The Road Unscrolled

 

  "The open road, the dusty highway, the heath, the common, the hedgerows, the rolling downs! Camps, villages, towns, cities! Here to-day, up and off to somewhere else to-morrow!" -Toad of Toad Hall  The Wind in the Willows

  Mr. Toad is rich, jovial, and kindhearted, but can also be arrogant and rash. He indulges his lust for travel by buying and wrecking new cars. His friends put him under house arrest. He escapes, steals a car, is caught and sent to prison. After many adventures he returns home a changed man, or toad. 

  The French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, “All of humanity's problems, stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” There's a lot of truth in that, but did Pascal listen to his own advice? He spent lots of time in religious arguments with his fellow Frenchmen. He was always running back and forth between his home in Rouen and Paris. He established the world's first public transportation, a bus line in Paris. When he developed stomach problems he refused medical treatment because his religion said God required suffering. He died at age 39.

  So not even Pascal took his own advice and I suspect Mr. Toad hit the road again after a decent interval. After a quiet winter at home Teresa and I decided to trek down to Mesa to visit her Uncle Vern and cousin Kelly. In the old days we would have done the 1800 mile trip in two days. We even considered doing it in three days this time. But why? We used to want to save on motels. Again, why? We're retired. It's the time to take our time and spread the accumulated treasure around. Let us help the local economies.

  A tremendous north wind blew us down the South Dakota pike. You can cover a lot of ground when the speed limit is 80 mph. We landed in Yankton on the banks of the Missouri River. The motel and restaurant strip in Yankton could be anywhere. But when you arrive early in town, there's time to poke around. 

  The old downtown is a bit scruffy. It looks like a hard drinking place based on the bashed in look of the many bar fronts. But just off downtown is a pedestrian bridge to the Nebraskan outback. It was still windy. Too chilly for a walk over the river. Just up from the river were the big homes of the old rich, now in genteel decline. Buy cheap now and turn a tidy profit when Yankton is the place to be in 100 years.

  Further away from the river is the band of blue collar bungalows, then old Yankton College, currently the prettiest minimum security prison in the federal system. I'd go there should I ever fall afoul. Yankton College in its hundred year run produced nine Rhodes Scholars, still a record among South Dakota institutions.  The newest neighborhood, pushing into the farm fields, contains the big homes belonging to those with good credit. 

  Next day we got off the interstate, but even on the empty blue highways of Nebraska  and Colorado you can make excellent time.  We stopped for the night in the town of Limon, Colorado.  We found a Greek/Lebanese/German restaurant downtown. We chatted with a member of the local county board. He complained about liberal policies that allowed the Chinese to buy American farm land through shell companies. I was about to tell him those were neo-liberal not liberal policies, but he had left.

  In the morning we fought a tremendous wind down to Mesa.  South of Albuquerque we left the freeway and took a more scenic route west over snow covered hills.  We later took an even more scenic, but also twisting and winding route through the mountains east of Mesa to arrive at the condo duplex of Uncle Vern and Cousin Kelly. They were happy to see us and the feeling was mutual.  I immediately got to work on supper.  "Have pizza pan will travel" is what my card says.

Across the wide Missouri