, once I got my Senior Lifetime Member card, the parks' the limit! I knew Yellowstone was near Bozeman, me being a map geek, so it seemed like something I should do, especially as I had begun sending selfies to my cousin by way of boasting about the many places I was visiting. A shot of me at Old Faithful would only add to my cousin's aggravation.

But first an oil change! Feeling a bit dry in the first leg of my travel, I thought I'd better get loaded up for my next adventure. So, first thing in the morning, I waited my turn at the Jiffy Lube in Bozeman, arriving before they opened but still only third in line on a Saturday.

Then I hit the road, driving south into the mountains, along the river, with a short stop at Big Sky to see what all the fuss was about (ski resort town), then creeping into the borders of the park as the highway went. Finally I arrived at the town of West Yellowstone where I met the tourists at the intersection of souvenir shops and amusements. The line to enter the park wasn't too bad - early in the season, recently opened - and I could use the member card line to speed past many of the folks who hadn't planned ahead. I had no particular agenda; indeed, if not for my Senior Lifetime Member card, I would feel obligated to make full use of my time in the park just to get my money's worth of the entrance fee.

For those of you who do not know, Yellowstone is the largest of the national parks and covers a huge area, mostly in northwest Wyoming but partly in Montana on the north and west sides and a little of Idaho on the southwest side. The whole thing sits over the hot spot of an ancient volcano. Hence, all the geysers and other geothermal activity. In fact, geologists are expecting it to erupt again rather soon.

Trivia: I used the coming eruption as a point in my futuristic dragon-heavy epic fantasy novel; the effects of the blast were felt as far away as the future remnants of Pittsburgh, PA, drying up the Ohio River and reshaping the landscape of the story - 8000 years later.

But I digress....

I had my map and I had my plan: get a selfie at Old Faithful to send to my cousin. So I followed the line of cars, moving at a steady clip, into the park. At times it didn't so much resemble a park as a wilderness. Plenty of forest and meadow with lots of elk out showing off. Fishermen along the stream. Finally arriving at a big intersection, I determined that everyone in the park today would be converging on Old Faithful, so I made a command decision to go the other way. That other way sent me north, ultimately to the north entrance and homeward. But I still had quite a way to go in miles - and dramatic mountain scenery I did not anticipate.

One reason I didn't plan to visit Yellowstone was because I had visited it as a boy on a family vacation trip. We did stop and see Old Faithful erupt then. For a young geologist wannabe, it was impressive. We waited for a second eruption. I couldn't remember exactly what our route was back then but as I drove north toward Mammoth Hot Springs, the resort town at the north end of the park, I didn't seem to remember seeing the area previously. At the end of the day, I was glad I visited the park again.

Glancing at my official park map, handed over gleefully to me by the pretty park officer at the entrance, her hair tied back in a tight bun, smiling at the presentation of my Senior Lifetime Member card, I noted the places to stop and see something. I needed a place that would scream "Yellowstone" so my cousin would be further annoyed. I considered stops here and there as I followed the other vehicles. There were places to pull over and others stopped, but some spots did not have (in my humble estimation) an easy in and out compared to the relative suitability of the location for photography (i.e., worth the stop?), so I drove on. I decided my best chance to get a good selfie with a background that would shout "Yellowstone" was what they called the geyser basin. A multicolored "hot pot" was the famous subject there.

I pulled into the parking lot, hit the lavatory, and hiked down the trail to get the view of, yes, a basin full of spouting vents. A vast field (definitely not a grassy field!), like a desert. With gas. I've always been sensitive to sulfur (Hawaii was a smelly experience for me.) so I cringed at the families taking their babies and toddlers in buggies down the trail. I could barely stand it long enough to take a few pictures. Then I returned to the gift shop and bought another, better map and a water bottle - a Montana brand which were in aluminum cans.

Continuing along the steep mountain roads, I eventually arrived at Mammoth Hot Springs. The grounds around the rustic hotel and shops were spotted with very tall elk making their way at a leisurely pace over to munching patches further afield. Everyone drove slowly to let them pass. I took a wrong turn trying to continue north and found myself instead heading out east to the northeast entrance, which would be much too far in the wrong direction. So, after a couple miles, I found a spot to make a U-turn and head back the way I came.

As I approached Mammoth Hot Springs again, I had to stop for a huge mama elk who paraded onto the roadway where she paused as if playing crossing guard. Then, after checking me out, making sure I'd come to a complete stop, she glanced back over her shoulder and out from the brush bounded a little elk kid, as cute as could be! Both continued across the road and disappeared into the brush. There were other elk nearby that I managed to get pictures of, being stopped to let mama and child pass.

Then the real adventure began! The road continued north, but it began twisting and turning to hug the mountainsides and I was forced to view dramatic scenes of sharp drops and rugged slopes. There were few places to stop for pictures but one I did pause at was so crowded that many cars came close to bumping into each other as they jockeyed for parking spots. Otherwise, I thought it best to focus on driving the challenging road rather than trying to also snap a photo. Thus, I don't have a lot of pictures of that scenery.

