Jay Gabler

Dispatches from the Road, 2001: Home

Previously: Shoney’s and Kevin Costner

INTERSTATE 94, VICINITY OF EAU CLAIRE, WISCONSIN—”Come on, highway!” Dad is reprimanding the road surface for jostling the Camry and causing the Gordon Lightfoot CD to skip.

Unbelievably, we are on the last leg of our odyssey—fast approaching the Badger State’s western border and the promised land of 10,000 lakes. We did end up stopping last night—at an AmeriHost Inn in northern Illinois somewhere. As the trip has gone on, Dad has abandoned the Ma-and-Pa Principle of hotel selection in favor of the new principle of Stop-at-the-First-Thing-You-See-When-You-Get-Off-the-Freeway. Jenny and I aprove of this new principle, since few Ma and Pa Places have 24-hour hot tubs (as the AmeriHost Inn did). Our dining discretion has also taken a nosedive—we’ve gone from the New England Culinary Institute to Shoney’s to McDonald’s, which has supplied both our meals today, filling our bellies and the Camry’s backseat with McRubbish.

But no more Ma and Pa Places, no more Shoney’s, no more Colonial Village Motels, no more La Gue Inns—we’re almost home. And Dad’s already talking about next year.

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