World Chump - Wanderlust

Day 2 in Minneapolis starts with a bus ride to the famed Replacements house that is pictured on the cover of their “Let it Be” album that was published in 1984. Like their recordings and their concert tours, everything is low budget with the Mats (popular nickname for The Replacements). It pictures all four band members sitting on the roof, with bassist Tommy Stinson trying to wipe the boredom out of his eyes. As we take our pictures, true to Minneapolis form, a curious neighbor passes us and wonders what we are looking at. Again, this is not done with any malice whatsoever, just with the Minnesota sweetness we’ve come to expect by now. “That’s the Replacements house,” I tell her and show her the album cover on my phone. “Oooooh,” comes the typical drawn out response. “I did not know that.” 

Very few people do. In the heyday of the alternate rock scene in the 1980s, the Replacements, Husker Dü (another Minnesota band from the area, would you believe it) and R.E.M. reigned supreme. The Replacements made it on SNL in 1986, but were banned following their brazenly public drunken behavior in addition to their front man, Paul Westerberg, using a swear word during one of the songs. It always seemed that the Mats could never get out of their own way, that mainstream success would be their kryptonite and their ultimate undoing. The Replacements never pretended to be anything they weren’t. They did not have a high school diploma between them and seemed to marvel at blowing any huge opportunities given to them, whether it was airtime, meetings with record execs or producers, and gigs at bigger and more famous venues. Whenever they needed to be on their best behavior, it seemed they saved their worst for just that occasion. Today, musicians recognize the influence the Replacements had on music, and that they were a welcome beacon of light during the glamor and glitter of the pop driven 1980s. I still have their albums,  Sorry, Ma, I forgot to take out the Trash, Hootenanny, and Let it Be.

Back to business. Next, Bash and I walk over to West Lake Street, where lead guitarist Bob Stinson sadly died at age 35 after his body shut down following years of alcohol and drug abuse. On our way to our next destination, the Bob Stinson memorial bench in midtown near Lake of the Isles, Bash and I spot a long, wide trail that looks like an autobahn for bikes and scooters. We break for lunch, and I use the time to find out about scooters, they look like so much fun. Within five minutes I download an app for Lime scooters, and scan the map, where they show the positions of any available scooters. Bash and I locate one, and I decide I’ll be the guinea pig for our first scooter ride. I get up, thumb it forward, but when I try to break, my finger refuses to release the leverage so that I crash just short of a wall. Yikes, let’s try that again. I get up, toggle back and forth with the switch on the right handle, and there we go! Forward, slow, faster, slower, all with one switch. I try it on the scooter autobahn that will take us to the Bob Stinson Memorial bench. Yesss!!! This is fun. Next, I get one for Bash. He starts out very slow, unwilling to follow my kamikaze ride just minutes before. He gets the hang of it in no time, and before you know it, we are on our way to the lake with me on the lead scooter.

We were counting on bus and train in Minneapolis, instead we decide to take Minneapolis on a pair of scooters from here on out. We make it to the Memorial Bench. Supposedly, this was one of Bob Stinson’s favorite spots where he would hang out, no doubt with a six pack. It’s a pretty area, and we find out that the State of 10,000 lakes starts right there in Minneapolis! It’s a warm day, and we watch the paddleboarders, kayakers, and paddleboaters cruise by. Next, we need to find more scooters. I scan them both and voila, we are on our way to the famous First Avenue and 7th Street Entry music venue, a popular spot for rock bands over the years. There are stars on the side of the wall with the member of bands inside them, kind of like a Wall of Fame. Of course the Replacements, the home boys, are on the wall as well. This was also the venue for Prince’s movie Purple Rain. Not far from First Avenue, we see a huge mural dedicated to another Minnesota native, Bob Dylan. Slick, Bash and I agree. We have one day left in Minneapolis, and we’re already looking forward to it, because we know we’ll be riding our scooters. Bwahahaha (wicked cackle).

When you live in Small Town, USA, your travel options by air can be limited, admittedly. To get to an international destination, for example, we need to fly either out of Charlotte (two hours away) or Atlanta (more like three). Leaving our car there at public parking prices is not palatable to me, so I chose to look at more local, or non-international, travel destinations from either Asheville or Greenville Airport. In all, Asheville or Greenville have 50-60 destinations between the two of them, so the pickings seem pretty slim at first glance.

