Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)
Day 5 (or is it 6?): Finally, a Hotel
Dispatches from the Road: Part 5By Bob Wire, 7-10-08
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| Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely and talented (and very patient) Ms. Barb Wire! That's the Corn Palace in the background. It's 3% corn, 97% gift shop. | |
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After driving clear across South Dakota, we were all very excited to find a hotel, our first of the trip. The first one we stopped at (Baymont Hot Pillow Inn, I think), had a seriously bad vibe. Many little things caught my attention on a quick walk-through, and they added up to a big “Nix.” I herded the family back out to the truck. The kids were confused, so I tried to explain.
“Didn’t you guys see that bloody ax behind the front desk? Or the wasp nest under the breakfast bar? We’ll try somewhere else.”
The next choice, an efficiency suite at a Marriott-affiliated joint, was perfect. Exquisite. Lush. These were going to be the finest twelve hours of our lives.
I had three or four showers before we went to dinner. The Olive Garden seemed like a safe bet, so we had a middle-America generi-meal there that would have been exactly the same in Missoula. But by god, it was great. Rusty was curious where the waitress kept her tip jar, and Speaker was wondering if there was some way they could get a Junior Ranger badge from the restaurant. Barb promised to make her an Olive Garden badge out of foil if she finished her salad.
Me? Cold Italian beer and seafood pasta. Normally I steer clear of shellfish in a landlocked state, but after five days of sandwiches and beans, I made an exception.
We returned to our Valhalla, and I caught up on my spam, posted a blog, and exalted in our bug-free, climate-controlled environment. I decided then and there that civilization is a good thing. Dirt bad. Carpet good.
I lolled in the hot tub for a half hour, soothing my aching shoulder, while the kids splashed around in the pool. Barb did some laundry and wrote some postcards. The following day would take us to Des Moines, where we would visit some friends, and spend the night with Barb’s sister and her family.
After four days of driving, we finally entered a state that is not adjacent to Montana. I had never been through Iowa. Sure, I thought we’d see some corn, but Jesus H. Christ, this was wall-to-wall, acre-upon-acre ears as far as the eye could see mile after mile. Amber waves of grain, indeed. Only green. After about a half hour of this, I was developing an uncontrollable urge to eat popcorn and grits and smoke a corncob pipe. The day before, we’d stopped at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, which was even more disappointing than Wall Drug. But I had to wonder, why in the hell is the Corn Palace not in Iowa? It’d be like having the Crystal Meth Museum somewhere other than Las Vegas.
I began to notice an odd thing at the gas stops: medium grade gas was actually less than standard grade, sometimes by as much as a dime a gallon. Then I realized that they were adding ethanol to it. So we probably burned two tanks of the petro-cornbread, and I didn’t notice any difference, other than the exhaust smelling like Fritos.
We had our “visiting day” in Des Moines, and spent a relaxing night and morning at Barb’s sister’s house near Saylorville Lake. We ate big and watched TV. Our nephew Tyler brought out his guitar and played some Dave Matthews tunes for us. The kids hung out in the sweet backyard pool with nephew Jake, while Barb’s bro-in-law and I lounged on the deck, drinking cold bottles of beer. I began to worry that we were getting soft. We needed to get back into our hardened, pioneer camper mode. I decided that after the next day’s destination, the Gateway Arch, we’d find a campground and get back on track. I couldn’t let the kids become accustomed to a nice soft bed, when our original idea was to camp two nights for every night we got a motel. It was time for me, the DAD, to put my foot down and get us back to our original plan.
So the next night we found a roadside hotel just east of St. Louis after visiting the arch. What the hell. We didn’t get out of that giant wicket until 9:30, and from what I could tell, there ain’t too many KOA’s in downtown St. Louis. So we just caved in and got a room. Very basic, eat-sleep-shower-and-shit visit. In the morning we got back on the highway and turned south.
I turned on the radio and found “Iowa’s Best Country,” which was in the middle of Garth Brooks’ “Papa Loved Mama.” Top 40 country, the bane of my musical existence, but that song from the early 90’s actually sounded like classic country compared to the crap they’re playing now. Then “Jesus Take the Wheel” came on. That song chaps my hide in so many ways—where do I start? It’s pretty much the opposite of everything I stand for.
I mean, I have used that phrase myself, but the circumstances were way different.
[Next: Fireworks in Paducah, the trip’s first meltdown, and shameful behavior in the Land of Lincoln.]
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