The route winding down from the heights to the town of Gardiner, the village at the north entrance to the park, was quite grand, despite the gathering clouds which darkened the view. Arriving at the village after too many switchbacks and steering wheel clenching near-wipeouts, foot on the brakes, more elk greeted me.

I came to the famous Roosevelt Arch where too many folks huddled to take their turns getting pictures; I slowly drove through, making them wait. I had to stop behind a car at the only stop light in the village and was about to honk for them to go on when suddenly I saw the elk strolling past in front of that car...and on to the souvenir shops lined up there, no doubt wanting a t-shirt. The elk seemed quite unimpressed with us mere humans.

I exited the park as the clouds darkened and drizzle fell. The road north to Livingston was less mountainous than the highway going south from Bozeman, but

it had its own special scenery: grassy valleys and a snaking river, some patches of bare rock on the bordering mountains. From Livingston, I turned onto I-90 again and headed home to Bozeman. Dinner was at Taco John's.

NEXT: Three Forks & the Great Falls

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

21 July 2023

On The Road Again - 5

My Summer Road Trip, part 5

I didn't actually throw a dart at a map to decide where to go. I had a plan. After visiting three minor destinations (Cedar Falls, Waldorf College, Devil's Gulch), I drove on to visit three major destinations (Badlands National Park, Mt. Rushmore, Devil's Tower). After leaving Sheridan, WY, with a stop at the Little Bighorn Battlefield memorial and a detour through Billings, MT, I continued west on the orange-barreled I-90 to my next destination: Bozeman.

On the way to Bozeman I pulled into the only rest stop along the route (near Big Timber), with mountains rising on my left along the Wyoming-Montana border and pastoral hills to my right, and the darkening sky ahead of me as storm clouds billowed over the mountains to the west. The rest stop was surprisingly crowded with vacationers but I continued on.

As scenic as the route was, I couldn't take any good pictures. The shaking of the car, the dirty windows, rain, and my speed prevented quality photography. Later, as I drove up and down narrow and curving mountain roads, I needed to focus of the road as much as I would've wished to take a dramatic shot. Seldom was there a place to pull over. Even when there were pullouts in the national parks I didn't want to stop at every one for a picture. So you get what you get here; I have the full pictures locked in my mind's eyes.

As I drove I was reminded of an episode from my youth. In one childhood road trip with my parents, we stopped at the small town of Livingston (just east of Bozeman) because my father wanted to visit a certain fly fishing supply store he'd read about in a fishing magazine. He wanted to get all the materials for making fishing flies (lures) and have me make some for him to use. I suppose he thought it would be cheaper than buying a ready-made lure. But I was the creative type and constructed all kinds of "flies" according to my whims, not matching flies based on actual insects that fish leap at. I used up all the materials and my father never caught any fish with the flies I made.

Why Bozeman? Besides being an excellent base for exploring the 100 miles in every direction, I'd gained an interest in the town because of a friend moving there (from Canada) and posting about her new life there over the past couple of years. It is a scenic place: forested mountains on all sides with grassy valleys sprinkled with cattle, and featuring Montana State University. I mentioned to my artist friend, who has designed many of my book covers, that I would be driving up there. She said she was going to Europe at that time but I could stay in her family's house. She gave me the door code but I politely declined, afraid of messing it up, and opted for a hotel by the I-90 exit.

The rain I met driving west to Bozeman intensified as I arrived and I struggled through the deluge, checking in and then going out for something to eat - all while everyone was heading home. I knew from maps there was a Barnes &Noble bookstore at a mall on the west end of town. I made my way there through a dark, rainy, rush hour on streets I only knew vaguely from what I remembered from the Google map on my phone. But I made it: dashed inside, got a hot coffee and an apple tart, then gathered some maps and browsed the shelves as usual, before returning back through the town to my hotel. With the rain continuing into the night all I could do was study my maps and plan my three days there.

The next day was much better: sunny and cool. First, I went to the Montana State campus and toured it almost like I was a prospective MSU parent. As is my quirk, I went through the library, hit the bookstore in the student union, checked out their selection of English textbooks and got a university logo t-shirt (Bobcats).

Next, I drove around the town and the area, dodging more orange barrels, and noted what my friend had complained about: a cowboy town that grew a university was now a hipster community where many people flocked, expecting a paradise for ski bums and the freedom-loving camper crowd. (Wait until winter!) The expanding "suburbs" appeared rather Disneyesque as carefully planned neighborhoods, with a patina of artificiality that made you wonder if cameras were monitoring your every move. There seemed little of the rustic and country left outside the "old town" blocks.

