Our 2018 Road Trip, Part 12: Not Just Another New York Art Museum

Number 2 1949!

Jackson Pollock’s “Number 2, 1949”, daring me to fit it into a single shot without walking backward into someone behind me.

Longtime MCC readers know Anne is the history buff in our family, while I’m more like a history Biff. In planning such a history-heavy vacation, Anne was concerned I’d get bored quickly for lack of attractions that speak to any of my interests. Anne dug into the upstate New York research with no small amount of persistence and was proud to find a stop that would resonate with my tastes and connect with a previous experience. In essence she found us a de facto sequel to our 2016 tour of Manhattan’s Guggenheim Museum — same state, some of the same art movements, and the same classiness a mere 240 miles from NYC.

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Our 2018 Road Trip, Part 11: Sleepy Time in Syracuse

Thai beef short ribs!

What has two thumbs, goes to an Italian restaurant in New York and orders the only Thai dish on the menu?

By the time we finished paying our respects at Frederick Douglass’ gravesite, we agreed Day Two had dragged on for far too long and needed to end. We had to wend our way out of one upstate New York city before we could finish the evening with a stroll around another.

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Our 2018 Road Trip, Part 10: Tea Time for Activists

Let's Have Tea!

She fought for women. He fought for blacks. Together, they fight crime!

Our tour of the National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House wasn’t the only highlight of our Rochester detour. Across the street sits another tribute to the titular champion of women’s voting rights. Alongside her is a great man, a close friend of hers, and a well-known name in other circles then and now: the great abolitionist and author Frederick Douglass.

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Our 2018 Road Trip, Part 9: Suffrage Central

RocSuffrage!

Walking in the footsteps of great women, but in our version one of them has a mysterious third arm.

In a modern era when political pundits are urging more loudly than ever that youngsters and apathetic layabouts ought to register to vote, and then actually get up off their butts and go vote at every possible opportunity, this year seemed like a good time for a bit of history and education about an era when the American government decided it was high time to basically double the size of the electorate and stop being stubborn pigs about their patriarchal chokehold on quote-unquote democracy. But first, one woman had to help convince them.

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Our 2018 Road Trip, Part 8: Erie’s End

Shark Girl!

Casey Riordan Millard’s “Shark Girl” welcomes you to Canalside!

We hadn’t intended to spend all morning and half the afternoon in Buffalo, but we found too much to do and too many roadblocks making it all take twice as long. Regardless, we had one last stop in mind before ending our Buffalo stance: a long, sunny walk along a former critical intersection in American history.

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Our 2018 Road Trip, Part 7: The McKinley/Roosevelt Losing Ticket

Roosevelt statue!

Once you’ve heard about some of Teddy Roosevelt’s true-life adventures, it’s hard to find Chuck Norris jokes funny.

Longtime MCC readers are well aware we sometimes fall short of our goals. Sometimes we don’t have time to fit in every possibility we brainstormed for our to-do list. Other times, circumstances block a seemingly simple objective. We’ve had our moments of overcoming obstacles and persevering anyway. We’ve also had those times when we cut our losses and decided the hassle outweighed the potential heroism.

We missed two key items while we were in Buffalo. One could’ve been accommodated if we’d been willing to dawdle more in Buffalo and sacrifice later parts of our itinerary. The other, which according to our research should’ve been an easy click-‘n’-run, threw us a disadvantage with a kind of barrier we hadn’t expected: a surprise street party.

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Our 2018 Road Trip, Part 6: Far Beyond Fillmore

Rick James!

For the sake of decorum this caption shall attempt neither to quote “Super Freak” nor to reference Dave Chappelle.

During our initial research, we were surprised to discover President Millard Fillmore wasn’t the only public figure buried in Buffalo’s Forest Lawn Cemetery. Their large brochure lists dozens of noteworthy contributors at local levels — leaders, politicians, at least one descendant of George Washington — along with quite a few names known beyond city limits…including but not limited to R&B superstar Rick James, born in Buffalo.

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Our 2018 Road Trip, Part 5: The Man, the Myth, the Millard

Fillmore sign!

If the only thing you know about Millard Fillmore is his mention in The Simpsons‘ “Mediocre Presidents” song…join the club. It’s a large one.

