Monday, July 31, 2006
Up to Chicago
I spend the night just outside Greencastle, Indiana, having driven more or less straight up US 231 in the night. Greencastle is the home of DePauw University, whose alumni include Dan Quayle and my cousin Jim, so I take a minute to explore the campus. I'm a little disappointed by it - it's about the most generic looking college campus you could ever hope to see. Three faux colonial buildings arranged about a quad over here; a squarish greek revival art building over there. The exception is the college's Old Main, which here is called "East Hall." It's a weird Victorian Gothic fantasia smack in the middle of campus. On the third floor there's a big, unfortunately plain, assembly hall with a horseshoe balcony.I wander over to the admissions office to find out where the locals go for breakfast. I explain to the very helpful admissions officer that I'm driving across the country, and he says, "And you chose Greencastle, Indiana, to stop in?" I drive through downtown Greencastle and see at least a little of what he's talking about; the campus is attractive enough, and the neighborhoods surrounding it, but Greencastle has the most dismal little downtown I've seen so far.
On the other side of downtown I come to the Monon Restaurant, which it turns out is named for the railroad that used to run through here. I'm starving. Having gotten down to my last Abe Lincoln thanks to the ATM card fiasco, I had to walk past every burger place and funnel cake stand at Holiday World like they didn't exist (fortunately, Holiday World includes unlimited drinks with the price of admission). But this morning, my Visa card is burning a hole in my wallet. I'm eagerly looking forward to a massive breakfast of pancakes and eggs and bacon and hashbrowns - the whole left side of the menu. I've got a gold-standard recommendation. I practically skip up to the front door.And see this:
On to Lafayette, then.
On the way I stop briefly in Crawfordsville, home of Wabash College, which is one of three true men's colleges remaining in the United States (and I'm even not sure Deep Springs really counts). Its campus is hidden deep in the trees, and on a blistering July day at least has that above DePauw's. Crawfordsville's downtown slightly livelier than Greencastle's, but not by much - this picture is pretty flattering, actually. I take my requisite picture of the Montgomery County Courthouse and get back on the road.These two pictures cost me a dime in the parking meter, incidentally. It seems inconceivable that parking meter revenues in this town could pay the salary of the parking meter collector, and the last thing these businesses need is another reason for customers to head to the strip malls on either end of town.
Finally I get to Lafayette. Lafayette and West Lafayette sit across the Wabash River from each other; West L. is the more notable of the two because it's the home of Purdue University, but both towns are prosperous looking and full of activity. I guess that's the difference between having a dinky liberal arts college and a land-grant university in your town. More importantly, Lafayette has a branch of the Huntington National Bank, where I relate my tale of woe and intrigue to the teller. She doesn't seem nearly impressed enough. I ask her for a lunch recommendation and she wants to send me to Applebees. Instead I head to downtown Lafayette and eat at the local internet-enabled coffeehouse.Purdue's campus looks exactly the way you'd expect a big A&E school to look. I take a picture of the Boilermaker.
Just north of Lafayette is a place called Indiana Beach, on a reservoir called Lake Schaefer. Picture the Jersey Shore in the middle of cornfields. They have a few rollercoasters, none of them up to the standards of the Voyage, and one of which has a mechanical failure while I'm sitting in the rollercoaster train under the blazing Indiana sun. There are about three people riding with me, because everyone else in the world is sensible enough to realize that when it's approaching 100 degrees and there's a beach within 100 yards, riding rollercoasters is not at the top of the to-do list. We broil for ten minutes or so while various different mechanics try to figure out what's wrong. My stay at Indiana Beach is brief.
I cut over to US 41 through the towns of Monon and Rensselaer. I cross over Interstate 65 along the way, and from the height of the overpass get a view of just how wide open this part of the country is. It's like this most of the rest of the day, until I reach US 30 and the Indiana Tollway and the southeastern suburbs of Chicago begin. Then it's a slow, miserable, air-conditioned slog past cheap motels and gas stations and DIY warehouses, and a detour in Gary, and a giant casino next to the rotting mills on the lakeshore.And finally I'm at Chicago. I skip the Chicago Skyway and drive through the neighborhoods on the southeast side. They're worn looking, but that's greatly in keeping with their role as a gateway neighborhood for any number of migrations; today, they're mostly Mexican-American.
And then I reach 79th Street and the South Shore Country Club. On the other side, I pull onto South Shore Drive, and the nation's most dramatic skyline suddenly swings into view.
