Soul Highway

Stories from the road and other revelations

It’s still hot as Hades and the temperature is akin to the heat you feel when you open the oven that’s been set at 400F. The husband thinks I’m wrong when I say even the midday heat in the Philippines, being an archipelago, was a lot more tolerable. I didn’t know summer would be this hot in the US and heat it was that greeted us when we traveled to Illinois for a vacation with the in-laws. I had only slept for three hours the morning we left, making sure father and son won’t run out of socks or underwear in the middle of our two-week retreat. I told the husband that I should have let him pack. “I would but you wouldn’t like it,” he said. I pictured unfolded shirts tossed into suitcases and missing toothbrushes and I knew he was right. That would have driven me nuts.

I have been on road trips longer than 13 hours before but they mostly involved buses that have appointed stops along the way. The trip to Illinois was a little more “tight.” The husband, as driver, exercised full control over his passengers, including our bladders. “Bladders will be emptied when the vehicle runs empty on fuel,” he decreed. Re’Sean and I moaned and whined and called him a jerk. Well, I did for the last part. We tried to live up to his expectations but when nature calls, one has to go come hell or high water. “What makes you think I should be responsible for your stomachs as well?” the husband said mockingly when we started mentioning lunch. “But daaaaaaaaadddddddddddddddd!!!!” the passenger in the back complained. McDonald’s, here we come.

When the husband was not torturing us, we spent the time taking in the changing scenery as we drove through Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and into Illinois. The countryside, where life seems to roll in a more leisurely pace, is beautiful. I think most of us imagine living somewhere peaceful and quiet once we're done with the rat race in the city. Although I was underslept, I managed to stay awake for all the 13 hours we spent on the road. The husband and I were blabbering the whole way. Good conversations sometimes work better than Red Bull. We arrived in O’Fallon, Illinois past 9 p.m., tired and ready to crash.

We pretty much spent the next several days exploring the area and the nearby St. Louis (Missouri). Taking the husband’s aunt, cousin and mom with us, We also drove to the “river towns” of Alton and Grafton in Illinois in search of eagles (we later learned they can be sighted in these areas during winter) and to check out where the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers supposedly meet (we never found the exact location). The drive was nice though. Did I mention the blazing heat? Three days into the vacation, the husband addressed me as “Darky,” in addition to “Spot.” Re’Sean, he said, also turned “two shades blacker.” We worked on the in-laws garden and hopefully the flowers we planted will make it through the summer.

People in places we went to were generally friendly and a particularly nice neighbor handed us a list of “things to do while in Illinois” and I think we knocked out four of those items. Re’Sean had a lot of room to roam around in the neighborhood. I practiced driving on the husband’s truck and he claimed he was on the verge of a heart attack. The truck is okay, and so is the driver.

The highlight of the whole stay though was time spent with the family. I am lucky to have such wonderful in-laws. There were no pre-meeting jitters and uneasy conversations. When I met the father-in-law, I realized the husband is a very close copy, feature-wise. Re’Sean, on the other hand, is the husband’s mini-me no doubt. “Three generation of look-alikes! This has got to stop!” I told the husband jokingly. The husband claims it’s proof of good genes.

Other notable finds: A Larry Flynt club in the middle of a corn field, in the outskirts of St. Louis, next to a store that sells sex toys and apparels. This might be rural America but heck, old vices die hard.

Seen: A hard to miss Hooters signage right under a Toys R Us marker.

We're back!

Actually, it's been three days since we got back from Illinois. A total of 26 hours on the road! It was crazy, yet it was fun. It was blazing hot 95 percent of the time were were in Illinois but I would take that weather any day over rain and snow. We visited museums, explored the zoo for 6 hours, checked out the tourist sports, went rowing in midday heat, dined with family and worked on the in-laws' garden, among other things. There are lot of pictures to share but I will need to organize them first in folders and upload them on the site's photo section for easy access. In the meantime, here's a sampler of what we saw while driving through West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri.