Wanderlust

Turns out I enjoy blogging so much that I am back on this website typing again. I have doubled my career blog entry count in two days. The next two days will speak to whether or not I am a truly prolific exponentially growing blogger I am implying that I am with this opening paragraph. 

Selective Tuesday/Wednesday thoughts:

• When Chicago Cubs fans chant "CUBBIES! CUBBIES!" during this rapidly approaching baseball season in an effort to rally their beloved and historically losing team, are they really just giving a shout-out to their favorite kindergarten storage space?
• Lately I have been really getting into the band Single Mothers from London, Ontario. (That's Ontario, Canada. One half of my blog posts include a reference to the Great White North). I stumbled upon them in the April 2013 issue of music publication Alternative Press. Each April, AP will write 100 blurbs on "Bands You Need to Know" (i.e. musicians that have not received significant media attention). Needless to say, most of these bands typically don't seem worthy of my typing their band name into the "Search" bar on Facebook (Facebook reference number 1) upon reading their blurb. However, there are usually about 10 or so (10% of 100) that intrigue me. Single Mothers are my hands-down winner this year. Combining the roughneck hard party storytelling of the Hold Steady with jagged lo-fi garage guitar riffs and howling whiskeycigarette vocals, these Canucks are my current musical wet dream. Enough prose though; here comes their sound (if you're curious), from their 2011 self-titled EP:

• Here is a link to support them if they just cleansed your musical palette:Single Mothers Bandcamp  

 I left my substantial readership with a bit of a cliffhanger last time we convened on the internet. I explicitly mentioned a road trip occurring in my past and that it was the most significant three weeks in my life. Audience, this is where the chronicles of Travis and Kate's Road Trip 2011 will officially begin. I cannot promise it will be completely chronicled by the end of this post. In fact, I will guarantee that it will not be. The chronicles will not be consecutively posted in blog posts from the future, either. Road Trip 2011 posts will be spontaneous, and they will be a pleasant surprise. So, as I fire up Man Man's album Life Fantastic, the record that most strongly conjures up the panoramic views of the American West for me, the chronicles begin. 

I first articulated the true wanderlust that often consumes me during phone calls with Kate during both of our sophomore years at our respective Connecticut universities. We talked of being in the Southwest, of American deserts, of cacti, of cracked pavement, of dust storms and of uncharted experiences. Of being far away from everything we knew and of untempered expectations. We fixated on the state of New Mexico, the "Land of Enchantment." It seemed, to our strictly speculative selves, to be the most nondescript and mysteriously intriguing place we could think of. She mused on the significant art historical influence and I mused on its relative obscurity as a geographical location, millions of miles from my home state. We knew we had to be there. 

Senior year, these musings became more structured discussions. Structured discussions became concrete plans, and the day after Memorial Day following our undergraduate college graduations, concrete plans became Road Trip 2011. 

The itinerary dictated Day 1 to be the most rigorous travel day- the day in which we traverse the most interstate miles- affording us maximum traveling pleasures throughout the rest of the journey. Our destination was Kate's childhood friend in suburban Detroit, Michigan. Our starting point was central Connecticut. A lesson learned on Day 1 was that the state of Pennsylvania along I-80 is an Adirondack experience of green trees and rolling hills that is twice as long as I expected. Probably due to my US road atlas breaking Pennsylvania down into eastern and western sections. This fooled my not-to-scale prior assessment of Pennsylvania's East/West girth. Editor's Note: I reject all forms of GPS on elitist handheld-map-reading principle. Did I mention I love maps? 

5+ hrs of I-80 in PA

After our Keystone marathon, our journey ventured briefly into northern Ohio. Its landscape rated, on my professional landscape-rating scale, as the least impressive of any one state throughout our travels. I will not elaborate on northern Ohio any further. 

We arrived in Michigan to lodge with Kate's childhood friend Callie at a house Callie shared with her boyfriend, their large dog Bubba and their shifty cat Louis. Throughout four days of Michigan, they were fantastic hosts/hostesses, collectively and individually. Our stay included multifaceted tours of the spectacularly crumbling city of Detroit. Despite a population that has withered by 500,000 within the past 30 years, Detroit's sense of blue-collar pride and soul cannot be denied. It seems to embody a collective rebuilding sentiment yet still retains its original sense of identity with the American auto industry. We also got to experience the Heidelberg Project, an "open-air art environment" spanning two abandoned city blocks on Detroit's East Side. It was truly an amazing sight to behold of creativity and optimism. The Heidelberg Project. In summary, audience, you may learn that I have a soft spot for underdog stories, and Detroit certainly stole my heart.

The conversion of abandoned office buildings into chic loft apartments.

General Motors headquarters, looking 1980's RoboCop futuristic.

Scenes from the Heidelberg Project.

 Michigan was certainly among my personal top 3 favorite states along the journey. And we hit 18 states in total. That is a rank to write home about (pun?). The only real premeditated detour of our journey took place in Michigan. After departing Callie's residence, I determined that we would travel north along I-75 so that we could travel through the northern peninsula of Michigan. The one that looks like the long beak of Wisconsin on a US map. This detour was my indulgence into my obscure geographical location fantasies. And audience, was it worth our while. On that note...stay tuned. For the Road Trip 2011 chronicles part 2. Coming spontaneously to this blog. Thanks again for reading. Visit Detroit if you can. 

Listening...John Coltrane-Cousin Mary