BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The past 48 hours, including my departure from Illinois to Indiana, have been a whirlwind, and I’ve barely had the time I’ve wanted to chronicle my adventures here on Ye Olde WordPress.

Alas, I’ve been making incredible memories on the road, with best friends and strangers alike, and I hope to spend some time today on my birthday getting the words out.

Oh yeah. I’m 31 now. That’s something, I guess.

Here’s a quick rundown of everything else I’ve been up to, as I chill out in the top floor of my hometown Graduate Bloomington and recap the last few days:

Charles in Charge

There’s a fancy little bar/restaurant called “The Trophy Room” just inside the front doors of the Graduate Evanston. It looks like an old sportsman’s lounge (billiards, hunting, old-school football) with brass draft handles, green leather seats, and fine wooden tabletops.

Among all these treasures, though, is a larger legend: Charles Campbell, a lifelong bartender and kind soul who oversaw my beer pleasures on Thursday and Friday night.

When I say he’s a lifelong bartender, I’m serious. He’s proud to tell you that he’s been muddling cocktail ingredients and serving his parents Manhattans and Old Fashioneds since he was 3 years old. (A concerned school administrator showed up to the family house one day after Charles made his habits known in school, and ultimately left convinced and impressed that his parents were simply teaching him hospitality and a meaningful service craft at a developmental age — Charles merely served the drinks, and his own lips did not touch them until later in life.)

And now, a father of four aged somewhere between age 50 and 60, Charles holds down the fort at The Trophy Room, slinging out neon-bright cocktails and immaculate pours of beer.

Charles is a sophisticate. He’s classy. The cheerful server with a little salt and pepper in his hair wears a white dress shirt and a bowtie, and completes the look with leather suspenders. He wears round, mid-century glasses, and addresses everyone by their last name — a gesture which caught me totally stunned, until I realized he had purloined my surname from the credit card I used to guarantee my tab.

As such, I was “Mr. La-FAH-Vay” during my visits to the Trophy Room. It’s not how my last name is actually pronounced, but it sounds fancier than the real thing, so I embraced the upper-crust vibes.

On Friday in particular, Charles had a beaming smile on his face. He proudly told the bar patrons that one of his daughters had just gone into labor, and he was about to be a grandparent. He said, patiently, that his phone was off, he was focusing on work, and that he would turn his phone back on when closing time had come — he didn’t want to alarm anyone with his joy.

With an early departure set for Saturday morning, I bid Charles (“Mr. Campbell”) ado and wished him the best. I paid my tab and went back to my hotel room. I never saw him again, but if you’re out there Charles, I’m raising my glass to you and your family — may that kid know how to mix a hell of a Negroni.

The Friendly City

I met up with more friends in Evanston (and Chicago proper) than in any other city on the trip thus far.

On Wednesday, I had the privilege of watching AEW with Matt Tepperman, a friend I made through the IU improv comedy scene, as well as his husband Aaron and their cat Lailah (pronounced LIE-luh, after the Jewish word for “night”). We also got dinner at a grilled-cheese themed restaurant named “Cheesie’s.”

On Friday, I crossed paths with two longtime best friends — Nash and Hannah — who recently welcomed their daughter into this world. Nash and Hannah were the folks I Zoomed with most during the pandemic, and seeing them in person again for the first time in two years (with precious cargo in tow) may very well have been the most important evening of my planned 31-day itinerary. For dinner, we got deep-dish Chicago-style pizza from Lou Malnati’s, which was a delicious treat in itself.

I also spontaneously ran into high school buddy and perpetual laugh-haver Jim Banta, after I took a wrong turn from Nash and Hannah’s apartment and got lost en route to the Metra trains (life is weird like that).

And on Saturday morning, I got brunch with Anthony and Bea Sbelgio, two Twitter/gaming pals who drove an hour from the Joliet area to spend time with me during my last morning in Evanston. They even helped me pack up my truck, which was an incredible friendship maneuver.

I’m glad to have crossed paths with so many people in such a short period of time. It made me appreciative of the potential of creating new memories again in a post-vaccinated world, and I’m grateful their decisions to get the jab allowed me to pop and and write the newest chapter in our respective storybooks.

‘No entry. No third-rail contact.’

I was also privy to some absurd, briefly horrifying people-watching on Wednesday night, when a dangerous situation presented itself on the northbound Purple Line.

A group of teenagers — they were talking about their upcoming plans for college — were heading home from the Cubs game at Wrigley Field, when one male in the group slapped his buddy Danny’s iPhone out of his hands, as a goof.

The phone bounced off the platform and down into the dark railway pit.

