Our trip west began in earnest this day. There was no center console in the front of our rental car but the backseat had one in the middle of the seat. I pulled it down and it was covered with bits of food and spilled milkshake.
Disgusting!
And shame on the rental car place for not checking to see if it needed to be cleaned.
“It looks like there were kids in the backseat,” I said and told Mike what I had found.
“Maybe they should allow dogs and ban kids,” he suggested.
Most of our stuff was in the way-back of the Trax. Itsy was in her car seat on the backseat center console. We hung Mike’s shirts on the hook over the backseat window, our pillows were on the seat beside Itsy, bottled water on the other side of her, purse and snacks on the floor within easy reach, Ginger and a blanket on my lap, and we were off.
We head out of Wysox, cross the Susquehanna River and I can see the little town of Towanda where a younger brother and sister of mine were born. I was born about twenty miles north of there.
Turn left on route 220 and we pass through the even smaller town of Monroeton where I see one of the old houses had burned since the last time we had been through there.
Itsy, in the backseat, alone, by herself, wasn’t happy. She whined and snorted and scratched at the edge of her car seat. Scratching is her signal for down or up or in this case, “I want out of here!” And she can be persistent, that’s for sure.
Ginger was as good as she always is but I had to unbuckle and reach for things in the backseat a few times and to do that I had to get Ginger off my lap. I tossed her (gently, of course) onto the pillows in the backseat and she stayed there the rest of the way home. Oh, she tried to come up front a time or two but I said “NO” in a stern voice and pushed her back onto the pillows. Ginger wasn’t happy about it but she settled down, curled into a ball and slept.
Itsy was tied but had enough length on her leash that she was in and out of her car seat. Ginger barely moved as Itsy walked all over her and even tolerated it as Itsy sat down on top of her.
But I was surprised when I looked back and saw that Itsy had laid down with Ginger and slept for a while. In all of her eleven years she has seldom rested while we’re traveling.
“Maybe that’s the trick,” Mike said. “Keeping them together.”
Eating was a bit of a challenge on our westward trip. It was hot! It was really hot! In the upper 90’s and way too hot to leave the dogs in the car without air conditioning. Going east we left the truck running and locked the doors because we had the spare key. But that stinkin’ rental car place only gave us one key for the Trax so one of us always had to stay with the girls.
But we didn’t miss any meals, let me tell you.
I “awww’d” my way across the states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Every time — well no, not every time, but a lot of the times — when I spotted an animal laying dead beside the road, I’d say “Awwww,” and be sad for a moment or two. Believe it or not, we even saw a bear laying dead beside the road in Pennsylvania! I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.
On the westward leg of our trip, as we approached Indianapolis, Indiana, traffic started jamming up.
“Construction?” we guessed.
Mike picked a lane and as we inched forward we see a helicopter above us. “Do you think it’s a news helicopter?” Mike asked.
“Ummm, no, I think it kept going,” I said, then as we watched, it circled back. “Maybe it is a news helicopter,” I conceded.
I snapped a picture thinking I could zoom in and see where he was from but I didn’t get a good picture.
“There’s no traffic in the eastbound lanes,” Mike observed.
Then we saw the flashing lights. “Awwww,” I said and it was a deeper, more heartfelt ‘aww’ this time because someone could be hurt. Someone someone loved could be hurt or maybe even dead.
Then we see a police officer in the fast lane. We thought he was having the traffic merge to the slow lane, then I saw the truth. “He’s making everyone exit,” I told Mike. I could see down my side to the exit ramp and saw it was a steady line of cars exiting.
We were never very close to the accident but I snapped away with my camera on full zoom until all I photographed were trees. Then, as Mike followed the traffic onto the off ramp, I hit my review button and zoomed in to see what I had gotten. “There’s a helicopter on the road!” I exclaimed and I visited the world of grief and sadness all over again.
Our daughter Kat was Life-Flighted from the scene of her accident the day she died, but I’m sure you knew that’s what I was referring to.
As we left the ramp, Mike was following the traffic and some turned left and some kept going. “Which way?” Mike asked but I didn’t know so we followed where the most people were going and made a left turn when the traffic allowed.
We found ourselves in a truck stop.
“Does the road go around behind it?” we wondered.
A parking lot, with no exit, soon dashed our hopes and we had to make a u-turn and go back out — but we weren’t the only ones!
As we gained the entrance of the truck stop we had to wait as a steady stream of traffic came off the highway from one direction and the eastbound detourers kept the other lane busy making a left hand turn difficult, but eventually there was a break big enough for us to squeeze into.
I took a few photos on our jaunt around the countryside, nothing fabulous but things we wouldn’t have seen had we not left the highway.
By the time we made it back to I-70 traffic was starting to flow again, at least in the westbound lane. Eastbound was still at a standstill.
