Route A: Straight Through the Middle

I have decided that instead of wallowing in sadness and Snickers, I am going to focus on the great adventure. Nay, the Greatest Adventure.

We want to do the drive in 5 days, which gives us time for stopping at random attractions, sampling local cuisine, and taking karaoke breaks. So with a little help from Google Maps and Roadside America, I started plotting potential paths from Leesburg, VA to Portland, OR.

Spoiler alert: there is some seriously weird shit between Leesburg, VA and Portland, OR.

I have three different options to work with. First up, I-70, I-80, and I-84: Straight Through The Middle.

  
States

Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Oregon

Cities

Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toledo, Gary, Iowa City, Des Moines, Omaha, Lincoln, Cheyenne, Laramie, Salt Lake City, Boise

Attractions

Pennsylvania 

So, we're only in Pennsylvania for, like, a minute. Nonetheless, there are some excellent opportunities. Such as:

World’s Largest Hamburgers (Clearfield, PA)

Dr. Doolittle’s Roadside Café and Creamery (DuBois, PA): “History books gloss over the brief period when dinosaurs were enslaved by the Amish in partnership with Bigfoot. Lasers were involved. Statues at this cafe/ice cream parlor and mini-golf reveal the truth!”

Large Cow Statue (Clarion, PA): This is just one of the many giant statues of cows that I discovered listed among America's roadside attractions. 

Ohio

Miracle Virgin Mary (Campbell, OH) – Virgin Mary on top of St. Joseph the Provider Church’s eyes glow at sunset. This is either a miracle, or possibly just sunset.

Indiana

RV Museum and Hall of Fame (Elkhart, IN) - Also an RV park, of course.

Belle “Husband Killer” Gunness exhibit (LaPorte, IN) – at the LaPorte Historical Society Museum

Live Gospel Music McDonalds (Hammond, IN) - They have a stage for local performers, and gospel groups are there a few days a week.

Carmelite Shrines (Munster, IN) – Includes a blacklight rendition of the Apocalypse (Open only on Sunday)

Illinois

There's basically nothing of interest in the little bit of Illinois we'd go through. Illinois: Wasteland of No Fun.

Iowa

Giant Mother Goose (Davenport, IA) – all that remains of Mother Goose Land. It's basically just a fiberglass statue, but a lot of this shit is just fiberglass statues.

Castle Hall (Wallcott, IA) – weird-looking replica of Scotland's Balmoral Castle. It seems to have vinyl siding on the bottom now.

World’s Largest Truck Stop/Trucking Museum (Wallcott, IA)

World’s Largest Wooden Nickel (Iowa City, IA)

The Black Angel (Iowa City, IA) – Cursed grave marker! Or maybe just a bronze statue that's been out for a while. But let's go with Dramatically Accurs'd.

Wagon Wheel Tower (Lynnville, IA) – giant welded wagon wheel sculpture!

Train Robbery Monument (Adair, IA) – features actual tracks cut by Jesse James to rob the train!

Volkswagen Beetle Spider (Avoca, IA) – It’s a giant spider with a VW for a body. Sorta what you'd expect from the name.

Black Squirrel Capital of the World (Council Bluffs, IA) - what an odd claim to fame.

Nebraska

El Sitio chrome sculptures (Lincoln, NE) – Mexican restaurant has chrome sculptures of insects and spaceships. Honestly, I'm mostly just interested in fajitas. The statues are incidental.

National Museum of Roller Skating (Lincoln, NE) – in back of the USARS headquarters offices. We're roller derby girls. We would kinda have to stop there.

Rooster Statue, Piano Requests (Lincoln, NE) – “A large crowing rooster statue atop a pole outside of a fried chicken restaurant that features a live piano player.”

Dinosaur Museum (Milford, NE): Apparently they have tons of dinosaur bones. And that's cool, right?

World’s Largest Covered Wagon (Milford, NE)

Marble Museum (York, NE) – Marbles like the toys, not like the floors

World’s Largest Plow/Sod House Museum (Gothenburg, NE)

Ole’s Big Game Steakhouse and Lounge/Ole’s Big Game Bar (Paxton, NE) – Great big taxidermy!

Wyoming

Big Statue of the Virgin Mary (Pine Bluffs, WY): There are almost as many BVMs as there are fiberglass statues in the wide world of roadside wackiness.

