Road Trip in the USA - from Detroit to New Orleans

Beautiful physiographic map of the US, who could resist it?
source: Wikimedia Commons

Here we are on American soil again! Julianne and I flew from Bilbao to Detroit on December 17, ending the European portion of our Great Wander, which lasted 16-1/2 months more or less. Now we set out on the American portion, as we wander a very indirect route from Detroit to Seattle, often through parts of the US we've never seen before. 

So here begins a new series of travel postings, tracking our movement across the giant spaces of America. 

We've planned a great circle loop south, southwest, and northward. We'll see friends as possible, see art when we can, visit national parks and birdwatching sites, renew some experiences in this huge country. We'll end at home, in Seattle, in the 2nd half of March.

Our rough trajectory, winter into spring 2015-6
map credit: shass.mit.edu

How is it here for us? Are we having culture shock? Are we glad to be back or are we discombobulated? The country is always a surprise. We may find it isn't what we thought.

Of course, first we had to get here. There we were on December 17, rising at 4 a.m. and stumbling onto the plane by 5:30. 

Many hours later, we were in Detroit. We came back sick from Spain with bronchitis or maybe pneumonia, and of course 6 hours of jet lag, so we thought we weren't the best company. But our friends didn't let that stop them, or us. 

First thing, we had early Christmas near Detroit with our friends Andy and his family: Cyndy, Ami, Amanda, and Chris, plus Andy Jr. and his family.

We laughed and talked, talked some more, ate and ate, and hugged grandson Chris until he couldn't stand it. The family also took us to their extended family Christmas party. It's such a big family they have to hire a hall for the party. Look closely at the stockings on the  mantel, you'll see there's one for each of us, too.

Living room at Andy/Cyndy's at Christmas

Andy Coleman

Chris Miller at 10

How lucky we are to have such friends! Andy, Cyndy, and the family were so warm and open-hearted it was hard to leave. We might have stayed longer, but that's the thing about our life these days, we're always leaving. And likely they wouldn't really want us hanging around...so on the third day we packed up and headed out for our date with New Orleans.

The family made sure we had lots of candy, salted nuts, nutcracker ornaments, a key fob, big yellow drink cups, a fleece throw, bottled water, pop, a green plastic tub, whatever you want. Many keepers, and we're still working on the nuts and whatnot.

Our Scion, a pretty good chariot.

Ah, the American road!

It's just over a thousand miles from Detroit to New Orleans. We were in a hurry and took freeways. South and south, a bit west. Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, into Louisiana at the last moment.

The land was flat, then rolling hills, then higher hills with road-cuts, then flatter again. It was cold, then mild, then warm. It rained, or didn't. It was cloudy and grey, or dark.

Pastures with cattle, and fields, gave way gradually to forests. The trees were bare until we hit pine, and then it was either pine or logged-off ex-pine. Commercial forests - one height, consistent density, most trees quite young and skinny. Those trees don't get to get old.

All along the way, the road looked the same. In the distance, landscape. A chain-link fence, infinitely long, marking the edge of the right-of-way. Inside, within wide margins, two flat ribbons of road, one each way, pass a green median. The roads may curve. There can be bushes, fences, trees, in the medians. Signs are color coded, mainly green. This goes on and on and on. Freeways present very simple visuals. This is partly a safety feature.

The traffic was sparse. Cars and huge trucks hurtling on. Truckers own the road, and we remember that these roads were built for delivery, not touring. In fact, we didn't have as much traffic as we expected, perhaps because it was a weekend.

We had hopes for visual interest in the built-up places near intersections and off-ramps. But evidence of town life has its own repetitiveness. Strip malls, gas stations, miles of car sales, truck sales, camper sales, trailer sales, mini-storage places, fast-food places, roadside hotels, and billboards. Big churches, big parking lots, tents selling fireworks, taverns and roadhouses. Quite a bit of road repair. The food wasn't very good at all, even in the restaurants.

Of course, we were on a treadmill going South. We expected no other than this. This was our fate for two days.

Surely, we hope, away from the road, deeper into the landscape, are towns and lives as individual and quirky as you might hope, full of particularities of region and history. But we didn't see them.

We saw a great blanding. The same things are available no matter where you are. The service people are smooth and practiced. The hotels are similar, regardless of logo. We were in Michigan, in Mississippi - but we could have been in Montana, in Maine. The road is nearly the same. 

We see just the larger roads here

This reality is really efficient, and  moved us as fast as we wanted. We played into a conspiracy to not notice what was around us, to move on, keep moving, not stop for any interesting detail. Might as well be anywhere. Exactly what we wanted.

It's a consequence of size. The scale of America is so huge! You have to go fast to get anywhere. The miles and miles and miles of forest, the hundreds and thousands of immense trucks, the size of the sky. The little towns, one after another like beads on the road's necklace. We were dazzled by the space given to roads, the edges of roads. The wide lanes, two or three in each diretion. The wide medians. The cloverleaf interchanges, so careless of space. The permission to go fast.

It's part of trying to pull together all this disparate space into one concept. You unify it by providing a single environment over and over and over. What is gained is a sense that "United States" is an overarching fact, but what might be lost is the particularity and uniqueness of each locality.

Americans are ambivalent about this, but the fact is there to see all around. There are many thoughts to think on this topic - but we are hurrying on.  

We left Waterford, Michigan, on Sunday morning Dec 20, and got to New Orleans on Tuesday afternoon Dec 22. We could have done it faster, too, but we stopped to sleep and eat. Why suffer?

So this first road trip impressed us with the spaciousness of the United States, the effort to impose a single style on a disparate landscape, and the love of speed.

However, New Orleans doesn't work that way. We had a different experience, and that's another story, coming right up in the next posting.

by Nancy, with maps via Google