“They must have just shut our side down while the helicopter landed,” Mike guessed and we never saw him land.
Hot dogs from the gas station convenience stores, eaten in the car was our lunch on all the days of our travel, (we won’t talk about the chips and Cheetos we ate on the side). We tried to have a longer break and a more nutritious meal at supper time but with this only-one-key issue, that wasn’t going to happen this night.
My stomach was in an uproar from all of the junk food and greasy hot dogs and I felt a need for a salad. “How about Subway?” I suggested. A lot of the truck stops have Subway’s in them and I usually get a lot of veggies on our roast beef, no dressing, and that was the healthiest thing I could think of since we couldn’t leave the dogs and had to eat in the car.
“Fine,” Mike said.
At the next truck stop that advertised a Subway we stopped. I walked the girls while Mike filled the tank, then he pulled away from the pump and parked in front of the store. I carried the girls across the burning hot blacktop and dropped them off with him and went in for our food. I was pleased to see there was only one other customer ahead of me so I wouldn’t have long to wait and we could put more miles under our tires.
“Do you want anything else on this?” she asked the man she was waiting on.
“No,” he replied.
“For here or to go?”
“To go.”
She closed up the box of his personal pizza, pulled her food handling gloves off and rings up the sale. “Would you like to add chips and a drink for a dollar ninety-nine?”
“No,” he said then remembered his manners. “Thank you.”
He tried to hand her his plastic money but she indicated that he could swipe it himself. She finished the sale and greeted me.
“How are you?”
“Fine,” I said not engaging her in small talk.
She grabbed a couple of disposable gloves from the box and as she fumbled with the first one trying to put it on she dropped it on the floor. “Geesh,” she says, reaches down, scoops it up and throws it away. Then she had to go back to the box for another glove.
“What can I get for you today?”
“Foot long, Italian herb and cheese, roast beef,” I said not wanting to get too far ahead of her.
She got the bread, set it on the counter, sliced the top the way they do, opened it, flatted it out the way they do, and reached for the roast beef. She didn’t like the little end pieces of the stack she picked up, so she tossed it back in the bin and got another stack. I watched as she fumbled with this stack and couldn’t seem to get the slices apart. She tossed that one in the bin too and got another stack out. They only put so many slices on your sub and I was already getting frustrated so I turned my back and watched the news playing out on the TV in the corner while she counted.
Another gal came up and waited her turn beside me.
“What kind of cheese?” she asked.
I turned back to her. “Provolone,” I answered.
“Do you want it toasted?”
“No thank you.”
I expected she was going to have as much trouble with the cheese as she did with everything else so I turned back to the news for a moment. I expected to hear, “What would you like on this?”
But did I hear, “What would you like on this?”
NO!
“What can I get for you?” she asks.
I turn around and she is laying the last slice of provolone on my sub and she pushes it to the next station where they normally add the veggies and she looks up at the gal waiting in line beside me. If we had come in together I could see her making both subs at the same time, but we weren’t together. Why isn’t she finishing my order? I wondered.
“I’m going to have a foot long Italian BMT tonight,” she answered.
Oh that explains it. She comes in here all the time and they know each other. Still I was feeling perturbed. Normally, in every Subway I have ever been in, if there is only one person working, they finish your order before starting another one.
“Calm down, Peg,” I heard Mike in my head. “It’ll be all right.” That’s what he says to me when I’m about to cop an attitude.
“But I’m in a hurry! We want to get back on the road!” I dignify. I’m sure I was glaring but she wouldn’t even look at me!
“Jake!” she calls over her shoulder toward the back. “Can you help me?”
She could probably feel my righteous indignation on her. I give up glaring and turned back to the TV where rescue crews were on a beach, frantically trying to dig a college kid from a caved in sand tunnel.
No Jake.
She continues to build the other gals sandwich. “Jake?” she calls again. The Italian BMT takes three different kinds of meat. Pepperoni, salami and ham.
“Shouldn’t it be called an Italian PSH?” you ask.
I know, right! But it’s named for a subway, the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit.
When she finished counting out all the slices of all the different kinds of meat she asks, “What kind of cheese?”
“Provolone,” she answered, same as me.
“Do you want it toasted?” she asked the gal.
“Not tonight,” she answers.
Now she had no place to go but the veggie station and Jake wasn’t there yet. She pushes my sub further down, making room for new one, turns and goes to the kitchen door, pushing it open with her gloved hand. “Jake, can you come and help me please?”
There were only two of us and she needed help? Maybe she didn’t like me. Maybe she was mad because I turned my back on her.
“What would you like on your sub?” she addressed me when she came back.
“Spinach, tomato, cucumber and peppers, peppers, peppers.” I like the peppers. All of them. The green ones, the banana ones and a sprinkling of jalapeños on top.
