Anne outside the Mitchell Corn Palace. Thankfully there was no danger of the walls popping at us.
The day before, we had visited the overlord of canned vegetables in Blue Earth, MN. 200 miles later, we found a place that concentrated on just one veggie in particular. Other foodstuffs didn’t play large parts, but they had one heck of a corn section.
Remember, kids: eat all your vegetables — especially the canned ones — and you can grow up big and strong like this vegan colossus.
Everybody loves advertising mascots! Granted, kids may not fully appreciate mascots trying to convince them to eat things they think are terrible. They’ll follow those characters’ extremely short cartoons, but stop short of paying attention to their endorsement. In that sense, the Jolly Green Giant is one of those heroic hucksters who may appeal more to nostalgic adults with broader palates than to kids who don’t understand why they never get to see him stomping on bank robbers. Sure, the Green Giant could use his powers for good rather than for capitalism, but then he’d be taking valuable jobs away from our hard-working police forces. Also, good luck trying to convince him to wear a body-cam.
Sure, you could curate an exhibit on spaceflight and only include nonfictional space travel outfits…but why?
Once upon a time in 2007, I chaperoned a field trip to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. Thanks to terrible traffic, we had exactly one (1) hour to see as much of the museum as we could before we had to board the bus and get the kids all the way back to their parents in Indianapolis. My small group, all boys, walked as briskly as they could without getting yelled at by docents, zipping from one exhibit to the next, which I’d chosen from the museum map in a series of deft but hasty hunches. It was a fun hour, but we saw less than 10% of the total museum.
Two years later, it was time for an encore. Same museum. Slightly more time to spare. Much, much worse traffic.
Sue the T-rex, like a rock star in the dinosaur fossil world, had a replica residing at our own Children’s Museum in Indianapolis for a while before we met the real thing in ’09.
Dinosaurs! Every kid loves dinosaurs! The one we brought with us was a teenager, but still.
Also in this episode: mummies!
Too bad we couldn’t really present you with a big crossover event featuring dinosaurs fighting mummies. Sadly, today’s museums have their limitations. Perhaps someday the technology and permissiveness will be there.
Chicago skyscrapers: they’re everywhere! Get used to them!
This isn’t the first time we’ve shared this particular photo set on MCC, but it’s been a few years since I reused them for a miniseries about our multiple Chicago experiences in general. Anyone who read that miniseries is probably dead or no longer reading blogs, so these pics should be new to you, at least. I promise at least 95% of the rest of Our 2009 Road Trip features Photos Never Before Seen on MCC. Honest!
A strange case of art holding a mirror up to society and proclaiming, “Everything is a fun house now! It’s WACKY!”
It’s odd how repeated exposure to some unusual sights can subtract from their specialness if you’re not careful. Anne and I have been back to Chicago so many times since 2009 that we hardly glance at “the Bean” anymore, let alone gaze into its distorted reality in search of wonder and/or explanation of how they made it. It’s fun looking back on our first encounter and reliving that singular moment when we stepped onto its platform with looks that said, “…what the heck?”
Welcome to Chicago. Big Sister is watching you.
Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken a road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, marvels, history, and institutions we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. Beginning with 2003’s excursion to Washington DC, we added my son to the roster and tried to accommodate his preferences and childhood accordingly.
2008 was by far our least favorite road trip to date, and still holds the ignominious title as of 2018. Driving out to Virginia Beach to see the ocean seemed like a good idea at the time. We weren’t prepared for the medical issues that plagued me all week long. We were disappointed with the beachfront tourist-trap economy. Worst of all, we learned the hard way that we’re simply not beach people. Our next vacation had to be better. Step one was plain enough: we looked at Anne’s brainstorming list of future road trips and chose the one that screamed “dream vacation”.
That’s what led to our long, long drive out to the farthest reaches of South Dakota and beyond. If you know anything about American tourism, you know some of the most iconic landmarks and attractions located way out there. South Dakota would be our most ambitious trip yet. At nine days it was the longest we’ve ever taken. The farthest point of 1,180 miles made it the longest drive of our lives. It would be the farthest west we’d ever been up to that time. It was also our first vacation using exclusively digital cameras to record the experience, leaving behind the 35mm film of our childhoods forever. They weren’t expensive cameras for their kind, certainly not the most advanced as of 2009, but we did what we could with the resources and the amateur skill sets available to us.
We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.
DAY THREE: Our family and our wonderful guide at Hersheypark, ensnared by one of those photogs that lies in wait at amusement park entrances to herd you together for a pricey photo op.
…and then we came home. But first: one last round of photos from days past, bonus shots from the previous sixteen chapters’ worth of vacation fun.
For the sports fans out there: we ran across Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Honus Wagner in front of PNC Park while searching in vain for a Mister Rogers statue. Not really the same thing.
Every vacation has a final day, by which time everyone’s overloading on new memories and experiences, exhausted and ready to return home to the comfort of their own bed, and in dire need of time apart from their travel companions. On our early road trips we came to learn that the final day of our trips felt ten times longer if we didn’t give ourselves something to do on the way back, something to look forward to besides the open road itself. Downtown Pittsburgh had more than enough character for the three of us, even on a deserted Sunday morning.
Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun. But colossally so in “the world’s largest Big Mac”.