Indeed, apartment complexes sprouted everywhere, some yet under construction, hurrying to house the influx of new residents, far beyond just making more student housing. It wasn't unattractive, but I could understand how the locals would take the developments as a destruction of their traditional home. Honestly, I wouldn't mind living there, could wear cowboy boots and cowboy hat and speak with a country drawl.

When I travel, I like to imagine living in the place, seeing how life would be were I to be a full-time resident. I did that in Bozeman. I even shopped at Walmart, rubbing shoulders with the locals, much to their chagrin. But I had to be honest with myself: if I were a full-time resident, at any location, I'm likely to spend most of my time indoors, writing and reading, and only go out for errands - and that would be the only time I enjoyed the great outdoors. Now I'm no longer the great adventurer, ready to hike anywhere my whims lead me.

What else to do? I thought through my next novel as I drove, then typed notes in my hotel room. I watched TV. I downloaded pictures from my phone and my camera. I thought I'd seen enough of Bozeman. However, I realized that, using Bozeman as a base, I could visit Yellowstone National Park...because it was right there, 90 minutes south through the mountains, plus I already had my Senior Lifetime Member card.

NEXT: Yellowstone National Park

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14 July 2023

On The Road Again - 4

My Summer Road Trip, part 4

If you've stuck with me so far, it's about to get better. I began with some minor goals, completed them, then swung out into the great unknown for bigger fish to fry. I toured the Badlands like yo mama did, then continued on for more, heading west to Rapid City.

As was my plan, I got off the dreadful I-90 and took a lesser highway south into the Black Hills, a mountainous region in the middle of vast prairie. When I was a boy, my parents brought me to Mt. Rushmore on a summer vacation roadtrip - and it was my intention to replicate such trips during this travel effort. I recall back when I was young, it was very impressive. On this day (same day I toured the Badlands, so it was afternoon now) I felt underwhelmed by the monument. You have to admire the carving skills, but we also acknowledge the desecration of the mountain that is a sacred place to the local Native population. In this visit, I did not have to use my Senior Lifetime Member Card - nobody was selling entrance tickets - but it did cost $10 for parking. It didn't seem too crowded at that mid-afternoon time so parking was not a problem. (Read more here.)

Following my I-90 plan, my next stop would be Devil's Tower just over the border into Wyoming. But I didn't think I could get there, sightsee, and then find a good place to stay for the night before sundown. So I decided to stop at Sturgis, SD, known for its motorcycle rallies. I like to stop about 4 or 5 pm and get plenty of time to rest, have dinner, offload my photos from my phone and my camera, and check the next day's weather, study my carefully folded paper maps and go to sleep early.

Not sure why impressive geological features are named after the Devil (Devil's Gulch, Devil's Tower, etc.) but they are. I'd seen plenty of pictures of this tower and I saw the E.T. movie which featured it, so I wasn't especially in an oo-ah mood when I first spied it while driving up the winding road to the site. Not so crowded in the morning when I arrived (9-ish) but was quickly filling up by the time I was leaving (10:30). I took my pictures, absorbed the ambiance of volcanic rock (granted, it was granite), and continued on to my next destination. I traversed lovely woodlands, and descended into a vast grassland devoid of any sign of civilization to the four horizons but for the powerlines strung along the road. Eventually I passed a large lake and began to wonder (glancing at my elegantly folded map) where the next gas station might be. (Read more here.)

I reconnected with I-90 and continued west to Gillette, WY, the nearest and next town of any size marked on my judiciously folded paper map. I exited and got gas. Down the main road there I saw the sign of a Taco John's restaurant and decided to have lunch since I was already stopped. Now, the tale of the Taco John is not widely known. In my youth, my cousin and I would hang out on Saturday nights, usually hitting the foosball parlor or shooting pool or otherwise courting mischief. But always we would make a pit-stop at the local Taco John's. I would always get their featured product: the Taco Bravo (a taco wrapped in a soft tortilla with frijoles as buffer, for a bigger, better taco experience). Then I grew up and moved away to places where no Taco John's existed.

View of Bighorn Mountains from Sheridan, WY

So I had some nostalgia for a Taco Bravo...but it was the Super Burrito that caught my eye that afternoon in Gillete, WY. When traveling I always get out and go in to a restaurant (rather than use the drive-thru) because I like to stretch my legs and use the restroom. So I got my order, sat and enjoyed my meal. Feeling a taco-sized space in my belly, I decided to go back and get a Taco Bravo. Well, I don't know what the deal was but it didn't taste right, wrong seasoning, sauce too runny, so I didn't finish it. As I would discover, there are a lot of Taco John's scattered around the Western states and I would continue to patronize them as I traveled. I compared them, too. All subsequent TJs were better than the one in Gillete. (Sorry, Gillete folks, maybe it was an off day, who knows?)