Jake appeared and she met him a little ways from the counter and had words with him in a low tone. I have no idea what she was telling him but I took this opportunity to vent a little. “Why didn’t she finish mine before she started yours?” I asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No, it’s not your fault, I just wondered why she did that.”
“I don’t know,” she said and leaned in. “But did you see she pushed the kitchen door open with her gloves on?” she finished in a conspiring voice.
“Yes, but it probably won’t kill me.”
“I know but… yuck!”
“Dressing?” Jake asks me as he fumbles with gloves.
“No.” I didn’t even say thank you. Just no.
“Salt and pepper?”
“No.”
“For here or to go?” Jake asks as he wraps my sub in the paper.
“To go.”
“Would you like to add chips and a drink for a dollar ninety-nine?”
“No.”
I swiped my card, took my receipt and left without so much as a thank you or have-a-nice-day. On my way through the convenience store I picked up a small Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough to share with Mike after we eat our sub. I thought a little ice cream was deserved.
“Do you have spoons for this?” I asked the clerk as I paid for it.
“Get one from Subway,” he said and before I could wonder about that he clarified. “Ours suck.”
Another employee, cleaning the food area, heard and remarked. “They don’t have spoons anymore since they stopped selling soup.”
“That’s okay, I’m not going back into Subway anyway because I’m mad. Where are yours?”
“Around the corner and in the top of that gray bin,” she answered and pointed.
“Thank you,” I said, went around the corner and found the sporks; a hybrid of spoon and fork.
Out in the car, Mike asked, “What took so long?”
And I vented.
“Calm down, Peg, it’ll be alright.” See! I told you that’s what he tells me.
Mike ate his half of the sub there in the parking lot then started driving again. Once I had my half done I reached for the Ben & Jerry’s. It was frozen solid when I bought it and it hadn’t softened up very much in the time it took us to eat our subs. I struggled with the spork, getting bites out for us, bending it and breaking the little fork tines on the end of the spoon.
Then a picture flashed in my mind’s eye. A picture of one of my kitchen spoons, wrapped in paper towel, inside a plastic bag, in my purse. My coffee spoon! It was in my purse!
“You have a coffee spoon in your purse?” you ask.
Yes. I really prefer my instant coffee and all of the gas stations will give you hot water free if you have your own cup, which I did, or for a small fee if you use one of their cups.
I reached for my purse just as Mike says, “You could use your coffee spoon.”
“Can you read my mind or what!?” I ask and dig the spoon out. With a normal spoon we made short work of the ice cream.
After a few more hours of driving, Mike had had enough. “Why don’t you look on the GPS for a motel around Effingham (IL) and call and see if they take dogs?” Mike said.
Aren’t GPS’s just the greatest invention since sliced bread! No matter which way you go, they always get you where you need to be, I was thinking. Hey! Just like God! No matter which way you go, which decision you make, He can work all things to fulfill His plan.
In this case though, we hadn’t made a wrong turn, we needed a motel. The days of phone books are long gone. Besides telling you latitude, longitude and elevation, it can find you restaurants and shopping, gas stations and banks. It gives you address and phone numbers. I hit the lodging icon, put our destination in and hit go. A long list came up and I started calling.
“Sorry, not pets.”
“Sorry, we don’t have any rooms left tonight.”
All the while we were hurtling towards Effingham at 75 miles an hour.
“Hurry up Peg,” Mike says.
I called another one. “Yes, we take pets.”
“Do you have a king size bed?” I inquired.
“We do,” the clerk answered.
I was happy! “Great! How much will that be?”
“Let’s see,” pause, “It’ll be a hundred and seventy-four dollars.”
“Oh, hold on,” and I dropped the phone from my mouth. “It’s a hundred and seventy-four dollars,” I repeated trying not to sound too shocked. Mike shook his head no. “Okay, thank you,” I told the clerk and hung up.
I broadened our search and saw there was a Red Roof Inn just short of Effingham. “Hi. I’m looking for a room tonight and we have two little Yorkies,” I told the guy who answered the phone.
“We take pets,” he said.
“Great,” I tried not to sound too excited. “Do you have a king size bed?”
“Yes we do.”
Now for the coup de grâce, “How much will that be?”
“Forty-eight plus a twenty dollar pet fee.”
“How much?” I asked thinking I heard wrong.
“It’ll be forty-eight dollars plus a twenty dollar pet fee,” he repeated.
I repeated it to Mike and he nodded okay. “Okay, we’re only about five or six miles away so we’ll see you in a few minutes,” and I hung up my phone.
What kind of a room do you get for forty-eight bucks, we wondered.
“Was he Indian?” Mike asks.
“Yeah, I think so,” but he spoke very well.
We pulled into the motel and there was only one other car there.