Scanning the flight destinations, I find Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Las Vegas, New York, and shake my head. Nah, been there, done that. Key West, FL is a no, especially in summer. Philadelphia, Boston, Denver, Dallas, zzzzzzzzzz, I’ve been to all of those places multiple times. Keep reading, Worldchump, there’s a place for everybody. Newark. Miami. Minneapolis. Washington, DC. Whoa, back up there.

That Minneapolis bit.

In Winter a hard no, in summer that’s a maybe. I check with Bash, who I decided will be going with me, just so I can get him off the phone for a few days during his summer break. Time for a little salesmanship here. Want to go a Twins game? Noooo. Bash’s yawn over the phone is loud and clear. How about Paisley Park, the estate of the late, great Prince? Naaaah, Bash says with his typical teenager enthusiasm. How about the chain of lakes? Bash doesn’t dignify that with a response. I’ve got it, I snap my fingers. Let’s do a Replacements tour! Now Bash perks up, the old young punk that he is. The Replacements were this bete noire band of the 1980s, who could give you the most brilliant music one day, and then intoxicated, inaudible slurs the next (think Michael Stipe on tranquilizers here), with all musicians trading instruments for added effect. Finally, he okays it, and I book two non-stop tickets to Minneapolis, MN for a three-day weekend. What Bash doesn’t know is that I book two tickets to a Twins game as well. We’ll drop that on him in due time.

On flight day, we leave the car in a public place in Asheville at seven bucks a day…sold! As we expected, the flight is short and smooth, and the airport in Minneapolis is as advertised: user friendly, with affordable public transportation to take us into the city. Bash and I each have a backpack, there’s no mistaking us for anything but tourists, and yet I learn very early that people in Minneapolis will chat you up at any time, anywhere. Where are you from? How long will you be here? Oooooh, comes that long Midwestern drawl then. Nice. Well have fun, then. They are as friendly as they are curious here. This is still the Midwest.

It doesn’t take long to find out that Minneapolis is simply a gorgeous city. Clean streets, traffic is there, but not too bad. And then of course there is the Skyway, the network of walkways that will take you from one building (or block) to the next, designed to keep city dwellers warm during the brutal winters, and cool in the summer, like now. I love the fact that this saves us waiting time at traffic lights, we can go from one place to the next non-stop, if we so choose. Bash and I race a couple of blocks until we overshoot our exit on 4^th Avenue and have to backtrack, laughing like toddlers as we try to push each other aside while we jockey for position on our way down the stairs.

Bash locates a Five Guys downtown, and now he is all-in on the Minneapolis experiment. 

Day One was for simply getting to Minneapolis is one piece, take a quick walk through downtown, then have a nice sit-down dinner. For Day Two, we have other plans. It turns out those plans will change in the most unexpected way.  

For the grand finale of our tour, Lovey joins us in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia from Washington, DC, where she just had a conference. The dog's tail slaps Lovey's midsection in staccato, Jade is so thrilled to have her back. Lovey took the train from Union Station in DC, and we pick her up at the station.

Harper's Ferry is an outdoorsman's paradise. Conveniently located at the merger of the two rivers Shenandoah and Potomac, Harper's Ferry had always been a historic site to me, first and foremost. John Brown's fort is right where the rivers meet, and it's hard to imagine that something as violent as a bloody uprising could occur in such a gorgeous area. The building itself was dissembled and moved twice before it found its way back to where it belonged in Harper's Ferry. John Brown's legacy, of course, is secure. John Brown knew fully well he would be hanged, and his martyr status ages well with each year, especially in the America of the 21st century. 

Jade, of course, has other plans. In her canine world, abolishing slavery and a bloody civil war all have their place, but it is paramount that she follow her snout and hunt out any living, breathing creature (dogs, in particular) who could possibly stand in her way of obtaining top dog status in the world AKA world domination. Never mind that the dog was returned to several shelters several times, in the end everybody wants to rule the world, and nobody more so than Jade. It has never dawned on her that there is plenty of human love to give for many dogs, that all dogs don't need to be eliminated to guarantee Jade's happiness. Her happiness will only be complete if she is the last dog standing, a chip in her head that keeps egging her on. To Jade, Harper's Ferry is just another place for a million dog sniffs.