The end is nigh! The miniseries is nearly finished, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t cover some food along the way. On past trips we stuck to smaller meal budgets and didn’t bother to record most of our meals, in this bygone era before the Instagram foodie-photo fad. Every so often, though, a restaurant here and there would stand out to us — sometimes for the food, sometimes for other reasons.
The photos you’re about to see come from a place where several reality shows have filmed their stars pretending to chase ghosts and failing to catch any.
We had time for one last stop before we exited the Philadelphia area. Anne loves American history. I love places with exotic feels and/or unique architecture. So we compromised and went to jail for it.
Once more, with pizza.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: two weekends ago my wife Anne and I traveled once again to the wondrous wilds of Chicago for another round of conventioning at C2E2, with a Friday night intermission for dinner at Gino’s East, one of the city’s many, generally fine pizzerias. The walk through the brisk, freezing winds wasnt my favorite thing, but the food and my companion were worth it. While I’m trying to juggle an eventful week here in the now and get my head back into the proper writing space, please enjoy this selection of photos from the experience. It wasn’t our first time there, but this meal was a blessedly stratospheric leap in quality over last time.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art looked fabulous from a distance on a trolley that wasn’t stopping.
Some of our road trips simply needed more days that what we allotted. We thought we’d learned that lesson on our 2005 drive to San Antonio, when we spent more time in the car than we did on foot in Texas, because their state is like a separate continent compared to home. Our trip to Philadelphia encountered similar issues but for a different reason. We’d found so many interesting sights to see near Philly that we barely left any time for the city itself. We’re considering making up some of that lost time in this summer’s vacation. At the time, though, we did what we could with the moments we had.
Panamanian golden frogs — critically endangered, rather poisonous, and adorable hanging together from their little leaf shelter.
Before writing this chapter, Anne and I watched the first episode of the BBC’s inspiring, horrifying, utterly gorgeous Planet Earth II on Netflix, and now I’m ashamed of every inadequate animal photo we’ve ever taken. But let’s proceed with another batch of zoo memories anyway.
The lovely Anne — wife, travel companion, convention partner.
Dateline: Friday night around 7-ish in downtown Chicago. Twice per year my wife Anne and I travel three hours northwest from our Indianapolis home to visit their two big comics/entertainment conventions, meet comics creators, have our photos taken with actors from some our favorite movies and TV shows, and enjoy a weekend getaway from the workaday world.
Sometimes we need moments away from the convention scene and the thousands of like-minded bodies crammed into those cavernous yet ultimately finite spaces. After a successful first day at C2E2 and checking in at our hotel, we grabbed dinner a few blocks away from Geno’s East Pizzeria, one of many renowned establishments in the Windy City and one we’ve visited in the past. It’s always busy and it’s weird at first to find yourself in a place where customers are permitted and encouraged to write on any and every available surface (you’ll note one such culprit caught in the act behind Anne), but you get used to it after a few minutes.
Our next attraction needs no introduction…
More Philadelphia! More American history! More icons of Americana! More really old things! Finally we were getting to the part of our road trip that Anne had been dying to see.
Getting a wide shot of Independence Hall proved challenging, but the center section gives you the gist of it.
At last, the day my wife was waiting for on this Philadelphia trip: some American history! And some Philadelphia!
A lot of what’s visible here is Wall Street rather than all the most beloved Manhattan skyscrapers. In the wake of the 2008-2009 recession we nonetheless tried to draw inspiration from the view rather than glare at it in middle-class indignation.
When we decided to devote one day of our ostensible Philadelphia vacation to visiting the Statue of Liberty a reasonable distance away, we had no idea what to expect from the journey. We certainly didn’t envision it as a prequel to future vacations. And yet, there we were, and there it was.
The Trix Rabbit, Lucky the Leprechaun, and Buzz the Honey Nut Cheerios bee welcome you to Jungle Jim’s!
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: last weekend my wife Anne and I drove a quick two hours from Indianapolis to attend our first HorrorHound Cincinnati convention. For us that wasn’t an all-day event, which left us time to wander a bit of Cincinnati. In addition to multiple Kings Island trips over the decades, we’d previously seen parts of the city on our past two trips to Cincinnati Comic Expo, which culminated in a six-part MCC miniseries that included some local attractions. HHC was in a different part of town and inspired us to see what else they’ve put on their map.
Recommendations from friends led us to one of the best groceries every. Jungle Jim’s International Market has been a fixture in the area since the 1970s — 200,000 square feet of foods, drinks, and stuffs from other nations across six continents. For all we know maybe Antarctica is also covered and we simply didn’t look hard enough. In addition to carrying hundreds of thousands of products, the store features a parade of wacky statues, cartoon characters, tongue-in-cheek signage, and odd specializations you’ll be hard pressed to find in your own neighborhood. Its wares are so renowned that folks like us drive from all over the Midwest to check them out and stock up on rare supplies, dabble in culinary experiments, or just let the surroundings overwhelm them altogether.
The following photo gallery represents a portion of what we encountered our first trip, which almost certainly won’t be our last. Enjoy the swell, sweeping, swirling tour!
The Statue of Liberty. Lady Liberty. Liberty Enlightening the World. Ms. Liberty. The Maid of the Harbor. The Torch Lady, holdin’ torches.
For a vacation that was supposed to be all about Philadelphia, we found ourselves awfully easily distracted by other major attractions within a short driving distance. Such is the curse of visiting any of your major New England states — they’re overflowing with history and significance.
One lovely lady in the area combined the best of both. Two, if you counted my wife while she was in town.
