This food was supposed to be a party.
Tostitos brand chunky salsa makes me sad. And I’ll avoid coy condescension by making no bones here about what I mean by “sad.” To be clear, I mean: its lame, predictable chunky yet canned and bland tomato-y-ness of flavor makes me feel wistful for what could have been, there, atop my tortilla chip. Especially considering this brand's ubiquity at parties and in the refrigerator doors of friends from whom we are mooching snacks. As a whole, can’t we do better, America?

Thank you.

Greetings!


A hearty hello to you, Henshaw, from the Roadtrip I’ve so far been Too Chicken to Name, but will now call my

Country Death Tour.*
*By the way, an internet search on “death tour” yields no fewer than eight different heavy metal-themed entries. These include but are not limited to: “Conquest of Death Tour,” “A Matter of Life and Death Tour,” “Dance of Death Tour,” “Monolith of Death Tour, “Doppel Uber Death Tour,” “Valley of Death Tour,” “Under Pain of Death Tour,” and “Kiss of Death Tour.”

The fear thing is because my car’s about to fall apart, but I keep driving it across this great land of ours anyway. Because doing so sort of jacks up the stakes of the whole thing and makes it more exciting, despite the terror involved. Even announcing this as a roadtrip, at this two-thirds-through point, feels tempting of, um, Satan. This personal brand of extreme superstition comes up again in a bit and yes, it only gets worse.

To be specific, so far, this tour has consisted of burning miles and oil across: zee Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin. To come: Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia. And back. If I make it.

While driving, when I think to, I keep track of the closest mile-marker on Highway 70 or 74 or 95 or wherever I happen to be, and then I can think, “138, Mile 138, okay, okay,” and know that I’ll have that knowledge handy when Ghostcar becomes a smoking mess on the side of the road in approximately thirty seconds.

So far, the trip’s been totally worth it, despite the Triple Foolish Factors of 1. injured car (bad news delivered by kind mechanics in Pittsburgh), 2. high gas prices and 3. lack of job this month.

High stakes, high adventure. That’s our mantra, Henshaw.

So far, I’ve: Biked down old railroad lines under green, green canopies of cool leaves in Pennsylvania with mi padre and talked about biking from Pgh. to D.C. together next summer. Hung out with extended family and felt the stress drift away with the cool temperatures and lush, leafy hills, bottles of wine and grilled-out food.

Then drove to Springfield, Illinois.
This drive, through cornfield after sundrenched cornfield at sunset, afforded me time to get all choked up about how much I love my family and then, partially because of the topic of this book I’m working on forces/allows me to, I then became completely freaked out about how sooner or later I will lose my family members. Then I thought about independence in the largest possible sense and what that means. People close to me have lost parents in the past year and by contrast, I feel coddled sometimes. In a sense, compared to a lot of people I know, I’ve felt coddled for a long time, and maybe I’m nearing the end of it. Who knows. I am too scared to say it: I am too lucky to speak. Too scared to lose my luck. Too scared to even talk about it. Typing it here feels very Fates-Tempting, frankly.


Near Death in Springfield
In Springfield, I visited the Museum of Funeral Custom, which abuts Oak Ridge Cemetery, where Lincoln’s buried. And which is across the street from a faux log cabin tourist trap that sells Lincoln black velvet paintings, Lincoln coin purses and Lincoln backscratchers.

The Funeral Customs museum itself was incredible: Victorian mourning jewelry made from human hair, antique cooling boards and ads for old hearse companies that doubled as ambulance services. This is my principle travel recommendation to you when you are next in Springfield.

At the Lincoln family’s Springfield home, I suspected abridgement of the usual tour by my group’s National Park grey-hatted guide. I think a lot of this suspicion sprang from terse explanations such as, “This bedroom is where the maid would have slept. Any questions?” It also came from the fact that one of the tourists in our groups was a YOWLING infant. I feel for parents with yowling infants; it’s not like there’s anything you can do about the yowling half the time. I understand: It’s so humid today that your sweat is sweating; you’re tired; it’s four in the afternoon and you have two other cranky youngins on a mutual sugar crash to try to keep from killing each other when Young Yowly McScreamerson suddenly pitches a fit of such impressive length and volume as to DROWN OUT THE VOICE OF THE TOURGUIDE.

Still: Maybe you could leave the tour? Maybe? When it becomes clear that not one person can hear Mr. GreyHat’s lone sentence about Mary Todd’s sleeping quarters?

All this became prematurely moot in the final room of the tour, however, when, eight minutes after we arrived, rain began tappa-tapping on the Lincoln roof. Then hammering. Then, well, insert your metaphorical language here; it was raining, but really hard. Midwest in 2008 hard. And then two more grey-hatted state park staffers ran up onto the Lincoln back porch, clad in these perfect old-style grey rainsuits buttoned up over their uniforms. And they tell us to leave if we plan not to spend the night at the Lincoln house; this is not the worst of the storm. There are tornados coming.

So I ran back to the Ghostcar and floated, inside of it, back to my motel room, and didn’t die. And that was Springfield.

In Which Alice Finds the Town of Her Dreams. Again.
Now I’m in Milwaukee busy doing more research thangs and visiting my wonderful old friend, Jane, and her beau and being all floored to the ground by Milwaukee.

Some facts about Milwaukee as I see it. It’s:
1. lush and green with the perfect degree of postindustrial grittiness/gorgeous old architecture, like Pittsburgh (aka The Homeland)
2. Filled with organic farmers’ markets and festivals and neat community activities like Madison

only

3. with actual jobs and bustle and activity, unlike the former, and
4. without the irritating self-righteous self-importance of the latter.

I’m kind of smitten, Henshaw. I’ll have to come back and visit in the wintertime and get back to you, but oh! What a place! It also helps to have two town historical buffs walk and bike you around the place to tell you about every little thing, too, from the train trestles to the Milwaukee brick.

All righty. I’ve gotta get to tonight’s activities with J and her sweetie. Take care and drive safely yourself this summer, Mr. H. And get out there and see this land of ours if you can. A late Happy 4th to ya.