As we ended Day One with a drive through a scenic locale from a previous road trip, so did the following morning commence with another encore of sorts. Last time we were in the city of Buffalo, it was 2004 and we were too enamored of nearby Niagara Falls to bother researching or looking at anything else in the vicinity. We’d barely figured out where any Buffalo restaurants were, let alone their history or highlights.

The locals are especially proud of one famous resident in particular — the gentleman and philanthropist who co-founded Buffalo General Hospital and the Buffalo Historical Society, a self-made man borne of tenant farmers who crawled his way up the class ladder to become a lawyer, U.S. Congressman, and Comptroller of the state of New York.

Also, once upon a time he served as President of the United States. Some folks regard his performance in that workplace a bit differently.

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Our 2018 Road Trip, Part 4: Return to Presque Isle

seagull walks!

A lonely seagull watches the sunset, ponders the meaning of its existence, and/or stays on the lookout for fish to murder.

We often look back at our old photos and wish we could return to many of the places we visited on our earlier road trips for further adventures or at least better photos. Our travelogues are frequently imperfect and in need of reshoots because of our own inexperience. our limited resources, or uncontrollable circumstances at the time. We do what we can with the tools and skill sets available. Our innumerable rough edges are among the many reasons MCC will never be a commercial success or The Greatest Blog of All Times.

Most years, we’d rather keep pressing forward to new places we haven’t seen, but every so often an opportunity for a do-over shows up on or near a path we’ve charted. This year’s trip happened to offer quite a few second chances. Our next stop was one of them.

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Our 2018 Road Trip, Part 3: Mealtimes with Sara and Chud

ceiling neon!

Romantic dinner by candlelight? That is so 19th-century.

When it comes to our vacation planning, sometimes we’ll pinpoint potentially interesting restaurants in advance. Sometimes we’ll tire of micro-analyzing every town and play Google Maps roulette on the fly. We’ve enjoyed the comfort of mom-‘n’-pop diners. We’ve let kitschy holes-in-the-wall bemuse us. On select occasions we’ve overspent on places that were well above our pay grade but were right-place-right-time. The important thing is that if we ever have to set foot in my old nemesis Subway again, we will have failed miserably and should be grounded from traveling.

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Our 2018 Road Trip, Part 2: Searching Through Hayes Stacks

Hayes bust!

Attorney. Courtroom defender for runaway slaves. Union Army veteran. Congressman. Social reformer. And, when time permitted, American President.

Not every U.S. President left an institution behind upon their passing. Some have multiple cities named after them. Many have a museum that tells their life story and/or celebrates their contributions to their homelands. Some states are prouder of their famous citizens than others.

A number of our former leaders have eponymous presidential libraries, though most were established in or after the 20th century, well after they and their immediate family died. You’d think the very first fully dedicated Presidential Library would have been in honor of one of the really cool Presidents — the ones who get movies made of their lives, who get to be played by upright actors like Sam Waterston or David Morse.

Nope. This guy’s was first.

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Our 2018 Road Trip, Part 1: Hayes’ Shade of Summer

Webb Hayes + flags!

Patriotic grave sites: as American as apple pie, but a lot more solemn.

It’s that time again! Another year, another driving marathon, another chance to see sights we don’t have back home, and another MCC travelogue series to record the experiences before I forget them all and Anne gets tired of retelling them to me.

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13 Dead Presidents Pocketed: Our 2018 Road Trip Prologue

John Adams!

The earliest President whose burial site we’ve seen so far: #2, John Adams, d. 7/4/1826, age 90. Beneath the United First Parish Church in Quincy, MA. From our 2013 road trip.

Every year since 1999 my wife Anne and I have taken a trip to a different part of the United States and visited attractions, wonders, and events 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. My son tagged along from 2003 until 2013 when he ventured off to college. We’ve taken two trips by airplane, but are much happier when we’re the ones behind the wheel — charting our own course, making unplanned stops anytime we want, availing ourselves of slightly better meal options, and keeping or ruining our own schedule as dictated by circumstances or whims. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

Normally we’ll choose one major locale as our primary objective, drive that-a-way, and concentrate on exploring the vicinity for a few days before retreating. We crafted this year’s itinerary with a different approach. Instead of choosing one city as a hub, we focused on one of the motifs that’s recurred through several of our trips: grave sites of Presidents of the United States of America.