I continued on I-90 to my intended destination of Sheridan, WY, just south of the Montana border. It's the obvious choice with not much to speak of for hours' driving on either north or south sides of the town. Trivia: my grandfather's middle name is Sheridan; he said he was named by his father after visiting the town back in its cowboy days. My grandfather was hardly a cowboy, however. I relaxed and planned my next day. I liked the hotel I was in and plotted to claim a room in the same chain at my next destination and made reservations by phone.

The next day, as was my plan, I headed north into Montana and stopped again at the Little Bighorn Battlefield Monument. I say 'again' because I stopped there heading south in 2019 after coming down from Canada. In 2019 I paid the full price. In 2023 I used my Senior Lifetime Member Card to go in for free. But I did buy a t-shirt and a book in the visitor center. I did the full tour in 2019 so in 2023 I did the minimum: the walk to the hill where the actual last stand happened. Nearby, they have built a memorial to the Native warriors killed on that day; in 2019 it wasn't quite finished but now it was. It's always a tragedy, in my thinking, when anyone has to die in a battle (compare to Ukraine) and it matters less at the end of the day who was right and who was wrong. As a fiction writer I make my bed and sleep in it with the sheets of gray, never an easy black and white for anything. The shades of gray make the story interesting. Otherwise everything is Mary Sue and the boy next door, happily ever after, the end. (Read more here.)

I paid my respects and headed on to Billings, MT. My only reason to stop there was to seek out the taco shop I had a fabulous meal in coming south in 2019. I had stopped for gas coming from Great Falls but cutting across the interior grasslands/ranches rather than taking the southern interstate route. Next to the gas station was the restaurant. So in 2023, I drove through the city (I-90 at that point forced a detour on everyone anyway - straight through the downtown area, stoplight by stoplight thankyouverymuch.) but I didn't see what I was looking for. Doubling back, I joined the flow of traffic and saw a Taco John's (definitely not the same place I was looking for but it would do). A good meal, and I continued on, slogging along I-90 until it finally broke free into two-lane full-speed interstate...all the way to Bozeman.

NEXT: The Bozeman Experience & Yellowstone

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07 July 2023

On The Road Again - 3

My Summer Road Trip, part 3

I understand the expectation of an exciting, grandiose travelogue that thrills the imagination, but this is not it. It's personal. I had particular goals for my trip and I achieved all of them and went home. Not too exciting. But wait! There's more!

In both 2013 and 2019 my travel took me north along the extreme eastern edge of South Dakota. I wanted to go west this time. After visiting Devil's Gulch, about 5 miles inside of South Dakota, I proceeded westward and quickly found myself in vast grasslands. And the continuing I-90 construction project, often down to single lanes for 20 miles at a stretch.

Having seen it in social media posts, I wanted to visit the 50-foot tall statue called "Dignity" in the center of the state, on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River as it meanders south from North Dakota. I was excited as I approached the riverside town of Chamberlain and looking far ahead I could anticipate great views of the valley. I also craved a place to stop for a rest. However, the I-90 construction caused the exit ramp to the rest stop where the statue stood to be closed! I quickly looked around for other ways off the highway but there were none I could see as the road swung down to the bridge crossing the wide river. I could turn my head and catch a glimpse of the statue as I left it behind.

Disappointed, I drove on through the vast grasslands. My next destination was going to be the Badlands National Park, but measuring the angle of the sun and checking the fuel gauge, I knew I wouldn't make it today. I checked the map for possible towns with hotels. Never having gone this way, it was a bit distressing. I know the young whippersnappers would whip out one of them there smart phones and before you can say "G.P.S." they'd get me the name of a hotel I could stop at. Well, first, I was driving alone and handling a phone at the same time, especially in the concentrated manner required for research, would be dangerous and illegal. And, second, I had a good ol' paper map, folded properly, offering me the big picture, not some tiny square of what'sthatthere? nobody could figure out.

Fortunately, I decided on an extreme option: turning north into the great unknown (sure, I had a map but this spot was nothing but green) to find a room for the night in Pierre, the state capital. The trick was to boldly go where nobody but bison had gone before. Literally in the middle of nowhere. Grassland everywhere and a single strip of blacktop running to somewhere over the next rise. Eyes on the road, on the fuel gauge, out the windows on each side, calculating the time of the sunset. I arrived out of breath and found the small capital (15,000 people) to be charming, set on the edge of the Missouri River, upstream from the Dignity statue.

Being a state capital there seemed to be something going on that evening and hotels were full. I took a room nobody wanted: the Captain's suite in the ritziest joint in town, and paid dearly for it - but glad to have it! I had a fine Italian dinner in the restaurant next door and reviewed my plans in my room, soaking in the Jacuzzi tub (and used the shower stall in the morning). The next morning, gassed up and ready to go, I traversed the same road heading south through the grasslands with no other vehicles in sight until I reconnected with I-90.