From our motel to the fort, it's three miles at least, but the three most beautiful miles you will ever walk. Paths...asphalt paths, beaten paths, mud paths all crisscross each other on a race to the crossing of the two rivers, and here any hiker can choose (or blaze) any path and never go wrong. Once you cross the bridge, you are already approaching a portion of the Appalachian Trail, as if this was even needed around here. 

The population of Harper's Ferry is in the triple digits, from what I understand, and the town as a whole looks as peaceful as it looks prosperous. Because of the limitations set forth by the rivers and the woods, an expansion of the town is highly unlikely...what you see is what you get. Somehow this small town also has two vegan restaurants. 

We walk into downtown heading downhill and return to the motel going uphill, which, in the end, gives us enough time to have dinner and blissfully conk out after walking at least a dozen miles. A wonderful place indeed, and something the tourists should remember when they are in DC. When do you get the opportunity to ride a train in this country anymore? This might be your best chance right here. 

Somehow I doubt that there is a town in America with more monuments per square mile than Gettysburg. Depending on the time of day, they look even more striking, whether this is in a fog, at sunset or sunrise. Here, I don't even doubt about the presence of ghosts. The question here is only how many there are.

On our way up to Scranton, we had already missed Gettysburg by the barest of margins. Not today.

Today, Gettysburg has about 7,000 people, and has all of the warm small town feel. A cashier at a gas station proudly flashes a copy of a certificate Gettysburg received for being one of the most livable places in the state of Pennsylvania. People are proud of this place, and rightfully so.

And yet, for all of its charm, that's not why we're here. One of the facts remain that some of the most beautiful places have had some of the highest butcher bills when it came to war. Ireland is one of those places. So is Little Big Horn. Ever been to Verdun? It is chilling imagining yourself there a mere century ago. 

According to the National Park Service, Gettysburg has 1,328 monuments, or one for every six citizens there. We drive up to the Military National Park Museum and marvel at its tasteful installations. Unfortunately, most tours are booked for at least four hours, so we need to improvise. I find an app to download and decide to take Bash, dog, and truck on our own tour. We stop at the place General Lee camped at while he was in charge of the confederate forces in Gettysburg. There's the Shriver House Museum that was seized by the Confederate Army. There's even time for Ike, former president Eisenhower, and his weekend retreat. It seems we stop every 100 feet or so, or whenever there is a new monument erected to commemorate an event or some state's unit. 

We stop and climb the tower at Culp Hill, where arguably the bloodiest fighting took place. Held by Union troops for the duration of the battle, this is where tens of thousands of men fought for supremacy of the hill, which was vital in overlooking the surroundings. There we sit, Jade the dog wagging its tail after making the ascension.

I am trying my best to just enjoy the serenity instead of visualizing two armies slaughtering each other. Worse yet, I have this recurring image of Woodstock, where we had just been less than 48 hours before, of bodies lying in the mud, probably baked out of their minds on drugs, while there are bodies lying in the dirt here as well, uniformed but lifeless. I can't hep but shudder. One of the places is a shrine of peace, the other a shrine of war. And because this is America, of course they are 200 miles from each other and could be visited the same day, were the eager tourist so inclined. 

Although the Civil War ended in 1865, its effects have haunted us to this day. And in the end, you start playing the great what-if games, like: what if we hadn't gone to war? What if all of those men hadn't died? Would there still be slavery in the 21st century? Would there still be this divide among the populace we find now? 

In the end, we realize it was essential for us to come here. We need to remind ourselves that peace is never a given, that there is a Gettysburg for every Woodstock. That freedom isn't, indeed, ever free, whether you fight for it or not.

From Scranton, we drive northeast until the highway morphs into a country road that curls around mountains, woods and rivers. Bash, being a teen, spends a lot of time on his phone, but that eventually bores him, too, so that he reverts to messing with Jade in the back or laughing and shaking his head at our great escape yesterday in Scranton. 

Like the roads, the towns eventually grow smaller. Most of them have a gas station, a family restaurant, the mom-and-pop to go with it, and little else. Like in the South, there are buildings just crumbling apart, the result of businesses going belly up, or small towners breaking the chains of tradition and leaving for the bigger cities. The roads continue to curve and wind through the woods until we reach the famed Highway 17B, the rain still accompanying us.

