Pittsburgh to Detroit

Our morning venue in Pittsburgh was The Meadows Casino and Racetrack.  We assumed this would be another track suitable for Minis, but instead it was a dirt track used for harness racing.  This is a sport I knew about from my youthful reading of Walter Farley books ("The Black Stallion's Sulky Colt").  A sulky colt is not a sullen, petulant young horse, but one who pulls a "sulky," the tiny two-wheeled carriage pulled in harness racing much closer behind a trotting horse than I remembered.

We marveled at this particular form of horse racing for awhile, although the interest among locals seemed to be in the gambling that went along with it.  We were surprised that casinos, limited to Indian reservations in our part of the country, were commonplace in other areas; convenience stores in Nevada had slot machines next to Coke machines, and here and elsewhere betting on the horses was a popular past-time.

We were on two-lane roads again as much as possible, and for our mid-day Surprise and Delight we stopped in the tiny town of Lisbon, Ohio.  Established in 1803, its claim to fame was the invention of the drinking straw (which originally was made of chewing gum), so of course each of the hundreds of Minis rolling into town was given a small drinking straw and a pamphlet from the local historical society.  It was a pretty little town, known in its past as progressive and abolitionist, and we utterly overwhelmed it.

We crossed the river to Kent State, where I so clearly remembered unarmed students being shot down by the Ohio National Guard in 1970, a landmark event in my own past since I was a junior in college at the time and we were (many of us) protesting the Vietnam war.  How can I forget those angry Neil Young lyrics:

 "What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio."

I wondered if this journey across America might also be a journal across my past, across America's past, reminding me of its bright promise and its dark moments at every step of the journey.  Gone off to look for America.

Then Neil Young faded away and we crossed another river, back into rolling countryside, field corn and spacious barns, bright blue asters lining all of the roads.  We suddenly came upon a small airfield (recreation? crop dusting?) and this big plane simply parked in a field, ready, it seemed, for take-off into a clear blue sky.

I was told by a plane enthusiast on Facebook that this was a Douglas DC-3, and my friend Christy confirmed that it was indeed; her Dad had flown them during World War II.  I said that he was a brave man to take off in one of these, and she replied that it was the landing that was the hard part.

Then we started to come into the city, on interstates again:  the big Chevrolet plant sprawling out on our left, the glory of American car manufacturing.  The evening event was held at the Eastern Market in downtown Detroit, but we discovered to our disappointment that it consisted entirely of various food trucks.  Needing something more substantial after a hard day on the road, we headed for our hotel a half-hour out of town.  Thunderstorms began to roll in, dark and menacing, our first rain of this trip.  We located our hotel in the semi-darkness, and desperate for a cold beverage and some good food, pulled into an O'Malley Pub.  As we were coming in the front door, literally, the sky opened up, and we enjoyed some great fish tacos as we sat at the window and watched a terrible storm blow rain sideways outside, thankful that we were not snarled in Detroit traffic.  When it was time to leave, a rainbow arced gracefully across the parking lot.