“Why the fuck did you do that?” Danny asked.

“I thought it was funny.”

“It’s not fucking funny bud. Not one bit.”

Danny paused and contemplated his options for retrieving his phone. He felt jilted that no security guards were on hand to help him.

“There’s no one awake!” he said. “I’m gonna go wake their ass up.”

“Danny, stop!” a tired girl called out.

Danny laid down on the grimy platform in his clean and sporty Cubs jersey, leaning over into the gap to try and reach his phone.

“It’s in the fucking tracks, Danny. Don’t go do that.”

“Somebody’s gotta!”

“Did you ask them?”

“Ain’t nobody here.”

The frustrated girl is becoming more and more impatient with Danny and his phone-slapping friend.

“You two need to sit down,” she said.

“YOU TOO,” Danny barked back. The girl walked away with her hands on her head.

“Do you see it, bro?”

“Nah.”

The group realizes they’re on the wrong side of the tracks, and need to go southbound instead of northbound.

“Now we’re not going in the right direction, AND my fucking phone is gone,” Danny said.

A female security guard begins to approach the group. She’s carrying a walkie-talkie in her hand.

The group begins to clap. She’s less than amused.

“Where is it? You fucking threw it,” Danny barks at his friend.

“It’s right there.”

“She’s gonna get it,” Danny said.

“I sure am not,” the woman said.

A third guy chimes in: “To be fair, I should have caught it.” The group shushes him and he pulls back.

A bright light comes racing down the tunnel. The train is coming.

Danny jumps into the tracks, complete with an electrified third rail.

“Oh my god,” the manager pleaded with them. “Why would you come down there?! You did NOT.”

Danny grabs his phone and his friends pull him back onto the platform. They applaud his bravery, and the manager sighs into her walkie-talkie.

“They got the train backed up now,” she said. “Guy in an 18 jersey, short, baseball. They’re drunk and dropped their phone on the track.”

The manager turns around and chastises Danny: “NO ENTRY. NO ENTRY. NO ENTRY. No third rail contact.”

The fellas once again applaud Danny for his bravery. The manager leaves to talk on the phone in private, and the train arrives to scoop me and the Cubbie-loyal teenagers to our next stop.

I get on the train heading the right way. They get on the train heading the wrong way, but they are too excited by the phone recovery to realize it right now.

“Danny, why the fuck did you do that?”

“Well, why the fuck did you throw his phone?”

“I dunno. Why didn’t you catch it?”

The frustrated girl again stands up and pleads for them to stop.

Danny turns and asks the phone-slapper: “Hey bro, still got your ball?”

The friend produces a baseball from his front pocket — “I can’t believe I finally caught one.”

Danny slaps it out of his hand, and it rolls down the train car.

###

-moose

PS: Here’s a few other notebook statistics, to give you some context on how the journey is going at large.

• Distance traveled so far: 960 miles
• Two wrong-way buses, 1 missed bus, 1 missed train
• ~$11: Approximate cost of leaving Chicago via toll roads
• Clean T-shirts left: 1

EVANSTON, Ill. — Contrary to my feelings of inadequacy by staying in an upper-class, expensive city, I’m finding great pleasure in exploring Evanston’s cheap thrills.

Specifically, I spent two days this week exploring Evanston’s natural diversity, including a picturesque day at the beach and a moody visit to a historic lighthouse.

Clark Street Beach

After my remote work session ended Wednesday afternoon, I took a short walk from the hotel to mellow out on Clark Street Beach, a petite strip of heaven bordering Lake Michigan, where the clean turquoise water ebbs lightly against pure-white sands. Some of Northwestern University’s most stunning architectural feats, such as the Biennen School of Music, butt up against the shore, creating a contrast of prehistoric bliss and post-modern capabilities.

A flock of seagulls stood to the far end of the swimming area, occasionally pecking around for stray food or to rest on an empty lifeguard’s chair, flying around and squawking with some degree of interest.

It only occurred to me, after kicking off my old-man Asics walking shoes and putting on my even-older-man banana bucket hat, that I haven’t swam at a beach in nearly 15 years. (My study-abroad trip through Normandy was, of course, somber and not a place where one is expected to take a dip.)

Indiana isn’t particularly known for its beach destinations — well, there is more than corn here — and the most recent chance I got to relax on a coastline would have come back around 2007, during my family’s last trip to Destin, Fla., which was our perennial getaway during better times.

Typically, beach admission costs $10 (Evanston residents get in for free on the weekends), but a neat little perk about the Graduate Evanston is complimentary beach passes for visitors — which are good for any public beach for as long as you stay.