Like all X-ers, I suppose I was a little in awe of the Woodstock generation. The Summer of Love, Beatlemania, the moon landing...all of this coupled with music that was as fresh as a hippie's daisy. Woodstock itself would set the tone for all music festivals going forward. And to think this could be accomplished on a dairy farm nobody had ever heard of. The 17B itself was packed during those fateful August days in 1969. When half a million people descend on a dairy farm in the middle of the sticks, you just know the infrastructure wasn't built for it. It got so bad that the concert organizers had to fly the musicians in by helicopter. 

We get off the 17B and park. The dog can't accompany us into the museum, although I let her walk and sniff around the concert grounds later. Even without the museum and the new amphitheater they built there, the festival grounds have that magic you look for in certain places, like a certain baseball diamond in an Iowa cornfield. Bash and I stop where the stage was and look up the hill. Half a million people...it's as true as it was mind-blowing. For one day, this was the second biggest city in the State of New York. 

The museum, although abundant with tasteful exhibits, doesn't really tell me anything new. This is a place for nostalgia, of which I don't feel any...not for my generation, and certainly not for the Woodstock generation. As a 20 year old, I would have been dumbstruck by the museum. As a grown man with family, I have to admit I am less enthusiastic. How could one generation create something so marvelous, but get everything so wrong? In the end, I feel the Woodstock generation, although it certainly had its merits, was like the crowd at Woodstock. Party, peace, love, and music...only to leave the cleanup to others. In many ways, the country is still reeling from the decisions they made in the years to come.

In the end, it was still a wonderful place where history was made...a beautiful assembly of people who truly believed they could change the world, and actually did, for three days. The music, to me, was secondary and often not that good, quality wise. The fans were the star here, and rightfully so. Even Bash visibly appreciates it.

Definitely worth a visit. My advice is to listen really close on that meadow, and you might just hear that roar of the crowd again. Maybe you can hear Richie Havens madly strumming his guitar as if his life depended on it. You can hear Sly Stone rousing the concertgoers out of their sleep at three in the morning. Or Jimi Hendrix's crushing rendition of The Star Spangled Banner. It is still very tangible in the air...not unlike another place we would be visiting shortly, albeit for opposite reasons.

Honestly, who outside of the U.S. has heard of Scranton, PA before? Then double down and ask yourself what you know it for. The only reason I knew about it was that there was a rumor that Andy Warhol had been born there. It turned out a birth certificate produced by some shyster turned out to be a forgery, or as authentic as a painting (or a hundred of its copies) just cranked out of Andy's factory in New York. But that was the extent of my Scranton trivia.

Writers, and later the film producers, have rarely gone on record as to where their fictitious tales take place, even more so when that story becomes a TV show designed to draw the maximum audience. Don't you want a broader appeal? Don't you want people to live in a Springfield, so that each state with a Springfield (or at least a state neighboring it) can root for their own? How about Oakdale? Star City? In many shows, you can afford to leave the actual name of the town (actually big city) in it...the bigger, the better. L.A. and New York stand alone here, with frequent appearances made by San Francisco, Chicago, or Boston. Then there's Pittsburgh. How much lower can you go? Until this day, I admire the producers' decision to have The Office staged in Scranton.

Whenever I watched The Office with Liebi (my kids love it too, by the way), we would hear the music, see the opening credits, and then cheer five seconds into the intro, when the sign that says "Scranton welcomes you" makes its appearance. I kept telling Liebi, "That's me. I'm goin’. I am SO goin'." Liebi would shrug, reply, "That makes one of us." I still hadn't seriously planned to go to Scranton until Bash warmed up to the idea after watching dozens of episodes starring Michael Scott, Dwight Shrute, and the rest of the gang. After we decided to go on a road trip the last week of our summer vacation, there was no going back. Scranton, here we come. 

We pass Gettysburg on the way there, but I decide we'll catch Gettysburg on the way back. Pennsylvania itself is how I always remembered it. Rolling hills followed by never ending forest. We roll into Scranton in the afternoon and waste no time getting into town, Jade in tow. We walk around town, and there are some charming old buildings that have lost none of their pizzaz, including the courthouse. We find the Scranton sign in the mall, take a picture with the dog. Bash insists on going to Alfredo's, because he can't leave town without eating their pizza. We look at the map. 1.2 miles from where our car is parked. Looks like a nice day for a walk, doesn't it?