“Please ring bell,” a sign on the door read. Dutifully I pushed the button thinking they kept the door locked but pulling on the door handle anyway, I found it wasn’t. We entered a room with a counter straight ahead of us. Off to the left was an area with a sink, counter, and two tables with chairs. We waited and waited. I could see into the apartment in the back and there was a TV sitting on the floor, a book bag tossed into a corner, and a pair of shoes and socks like your kids would leave laying around. The buzzer was probably to let them know you were there.
After a few minutes an Indian boy came around the corner in his stocking feet, a young man really. “Hi,” I greeted. “We need a room for tonight.”
“Did you call a few minutes ago?” he asks and he pulls a registration slip from a stack and went looking for his pen.
“Yes, but would you mind if we looked at it first?”
“No,” he answers. “Just a minute,” and he goes into the back.
Mike and I waited and waited and waited. I thought he had just gone for his shoes but he was taking a really long time. Finally he comes back out carrying a key card. Maybe he had trouble keying the card, I think.
“It’ll be 106,” he says. “It’s seven or eight doors down and you can drive there if you want.”
Mike and I got back in the car and drove to the end of the motel, parked in front of room 106 and waited for the young man to join us. Silently we stood by as he unlocked the door and pushed it open. We followed him into the room as he turned a light on.
It looked okay, but… “Do you have bed bugs?” I asked. He was standing there watching us and I just didn’t know how to ask tactfully so I just spit it out.
“We’ve never had any complaints. Do you want to look?”
“I do,” I said and pulled the cover from a corner of the bed. The sheet had a stain on it; like a rust stain from water. I pulled the sheet and checked the seams of the mattress. I saw no small, dark spots that would indicate the presence of bed bugs. That was all I knew to do. We have an RV, people! We don’t stay in motels!
“Looks good,” I said to him. “We’ll take it.”
He handed Mike the key card as he left the room.
“Would you check us in?” Mike asked. “I’m tired.”
“Sure.”
Mike fishes the credit card from his shirt pocket and hands it to me.
I walked back to the office where the young man waited for me and we chatted as we filled out the registration card.
“There’s not very many cars here,” I said stating the obvious. “Are you doing all right?”
“It’s a little early yet but we fill up most nights.”
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Fifteen,” he replied.
“And you work here?”
“Yes, I help my parents out.”
“Are you in school?”
“I’m a sophomore,” he answered.
“What do you want to be when you…” I couldn’t think of the words finish high school, instead, what came out after a short pause was, “grow up?”
He didn’t seem to be offended.
“I want to be a pediatrician.”
“Wow,” I said, impressed. “Why do you want to be a pediatrician?” I was thinking there may be a story here.
“I just like kids,” was the short and simple answer.
I thanked him and went back to help unload the car.
Back at our car I carried in our clothes and shower things, dog food so I could feed the girls, and my computer. I pulled back the covers and checked the sheets. They were clean. There was a lack of outlets to plug devices into but eventually I found a place to plug my computer in.
Accident on I-70 on 6-11-16 near Indianapolis, I Googled. Lots of accidents on I-70 came up. After changing my search words a few times I found the one that detoured us.
“Tabitha Perry was listed in serious condition Sunday afternoon at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio, after being taken there by medical helicopter late Saturday afternoon,” I read to Mike. “An eight year old passenger in her car was taken to Reid Health with injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening.”
I skimmed the rest of the article silently, reporting the cause of the accident to Mike. “Driver inattention. She ran into the back of a semi that had slowed because of the construction.”
Mike listened, grunted and went back to channel surfing.
I got theis picture from the news story and it was taken by Mickey Shuey of Pal-Item, a news service.
The next morning we were up and on the road early. I’m pretty sure the motel offered a continental breakfast, aka donuts, muffins, toast, coffee and juice, but we opted to stop at the first McDonalds we saw. Mike loves the Sausage McMuffin with egg and the Egg McMuffin is on my diet, which I follow loosely. Very loosely.
Late morning found us passing through Wentzville, MO and that was the pre-arranged spot for Mike to call his buddy Gary. That would be his signal to head out and meet us in Jefferson City, where we had to drop the rental car.
“Do you have any Windex?” Mike asked.
“Yeah,” Gary answered.
“Will you bring it with you when you pick us up?”
“Sure,” Gary replied. “What do you need Windex for?”
“Well, Ginger got nose prints on the windows which is the only evidence we had a dog in the car so we have to wash the windows.”
“Alright,” Gary agreed.
We arrived in Jefferson City, capitol city of Missouri, around noon, well before the drop off time of 5:30. We transferred everything to Gary’s Lincoln, cleaned the Ginger prints from the front windows, locked the rental car, dropped the keys in the drop box and headed home, 45 miles away.
Mike spent the rest of Sunday recovering and I started writing this story. Even though the story isn’t quite through (and will be continued) it has brought me to a good stopping point.
The next day would be Monday.
A new week with new stories.
And with that my loves, we will call this one done.
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