Constantly checking my paper map, so elegantly and artistically folded, I eventually arrived at the eastern entrance to the Badlands National Park. My plan was to drive through it going west and exit back to I-90 to continue west. When I pulled up to the entrance gate, I saw that I could buy a senior lifetime membership which would pay for itself if I visited three national parks* - which I already planned to do on this trip.

I will let the pictures do my talking. Let me just say, however, that this is one bad land. I mean, it is so bad yo mama wouldn't ever hike there! Sure, I'd seen pictures of the place but it's never the same seeing it for yourself. Sometimes it is underwhelming, often overwhelming. This badland view was initially overwhelming, stopping at one of the more famous view points. As I drove through and by much of the same kind of rock formations, it became less interesting. But I had my Senior. Lifetime. Member card and was determined to see everything.

As I drove along the winding, hilly park road, the landscape changed dramatically and it seemed I wanted to stop every mile or so to take more pictures. It took several hours to traverse the park, including a stop at the visitor center, walking through the geological museum, restroom, buying a Badlands t-shirt. I developed a sunburn, but I got plenty of fresh air and sunshine. I did not go on any hikes although there are plenty of trails. I was on a loose deadline, after all.

Then I exited - slowing for a herd of wild bison just sitting there off the road with no fence to keep them from harassing me - and entering the town of Wall, famous for its giant "drug store". It actually is a huge emporium selling all sorts of goods, not just medicine, and seems to occupy half the town. I had an excellent bison burger in a cafe inside the place but did not spend more time there than to browse a couple souvenir shops. It could easily be a full day's stop in itself.

But the day was still young and I calculated my afternoon: on to Rapid City, swing down to visit Mt. Rushmore, and then rush a little more back north for the night.

NEXT: The Four Tops and the Devil's Tower

*This is not the same National Park that features in my pandemic trilogy FLU SEASON.

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30 June 2023

On The Road Again - 2

My Summer Road Trip, part 2

I understand that not everyone would drive so far just to go past a house from one's childhood, but that's me. In childhood trips with my parents, it seemed that my father loved to drive more than arrive.

It seemed he tried to see how far he could go away from home. We did arrive at places, of course, but that was only a side-effect of the driving. I recall one trip, as we were returning home, he spent the whole afternoon/evening driving back and forth looking for the farm where he'd spent his boyhood in rural Nebraska. We didn't locate it by the time it was dark, so we continued on home.

For me, the driving is more than half the point: to drive is to move through time and space. Good music helps. It's better to traverse open spaces, away from all civilization, just grasslands and distant mountains, the horizon always retreating, giving way, teasing us. The mind becomes soft, can compose ideas, especially for me story ideas, while the other parts of the mind stay focused on the driving itself. I practically plotted the entire novel of FLU SEASON 4, which I started writing on my laptop in hotel rooms each evening.

The next stop on my summer trip, because it was on the way and I'd put off visiting for a long time, was the unassuming town of Forest City, Iowa. It's notable as the manufacturing base for the Winnebago recreational vehicles. Yet I'd long vowed to visit it out of spite. Why?

I speak of the notorious Waldorf Week, an event in my past which changed the course of my life. While I sought a long-term academic position (a.k.a., tenure-track professor) after graduating with my Ph.D., I applied to little Waldorf College in Forest City. I thought a small college, like the one where I got my B.S. degree, would be ideal for me. With this telling, I don't mean to disparage the school, now called Waldorf University. It is merely the piling on of ridiculous circumstances of this week which makes the telling a poor amusement.

In mid-May of a year more than a decade removed, the folks at Waldorf arranged a phone interview with me because I lived in upstate New York. I had a good interview. They sent additional questions by email and I replied immediately with my answers. The next day, further impressed, they invited me to visit the campus. (Usually, a school will reimburse travel expenses for the finalists.)

The travel arrangements were rather arduous but I got them made in a single day and left home the next morning. I drove 90 minutes from my home in Utica to Albany, parked my car at the airport, flew to Chicago, changed planes and flew on to Minneapolis, and checked into an airport hotel for the night. The following morning, I picked up my rental car from the airport and drove south into Iowa, arriving in Forest City by mid-afternoon. I drove around the city and eventually checked into the designated hotel, an out of the way family-run lodge in the woods which seemed quiet.

A realtor picked me up to show me housing possibilities were I to win the job and move here. Then I was picked up from the lodge by one of my future colleagues and taken to have dinner at the department chair's house, seven people around the table, a chance to get to know each other. So far, so good.

Back to the lodge, I settled in, ran through my presentation and refreshed my memory on other matters for the next day. I wanted to get a good sleep because it was to be a full day of campus events. However, when I turned out the lights, a little earlier than my usual time, I noticed the noise from the TV in the next room. I tried to ignore it, expecting the guest to turn it off eventually. But it continued. This being a family establishment, there was no night manager. The noise continued, just loud enough I could not ignore it. I dared not take any sleeping pill for fear it would leave me groggy the next day.