Buryville (Cheyenne, WY) – outrageous collection of metal art

World’s Largest Gas Station (Little America, WY) – home to a stuffed penguin. That's stuffed as in taxidermy, not as in plush. His name is Emperor. He was supposed to be a live mascot, but it didn't work out.

Smallest Town in America (Buford, WY) – 1 house, 1 gas station. Population: 1

Wyoming Frontier Prison Museum (Rawlins, WY) - Word has it that it's creepy.

Shoes made from Big Nose George (Rawlins, WY) – They are shoes made from the skin of a horse-thief.

Utah

Fun is illegal in Utah.

Idaho

Niagara of the West (Twin Falls, ID) – waterfalls!

My father the geography and roadway guru thinks this is our best option. He declared it "the most direct and yet scenic, too." I think he may be overestimating the scenic qualities of Nebraska, but I do have to admit that he has been there and I have not. 

Tomorrow, Route B: I-70, I-94, and I-90, or North by Northwest. 

Instead of drowning my sorrows, I bury them in candy.

The past few days since Kate let me know she was leaving, I've been in a funk. It's not a terrible dark swamp of depression, but there is definitely that urge to just lie in bed and eat candy rather than actually doing anything.

It's not like she's dying, I remind myself. She'll still be around for phone calls and IMs and facebook and Skype. But it's not the same, and I know it, and I still feel a sense of loss.

I never had a proper Best Friend before I met Kate. Throughout school and even after, I always envied those girls with the matching necklaces and the shared giggles and the absolute knowledge of who their Maid of Honor was going to be when they got married. They had someone to call with any problem, someone they could always hang out with, someone to have fights and make up with, and oh baby did I want that.

The thing is, I'm not good at making friends. I'm socially awkward, but not in that cute, sweet way where people want to come up and talk to you because you're just so gosh-darn adorably quiet. My anxiety and nerves turn into a loud, opinionated performance, coupled with a wariness of initiating conversation with strangers and a difficulty making small talk that generally comes off as coldness and disinterest. Even once I know people, I have this lingering fear that any moment, the situation will turn on a dime and they won't like me anymore. There's that point, you know, where you're supposed to get closer to people or you decide to keep them just a casual friend. You've met, you've hung out in groups a few times, and if you're going to become real close friends with them, you have to spend some one-on-one time. Well, I never seem to succeed at making that jump.

Kate made that jump for me. I was 29 when I met her, and had already figured that I was going to die without ever having a Best Friend. That dream had died when the last really close friend married my ex-boyfriend and I wasn't invited to the wedding. But then came Kate, with her fearless approach to conversation and her outrageous outfits and her unsinkable belief that we were about to have The Most Fun. Suddenly I had this person who I could talk to about makeup, and feminism, and instructional technology, and roller derby, and RuPaul's Drag Race, and all the scandalous shit people we knew were up to. We went tubing and went to bars in the middle of the day and discussed how the importance of proper skin care really couldn't be overstated.

And somehow, we started talking about real things. Our relationships, our insecurities, our worries, our anger and our pain and all the other stuff that generally speaking I Just Don't Talk About. She became the person I called when I felt like my life was falling apart, and vice versa.

I know I can still call her, and I will. We'll still talk. We'll still be best friends. It's just that now when I've had a few too many at karaoke night and someone sings "Fire and Rain," I'm going to be crying alone instead of with her. No one else will ever be as excited to go to the Mellow Mushroom. No one else hates all the same people I do.

I'm going to miss her.

The beginning

My best friend called on Monday to give me the news: She's moving to Portland, Oregon.

It's a great opportunity for her. She's going to an awesome job in a fun, beautiful city. Her brother lives there, and she can get all the vegan food she can stand. They're even paying for her relocation! I'm really happy for her, honestly.

It's just that now my best friend is going to be living on the other side of the country. That part sucks.

There's an up side, though: we get to have one more fabulous adventure before our relationship is reduced to phone calls and Skype for an indeterminate amount of time: I'm joining her on the cross-country drive.

The plan: Leesburg, VA to Portland, OR in five days. Her husband and her brother will be driving the moving truck/towing her husband's truck. She and I will be in her car with her three beagles. (No, her car is definitely not big enough for two women, three beagles, and their stuff.)

The trip will be awesome. We will laugh and we will cry. Our playlists will be amazing. We will stop for karaoke. Sights will be seen and state lines will be crossed. Local food will be sampled and enjoyed. And at the end, I'll fly home alone.