The servers at Alfredo's are fantastic, make a big fuss about Jade, whom they wine and dine. Jade's tail now is on auto wag. Bash orders the wrong pizza (he wanted a pepperoni, after all), but still declares it the best pizza he's had all year. Just when we finish our food, it starts to drizzle. Then it starts to shower. Ten minutes later, all hell breaks loose and we're wondering whether to go back by taxi or boat. No boats anywhere around here, so let's try the taxi services. No dice from anyone, and that's a hard no. 

I shrug at Bash. We'll have to wing it, I tell him. We storm out of Alfredo's like Butsch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, our goal the next bridge about 200 yards away. We make it, but are already drenched by the time we get there, as is the dog. We should have believed the weather report, I suppose.

We take it 100 yards at a time and find shelter in a doorway of The Salvation Army. Again, little by little, bucket by bucket, we make it and then take a moment in the car. All we want is a warm shower now and a cool motel room, as does the dog. Bash and I can remember many travel destinations, but we'll remember Scranton just as much as the others. We watch a couple of Office episodes before we turn in. 

Definitely worth a visit, although what we'll remember it the most for will be, again, the wrong thing, a rainstorm that absolutely drenched us. Which will be more than fitting for the next day's destination.

While Axl is in Germany for the last two weeks of his vacation, I embark on a road trip with Bash and Jade, our trusted and over eager Pitbull terrier/staffy mix. Liebi joins us for the first, and eventually, last portion of the trip in exactly one week from now. 

From Western Carolina, we need to drive eight hours to Fairfax, VA, our first stop, where we drop off Liebi for work purposes. We take a wrong turn in Asheville, where we drive on the Interstate 40 instead of the 26, a decision that will cost us at least an hour, although our GPS doesn't seem overly concerned. If you need to take a wrong turn, let it be in Western Carolina or Eastern Tennessee. Just one visit here will convince you that you might have wasted your entire life when you could have simply settled here in a log cabin.

Only one minor drawback. We are in the middle of a torrential downpour that slows traffic considerably. Worse yet, we are almost rear-ended in the fast lane when a red pickup behind us is able to jerk the wheel to the right at the last moment. This trip could have ended early, I'm thinking. Luckily for the pickup, there were no vehicles in the slow lane when he was able to dodge our Nissan. Whew. Only less than two hours into this trip, and it already has disaster written all over it. We finally hit the 81 in Tennessee, and catch a break when the rains stop. But no worries, they return the moment we cross into Virginia near Bristol.

One route I love to drive along on the Interstate 81 is in Virginia along Shenandoah. Here I keep picturing the movements of Confederate troops led by Stonewall Jackson during the Civil War. With my eyes back on the road, I need a hare, or a car going slightly faster than me to pull me along without getting pulled over, in this case by Virginia state troopers. My hare is a pickup with a Pennsylvania license plate pulling a zero-turn lawnmower on a trailer. Amazingly, the guy chugs along at about 85 for the better part of 90 minutes, we are the hound behind him, and we make up for lost time. 

For people driving from Washington or anywhere from the northeast to the south: avoid the 85 or 95. Neither interstate is worth the headache. More than not, there will be heavy congestion around DC, and not rarely in Richmond and later Raleigh. Take the 81 and enjoy the ride instead of cursing it. I've taken that route to and from DC so many times that I have completely sworn off the coastal routes.

From the 81, I hit the 66 toward DC. There is a big dark cloud over DC that looks like a spaceship ready to swallow the city whole. Instead, the skies open up, and we get hammered again. After ELEVEN hours we finally roll into Fairfax, a combination of bad decisions and bad weather. That same trip usually takes seven and a half hours. 

I watch a few innings of the San Diego Padres vs Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game, but go to bed early. No tourist activities today, only a long shlep of a trip that has everybody exhausted, dog included. Consider this a tune-up.

On our way back, a couple of boats filled with tourists pass us. I wave at them, while the dog flashes them a welcoming smile. I'm on that boat, too, just drinking it all in.