Finally, I gave up and got up, got myself ready for the day and went over my notes again as I waited for a different colleague to pick me up and take me for breakfast. That turned out to be a rather lovely coffee cafe. I thought enough coffee would compensate for the lack of sleep. A little, yes, but my bleary eyes would not focus. I blinked through all the HR talk and additional paperwork.

Then I was ushered into an auditorium for my "teaching demonstration", a traditional hurdle for would-be professors. I was not as prepared for the lesson as I could've been. My forte is to "wing it" and "go with the flow", drawing from the energy and interaction with my students to keep the lesson light yet informative. Into the auditorium came the entire faculty, maybe 70 professors, and I stood on a stage without even a podium as if giving a lecture. It was hardly a realistic situation for a classroom lesson. I felt embarrassed, having them leave their important work for little ol' me. Of course I bombed, not being able to think on my feet because of too little sleep. They filed out, dropping off their evaluation forms.

I believed I'd failed at that point, but I recovered during our working lunch, where I gave sharp, often profound, meaningful answers to their pre-written questions on things related to our field. I was lucid and witty, charming and professional. I thought I might have a chance. A tour of the campus followed. Then I was returned to the infamous lodge where my rental car remained parked all day.

I'd gotten rather sweaty in my suit and tie by then, but eager to get away. I was on a schedule. I drove north to Minneapolis, arriving at rush hour. I got to the airport, turned in the car, returned to the same hotel for the night. As arranged, the next morning I flew to Chicago, changed planes, flew to Albany, picked up my car and drove home to Utica.

Monday through Friday: Waldorf Week.

I did not get the position, as I expected. They gave it to the other candidate. Just the two of us. Oh, well. I had many other interviews before and after, and went on several other campus visits before landing the position in Oklahoma where I taught for 11 years. But the intensity of that single hectic week lives on in family lore.

Returning there this month, driving up from my hotel in Clear Lake, it was still early. I stopped at the same coffee cafe and had a fine breakfast and coffee. I drove to the campus. I stood in front of their historic main hall. I grimaced while taking a selfie, confident in my rebuke: "I'm retired now."

Then I drove through the corn fields to connect with Interstate 90 just over the border in Minnesota - only to discover that the on-ramp to go west was closed for construction! I decided to go east and get off, swing around and back on going west. The two-way road was slow enough, however, that I could pull over to the shoulder and do a U-turn between orange barrels into the opposite direction to continue my trip west.

Eventually, I entered South Dakota and stopped at a visitor center to plan the next phase of my trip. I would, however, come to discover that I-90 would remain the bane of my travelling existence for the duration of my trip. Easily 50% of I-90 was under some kind of renovation with barrels taking us down to a single lane or having both directions on one side while the other side was torn up. This was not to be the summer of I-90 love.

I went out of my way to visit Devil's Gulch, a small gorge where Jesse James supposedly leaped over on his horse while pursued by a posse of lawmen. You wouldn't notice it from the county roads through the fields, but they say it's quite deep, a cleaving of the earth under the water. Then I drove on, heading across South Dakota, lost in the endless landscape.

NEXT: The Long Way West - with a detour!

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24 June 2023

On The Road Again

My Summer Road Trip, part 1

So there I was: eating a rather inauthentic burrito in a no-star Mexican restaurant on the north side of Independence, Missouri. I sat at the south end of a long table, the other end bedecked with a tall birthday cake while various relations whooped and hollered in celebration of one of my cousins' birthday. Suddenly, between bites, I had an epiphany: I could just leave, could get up and leave the table, go out and drive far away and never return. I had my bag packed; I always keep a packed bag with me in case of errant interdimensional tangents opening up. I wasn't expecting any, however; indeed it had been years since the possibility last occurred.

Actually, I had been planning a road trip ever since the issues of 2020-2022 made the idea disheartening and possibly inconvenient (running out of gas, quarantine checkpoints, etc., yes, the stuff of my FLU SEASON trilogy). Now I was ready to go again. As planned, my route would take me eventually northwest to Montana. I planned to stop at specific scenic locations along the way which I'd never been to in all of my youthful travels.

As my general direction sent me northeast to Kansas City to start my travel, I found myself pushed into a birthday party not of my choosing. Enduring that brief detour, I left my hometown and continued north into Iowa on a bright, sunny Sunday morning. A surprisingly unassuming bit of pasture I hadn't passed through since 2019 when I went to Canada spread out from the pavement as I rolled along. As I drove, I listened to the soundtrack I'd put together for my pandemic trilogy and little by little managed to plot out the next book.

For that 2019 trip, I had it stuck in my head to replicate the travels of my youth when my teacher-vacation parents drove me here and there at their whim while I remained ensconced in the backseat sans seatbelt. I went as far north/northwest as Edmonton before venturing south to slink back into the comforts of Montana, and onward home. In my childhood and youth, we had gone all the way to Alaska.