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Our 2009 Road Trip, Part 24: Outtakes Off I-90 West

Day 6 Devils Tower!

Welcome to Devil’s Tower. I’m your host, TV’s Wilford Brimley.

It’s a time-honored MCC tradition: every road trip concludes with bonus photos I skipped while compiling all the preceding chapters. However, this finale is a little more special than average.

Effective with this very entry, every single one of our annual road trips is now officially available for perusal and literary analysis on MCC from 1999 to 2017. All the major vacations from MCC’s 2012 inception to the present have been housed here exclusively from the get-go. As of today, all our prior travelogues from 1999 to 2011 have now been reposted and reformatted here for our own personal library to be shared with one and all — our lifelong, immutable road trip canon. Some write-ups were reprinted word-for-word, but in several cases extensive rewrites felt necessary and/or fun.

This curatorial project has been years in the making, and has now reached its final major milestone. It’s kind of a nice feeling.

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What We Didn’t Do on Our Summer Vacation

Anne head-tabled.

Anne waiting for paint to dry, glaciers to melt, and dinner to arrive at an Irish pub in Philadelphia.

Our 2018 road trip is behind us at last. After seven days and 2,056 miles together on the open road, Anne and I arrived safe at home Friday night, several hours later than expected and ready to retreat into overnight catatonia. Five out of six previous evenings ended much the same way — with a number of new achievements to our credit, new memories to add to our mental slideshows, new regrets to tally up, new aches and pains to nurse, and new letdowns from the unchecked items on our lengthy to-do list. In some ways that’s a typical vacation for the two of us, but what stings most are a few omissions that weren’t our fault.

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Welcome to the Hotel Impostor Syndrome

Hotel!

Such a lovely place. Was all this a mistake?

I’m typing at you live from downtown Albany, New York, one of the stopovers on our 2018 road trip, where our hoteliers have gone overboard in assigning accommodations that appear far beyond our means, either because it’s an extremely slow night for them, or because either Anne or I resemble one of their local politicians. Probably Anne.

Pictured above is half our room. Well, almost half.

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Our 2009 Road Trip, Part 23: 300 Miles from Steak to Cake

Iowa Machine Shed!

WELCOME TO SHED. YOU COME HAVE FOOD, NO, NOT TOOLS. THAT IS OTHER KIND OF SHED.

It all comes down to this: the last leg of our long, long trip. We began with friends; we concluded with family.

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Our 2009 Road Trip, Part 22: The Town on the Edge of Forever

Shuttlecraft!

DISCLAIMER: Not a working spacecraft yet.

Our first venture into the state of Iowa left a lot to be desired, but it was a milestone in our travels: the first time we ever visited the birthplace of a famous personality before they were born.

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Our 2009 Road Trip, Part 21: 2 Wild 2 Kingdom

white tiger!

A white tiger happy to get some peace and quiet far away from Siegfried and Roy.

I’m typing this on the Third of July, Independence Eve, a time when a lot of internet users are either binge-watching, traveling, or stocking up on recreational explosives to celebrate the United States of America’s birthday (observed). Clicking is down, my energy levels are even farther down, my movie reviews are caught up for now, my to-do list for coming events feels infinite in length, and I have six episodes of Luke Cage season 2 left to burn through. For my own reasons I don’t feel like skipping MCC too much this week, but now’s not the time for that 2000-word essay on social awkwardness that’s been coalescing in my head since last December.

Oh, hey, everyone loves animals, right?

Eureka.

(P.S.: Happy Fourth of July from us here at Midlife Crisis Crossover! Remember, don’t drink and firecracker, especially around pets, who hate hate HATE your proud fireworks display.)

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Our 2009 Road Trip, Part 20: Omaha’s Wild Kingdom

Owl!

Paranoid owl is ON TO YOU.

Longtime MCC readers know we made a habit of doing at least one zoo or amusement park on every road trip while he was young, as a compromise so he’d have something to look forward to besides history museums and roadside oddities. As for this particular trip, you’d think we’d be burned out on animals by now after our experiences at Custer State Park and Reptile Gardens. Regardless of redundancy or overkill, Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo came recommended to us, and gave us a benign activity to kick off what would become yet another day of never-ending driving.

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