With Wednesday’s modest air temperature of 78 degrees, the water pulsed at a chilly 68 degrees. It was enough to cause a little shock as I walked out into the waves, but not enough to dissuade me from going out entirely. I spent about 20 minutes just standing at the far end of the swimming buoys, staring out into the Great Blue Oblivion on the skyline, and admiring just how special it felt to be there. Some Graduate Hotels have pools (I’m considering shelling out $40 to try the Dolly Parton-themed one next week in Nashville), but nothing beats a real beach.

I eventually trudged back to shore to chill out on a white towel I borrowed from the hotel bathroom, letting the crisp breeze dry me off as I closed my eyes and basked in the sun (in retrospect, I wish I had put a little more sunscreen on my back, but that’s life.

I brought myself a small picnic to enjoy as I rested: my beloved Pepsi Zero Sugar, another Blueberry Crisp Clif Bar, and a fresh (plastic) jar of dry roasted peanuts.

A very important note: I do not recommend brining peanuts to the beach. If your hands are dry and clean, they’re just fine — but after becoming one with the sand, it’s only possible to tell what is peanut salt and what is sand after it’s in your mouth. (Crunch.)

After getting my fill of beachtime (and picking the grains of sand out of my teeth), I hiked over to the Lakefront Lagoon, which was restored in 2014, to dry off in the sun. It’s a historic little body of water with two stunning fountains, and it plays host to several families of ducks, as well as their duckling babies. I took a lap along the edge of the algae-filled water to get a closer look before it started raining, at which point I called off my beach evening and retreated to the hotel to shower any remaining sand off my body (and out of my mouth).

Gross Pointe Lighthouse

Thursday afternoon was a cold one in Evanston. With highs hovering around 64 degrees, and a cloudy skyline threatening storms on the horizon, I took the Purple Line north to hike a ways and find the historic Gross Pointe Lighthouse.

The 110-foot lighthouse was built by the federal government in 1873 to improve ship navigation around Chicago, which at that point was one of the busiest harbors in the United States. For 67 years, the beacon helped guide ships through the Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic Coast.

The lighthouse’s beam is still visible at night, and can be used as a private signal for ships finding their way through Lake Michigan.

Something else I thought was neat is that the land of Lighthouse Park itself was given by the federal government to Archange Ouilmette, a Pottowatomie Indian, in gratitude for her father’s assistance in helping the U.S. craft a treaty between the Pottowatomie, Chippewa, and Ottawa tribes in 1829 — today, the only person who has the power to alter this gift from Archange and her descendants is the president of the United States.

The lighthouse itself is nice — I haven’t seen one before — but it’s not open to visitors except during the weekend. And even so, the vantage point at the top of the lighthouse itself has been closed since the COVID-19 pandemic began, so there really wasn’t a lot to see besides the exterior, impressive as it might be.

However, there was a pleasant little wildflower trail garden, and the adjacent beach was free to walk on. I spent a half-hour watching aggressive waters crashing against the shore, splattering and spitting across heavy rocks and boulders, on the gloomy and gray day. I stood under a heavy treeline and took in the raw, visceral power of the Great Lakes. As compared to Wednesday’s beach lull, Thursday’s trip to the shore brought a humbling sense of nature’s strength, and a subsequent sense of poetic calm.

While I stood there in awe, I couldn’t help but dwell on our society and much of the destruction we cause — against ourselves, against each other, and of course, against nature itself. No matter what it is we do to each other, even the planet, it seems as though the natural world is permanent, and will outlast even the most braggadocio Oxymandian figures of our era. We all came from the cosmic sea, and someday, we will all return to it.

Love him or hate him, the vista brought to mind lyrics from Morrissey’s “Every Day is Like Sunday.”

Trudging slowly over wet sand
Back to the bench where your clothes were stolen
This is the coastal town
That they forgot to close down
Armageddon, come Armageddon!
Come, Armageddon! Come!

Everyday is like Sunday
Everyday is silent and grey…

When I had reached my fill of these melancholy depths, I got back on the Purple Line and stared out the window — all the way to my hotel — in complete silence.

###

-moose

PS: So not as to leave you readers with a sense of existential despair, here’s one of the duck families I was talking about earlier, to help cleanse your mental palate.

EVANSTON, Ill. — Once in a blue moon, I step foot into a city that’s somehow, someway, just too damn fancy for me to relate to.

Evanston is one of them.