Not this trip, however. No, the Great White North was not my destination. I had nobody to buy me lunch there. Instead, I would travel to nearer places of childhood significance as well as revisit some places that had glittered with roughshod joy on that 2019 trip. So I began with a deliberate stop in Iowa. Because it is there.

You wouldn't know it to look at me but I once flew from Kansas City, before the vast new airport was built in the countryside far to the north of the city, all the way, non-stop, to Cedar Falls, across the river from Waterloo, in that so-called Iowa. I think I must have been around 14. I know it was summer and I was allowed to fly by myself (there were a few other passengers) on an Ozark Airlines turboprop (no longer in business).

My purpose there in Cedar Falls was to help my great-aunt (little sister of my grandmother) and my great-grandmother (their mother) build a "dog run" in the small backyard of the house. In exchange for my help, I would be fed and perhaps get a gift later (it was a model airplane kit). My great-aunt raised poodles for show, so being a boy who liked dogs but did not have his own, I also liked that aspect. I got to play with dogs. Back home, our landlord didn't allow dogs.

I also flew up there in March of my final college year, all coursework having been completed the previous December and awaiting the May graduation ceremony. The purpose then was for me to consider continuing in my field of study at the University of Northern Iowa, where my great-aunt had been a professor (but at that time recently retired). I consulted with a Music professor there about my musical future. The lingering snowy landscape did not impress me, however. In hindsight, I should have given it a go because you never know where you might go if you don't go, you know? So it goes.

I found the house from my youth after a day's drive, long since occupied by other people, and was pleased it looked as quaint and charming as it did during my previous visits. There was no longer the "dog run" I had helped build, yet to my mind everything else remained the same. It had been 40+ years since I had been there, after all. Yet I felt nothing. No nostalgia. This is a phenomena I've noticed when seeing other places from my childhood: my mind knows it is the same place but the emotions I expect to flood me instead evade me. (Same with seeing my cousins after many years' apart.) As I drove the neighborhood, I recognized other places from my two visits. Creepy.

On that first visit at 14, I recall spending my evening hours in the house's cute little attic, which my great-aunt had filled with bookshelves. There was a small desk up there and once I climbed up, I could hide away. While hiding away, I would peruse the books on the shelves or, more typically, sit and type on a story using my great-aunt's manual typewriter. It was one of my first long-form pieces, a rip-off of Dr. Zhivago, which I eventually turned in for a class assignment. The teacher was amazed by my 105-page double-spaced epic. However, my great-aunt constantly urged me to stop typing and get to bed, to stop the racket she was not used to - though she was happy to let the dogs bark!

Finding nothing suitable for overnight accommodations, I drove back across the state and did not find anything that had changed during the day. At the west side, I was close to my next visitation destination, the site of a week which shall live in infamy! I would get my revenge by driving there, parking, and taking a photograph of myself standing there (to prove I was there) and that would put them all to shame! They would feel sorry they hadn't embraced me into their family but sent me home like a sewer-soiled puppy.

NEXT: "Waldorf Hell Week" and Devil's Gulch!

THEN: The Long Trek West!

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18 June 2023

Fictional Fathers for Father's Day - Update #2

I've just finished a dystopian trilogy, FLU SEASON, about a quirky family dealing with a pandemic and the violent fallout from that devastating reality.

Book 1 and 2 are out and Book 3 is finished and coming out this fall. The narrator of Book 1 and 2 is a teen son, describing in Book 1 his sassy never-married mom ("The Book of Mom") and in Book 2 his own family ("The Way of the Son"). So far the story is about this teen boy becoming a man and with that title a husband and father (no spoilers; it was inevitable).

I've done a lot of thinking about that arc as I wrote this family drama. The ideas a boy has about becoming a man and all that comes with that role. The criteria to be met. The duties and responsibilities. The joys and regrets. The fact that the roles keeps changing: son, father, grandfather. Because I've borrowed liberally from my own thoughts and feelings, these novels are deeply personal to me - even though they are, of course, totally fiction. (We know our pandemic ended officially in 2022. But what if it didn't? How would everything be, say, six years on? Eight years? Eleven years? What would remain? How would people carry on?)

Book 3 ("Dawn of the Daughters") is narrated by the daughter of this boy/man/husband/father and tells the continuing story of the family through her entire life, including views of how society has changed post-pandemic. I have ideas for a Book 4 which would be narrated by her grown son, now a father, and describe how he deals with the dystopia of the post-pandemic rebuilt world as well as the effects of having her as his mother. It truly is a vicious circle.

Here is my blog posting for 2020's Father's Day:

Last month, for Mother's Day, I waxed poetic on the three kinds of mothers I happened to have in my novels. Well, turnabout seems fair play, so let me ponder the types of fathers I find in my novels and consider their source.

