Cross-Country I

My daughter has a summer clinical affiliation in California. As a result, my wife and I are driving cross-country for the first time.

Let's back up a bit. The daughter in question is in a Physical Therapy program that was supposed to conclude with an MS after five years. At the start of the fifth year, the Powers announced that students could opt into a Doctorate in Physical Therapy track and only add one additional trimester to the program. The demands of medicine being what they are, most of the students so opted.

They have since discovered that it's one additional trimester plus as much extra work as the faculty can cram into an already crowded program. As a result, students whose affiliations are more than a day's drive from the campus aren't left with time to reach their affils unless they fly.

Next discovery. Yes, you can rent a car for three months in California, for fairly short money, even if you are under 25. The catch is that a Massachusetts insurer won't cover a three month rental in California, and the rental company's insurance more than doubles the tally. End of that idea, and we always wanted a cross-country trip anyway.

The trouble is, this is not what we had in mind. It's a four and a half day interstate highway marathon. In my usual anal-retentive approach to travel, I'm deep in planning now. Already, this is an edifying experience.

We're good as far as Buffalo, all familiar ground. The plan is to move booty across Ohio as fast as possible. Even before the last election, I thought of Ohio as a rather second-rate place, and nothing in my homework has changed my view.

I'd give Indiana the same treatment but my wife is good for 12 hours a day max on the road, and that takes some cajoling. She isn't fond of highway speed, and has only lately got used to 65 mph speed limits. It's been amusing explaining to her that she can kiss the 65 limit goodbye at the Mississippi, and that by New Mexico the idea of "speed limit" is as abstract as the concept of the speed of light...and about as fast.

Mapquesting this route is fun. It's always a pain if you have the pointer a bit off when you magnify and get a few blocks off. If you do that in certain areas of this route, there is nothing in the frame. It takes a couple of these errors before one realises there is nothing in the frame because there is nothing there.

I was just reading a Texan's uncomplimentary look at Oklahoma toll roads. The road surfaces are rough, she writes. Toilet facilities are rare and primitive. You can drive hundreds of miles without seeing police, unless you're speeding ( In that case they arrive like sharks attracted to a drop of blood). As a New England native, my response to all this is "so?"

After the 20th warning to carry water in the desert, I feel like screaming "I'll carry the effing water! Now will you shut up?" True, we of the Atlantic coast don't traverse hundreds of miles of baked rock and sand as a rule. A few of us do sail, and what we sail on is salt: we don't leave harbour without water.

It promises to be interesting. We have blossoming construction barriers in Ohio, tornados in Oklahoma, drunken Indians walking the Interstate in New Mexico, snakes in Arizona rest stops, and something called "Roy's Garage, Diner and Motel" smack in the middle of the Mojave Desert: it appears there may be few dull moments.

There should be compensations. True, the likely digs in Oklahoma City will be at a Motel 6. It just happens to be within a few blocks of a half dozen steak houses and quality rib joints. A family recollection puts us in Albuquerque instead of Santa Fe for the only deep breath on the route. I've located a restaurant in Old Town where one can enjoy huevos rancheros and very dark coffee for breakfast on the patio of an 18th century adobe. After all, I'm not busting ass for 3000 miles just to eat at Shoney's.