Notes from the Road

Day 3, Davenport, IA > Erie, PA. 610 mi.

8:30 AM, elaborate gas station mini-mart, Geneseo, IL:

Me: “Do you have any creamer for the coffee that came from an actual cow?”

Clerk: “No.”

NPR. Joe Biden’s speech. Lots of talking heads talking.

2:30 PM, rest station 40 miles east of Toledo, OH:

I see a group of Mennonite women — with their long black dresses and gauzy bonnets covering their hair enter the rest stop. Mennonites, unlike the Amish, accept some aspects of modern technologies, and these folks have a white Ford van.

Near the ladies’ room I see them encounter another group of women in saris. It seems to me they give each other a knowing look, these women looking out at each other from their traditional cultures.

I’m taller than all of them by a head, and I’m wearing a sleevless t-shirt from my web startup, standing next to a lady with two children and a sleeve of tattoos.

God bless America.

6PM, somewhere on Route 80 through Ohio:

lisawilliams: o hai Cleveland kthxbai

Today, Erie, PA > Watertown, MA, 533 miles. Home! Ahhhh.