So I'm sitting comfortably at home this summer, counting the sales of my latest novel, and it hits me! I should be promoting my Father's Day novel, the one titled AIKO. It's a kind of Father's Day story, after all. And because Father's Day is here again, everyone is doing a grad and dad marketing blitz. My just launched novel EXCHANGE has a dad at its center. Unfortunately he has lost his wife and his daughter in a mass shooting, but there are many "dad" tropes as he struggles to put his life back together and find meaning in what remains.

Everyone knows that grads are tired of reading. Dads tend to be reading averse, too. So maybe books do not make the best gifts. Job search books for grads, perhaps. A book on whatever is dad's current hobby, maybe. But fiction too often falls to the dark, dusty shelf of well-intended gifts. Beside the neckties. My own father would rather read through a stack of history and politics books before he would ever crack the cover of a novel. He is ok with wearing a necktie, however.

So how many books are there that feature Father's Day, anyway? Or about fathers in general? Mothers are easy. Brothers and sisters are common. The sweet aunt and the generous uncle are often seen in literature. Fathers are generally the bad guys, villainous, cruel, authoritarian, mean, and uncaring. They are more often than not portrayed as abusers. Sometimes they only appear as the bad memory of a protagonist and we get a couple of graphic incidents to showcase dad's unpleasantness. (I had to do that in A BEAUTIFUL CHILL and A GIRL CALLED WOLF because they were based on real people and their lives; however, fathers in my other novels are thankfully less abusive.) It's almost a stereotype. Fathers get a bad rap, I think. We tend to only hear about the bad ones. Think of Darth Vader, a.k.a. "Dark Father", and others of his ilk.

I think about the fathers in my other novels. My protagonists seem to relate to their fathers very much like I relate to my own father. Funny, that coincidence, right? Write what you know, they say. Or am I drawing on the only role model I have? (Curiously, I'm an only child and my protagonists tend not to have siblings, also - or siblings that are throw-away characters, mentioned but not active in the story. In AFTER ILIUM, the young hero dislikes his dentist father's strictness and is glad to be on his own touring Greece and Turkey after college. In EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS, our dragonslayer hero's father was a military commander killed in battle, so our hero carries only the memory of a violent, frightening man. In A DRY PATCH OF SKIN, the first volume of my vampire trilogy, our poor hero is transforming into a vampire. He is angry at his father for not warning him and for sending him away to live with an aunt. Otherwise, that fictional dad sounds an awful lot like my own father: haughty, disinterested, aloof. In volume 2, SUNRISE, the father comes across disturbingly like my own father at the time I was writing the book: well-meaning but still authoritarian to an uncomfortable degree.

In AIKO, our hero discovers he is a father, then struggles to find his child. There is a brief mention of his own father being stationed in Japan after WWII - like my own father was. After the war, my father went to college on the G.I. Bill and became a social studies teacher, then later a librarian. Now he is deep into retirement, having put his books away for poor eyesight and sleepier days, not to mention the devastation of a hurricane.

When I think of my father, the image that comes most readily to my mind is of him sitting in his reading chair, reading: reading in such a focused, determined manner that I could get away with literally anything because nothing could disturb him. Thus, he was separated from my everyday activities, always there but on the sidelines, uninvolved in my youthful experiences. And that is what I learned of fatherhood: 1) provide the family income, 2) relax at home after the job, 3) fix things around the house and yard. Also, 4) be master of the castle, 5) enforce the rules, and when necessary (6) represent the family like a knight in shining armor when some authority or institution challenges us. He is the (7) champion, the protector, the lord of the manor. And that is, for better or worse, how I portray the fathers in my novels: powerful yet distant.

If you've been following this blog you probably know I'm a dad. It's a weird feeling knowing there is someone living in the world partly as a result of my actions. Sure, we can imagine clones, or cyborgs, but another human? That's crazy. Like us and yet not like us. And eventually they go their own ways and have their own lives and we scratch our heads and think What just happened? Now my offspring is finishing college, studying to be something in the medical field. This is after going through Army training to be a combat medic.
UPDATE: Finished university, started her career in medicine, got married, living large.

As I think back on the past 23 years, I can pinpoint a few things I did that might have helped raise this baby to adulthood. But there are just as many other things I did about which I have no clue. Maybe they helped, maybe not. Only my grown child can tell. I'm pleased, even proud, of how this googly little bundle of joy overnight became this awesome adult who vaguely resembles me in appearance and words and behavior.

So for now, I must pass the reins to my protégé. No longer do I need to concern myself so much with me doing great things and achieving this and that and telling my child about, you know, the things I can boast about. Now it is time for me to boast about my grown child, to note what this new adult is doing, and praise the new things, the new deeds, of this adult - to praise and be proud of what my child has done more than being happy at what I have done. I've actually inserted this idea into the thoughts of my protagonist dad in EXCHANGE. Oh, I will still write books, of course - until the keyboard is ripped from my cold, dead fingers. But now it's no longer all about me. It's about the generation we produce and what they will do as we fade gently into that good night.

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