Without again dwelling too long on my rural upbringing, I spent most of my childhood in a log cabin home — a quarter-mile off the road and with neighbors too far away to walk and visit. My town (“New Pal-es-TEEN”) had about 1,500 people when I moved there, and two, maybe three stoplights by the time I left. Our family home was surrounded by corn fields on three sides, and a horse farm on the other. My idea of a good time was shooting hoops on a $70 basketball rim from Wal-Mart, and hanging out in the abandoned school bus in our backyard.

Evanston, however, is a veritable Shangri-La on a crystalline beach on Illinois’ North Shore. The homes here are mansions and estates, and every piece of landscaping is flawlessly manicured. On one side of the road, a century-old cathedral. And on the other, the purest lakeside sands God could have ever dreamed of. Continue reading →

EVANSTON, Ill. — I’ve arrived safely into the friendly confines of the Windy City (well, the Northwestern part of it), but leaving Madison was rougher than I’d like to admit.

After my all-evening chicken-binge at The Vintage, I had my worst night of sleep at the Madison Graduate. I had shrugged off the warning upon check-in that the July 4 weekend was “going to be a scorcher” at 89 degrees, but the sun wasn’t the main woe: it was the air conditioner.

Perhaps Wisconsin lakefront summers aren’t meant for handling high heat, but the air-co in my 4th-floor room along State Street was paltry at best. Even though the thermostat went as low as “65,” the blower in the room (a single vent, located above the bathroom door) was barely enough to feel on my skin. I sat in bed, unable to sleep, brushing sweat off my brow as I eventually conceded and watched the first half of “The Godfather, Part I,” on TCM until 2 a.m. (And then the Wikipedia wormhole about Don Corleone’s confidante Luca Brasi and the former pro wrestler who played him put me solidly to sleep.) Continue reading →

MADISON, Wisc. — The pleasure principle of the trip is thus: I watch my dollars and sense on the first few days in each city, then I treat myself to something special on the last night in town.

And tonight, for my swan song in Madison, between Lakes Monona and Mendota — I can almost remember which one is which at this point — I spent my splurge evening binging on chicken tenders and trying not to get the meat sweats.

But I left with a powerful story about Madison’s struggle and redemption, meat sweats notwithstanding. Continue reading →

Q: “What’s the leading road trip snack right now?” — Cheese

A: If I were to answer honestly, the thing I’ve put the most of in my body during the past 48 hours has been Wisconsin’s own New Glarus beers — specifically, “Spotted Cow.” Like heaven in a bottle. But the holiday is over and it’s time to give my liver an Independence Day weekend of its own.

As for proper snacks — now that the welcome-package kettle chips and peanut M&Ms are long-gone — I’ve been eating Blueberry Crisp Clif Bars at least once a day, and putting down at least 2-3 cans of Pepsi Zero Sugar (née “Diet Pepsi MAX”) when I need something besides beer.

As for the best thing I’ve eaten so far on the trip Continue reading →

MADISON, Wisc. — I underestimated the power of the sun up here.

While I was warned by a local postman on Saturday afternoon that “we’re in for a scorcher” at 89 degrees, I waved it off as something any Hoosier could manage.

I was wrong. The sun bounces off the lakes. The lake-light bounces against the stone buildings. Then, the ricochet of solar energy blasts you in the eyes.

And then you start to cook from the inside out.

Between all that heat zapping my brain, and my blog reaching 10,000 words in a short period of time, I figured I’d take a mental break to share some pictures I otherwise haven’t been able to include in a story.

Let your mind take a break and let your eyes do the walking: Continue reading →

MADISON, Wisc. — The alternate headline for this entry, as suggested by my loyal housemate Miranda, is “Say, Do Any of You Guys Know How to Madison?”

A dance proposal in “Rocky Horror Picture Show” delivered by the cluelessly straight-laced Brad Majors (“asshole!”), the cheap one-off line could very well describe my ethos in coming to Madison for a few days — let’s dance!

And Saturday night on State Street — with the nearby Milwaukee Bucks playing for their first trip to the NBA Finals since 1974 — it was all too easy to be part of the crowd, stepping and swaying in a collective number of joy. Continue reading →

Photo description: The aquarium at The Dublin Underground (Rory’s bar) has some interesting admission requirements. Or elderly fish.

IOWA CITY — Good afternoon! I’ve made it safely to scenic Madison, Wisconsin, for Independence Day weekend after wrapping up a breezy 39 hours in Iowa City.

Speaking of which: Due to the whiplash of my travel schedule, there will be some days where I only have time to tie up loose ends here on the blog. I don’t want to spend all of a new stop writing about the last one, and frankly, some days are going to be less coherently poetic than others.

The last night in Iowa City was one of those stays, so let me fill you in before taking off to see what Madison’s all about: Continue reading →