7" of Separation

Brad and Cami invited friends over for dinner party on Friday, which included an ice cream trip to beat the heat, and it turned into a long debate on education styles, rhetoric and literature, before ending on politics. The company and debate was exciting and invigorating, giving me cause to seriously consider a return to school.

Before dinner, the Freemans took me to campus, which was beautiful, if not overwhelmingly large. Brad informed me that after a recent acquisition, Ohio State now stands as the owner of the largest graphic novel (read: comic book) library in the world. Another point for the Buckeyes, I'm afraid.

On Saturday, the heat continued, and we decided to try to stay out of it as much as possible, deciding to hit the zoo, where shade and interior displays could keep us cool. Like most zoos, the trip inspired a mixture of curiosity, sadness and excitement.

 


Among the best was the 300-pound, 24-foot-long Python — the largest snake in captivity — and a beautifully lumbering Manatee that seemed to have forged a friendship with a sea turtle. Of course, there were tigers and monkeys and a koala that looked like Yoda to make the day fun, as well.

That evening, we attended a surprise birthday party for another friend. While we were all waiting around for the guest of honor, our hostess, a Nevada native whose sister was visiting from home, showed off a gift trucked in from Nevada. "You Oregon kids will enjoy this," she said, pulling a block of Tillamook sharp cheddar from the fridge. We stood, mouths falling open all at once, instantly jealous of the Oregon delight. California might claim that its cows are happy, but to me, the wet, muddy, seasonally depressed cows of Oregon make for far better dairy. Needless to say, the cheese went back in the fridge, despite many attempts to pry it for ourselves.

After the birthday surprise, the party moved out on the town. Columbus was buzzing due to it being gay pride week, graduation day and the eve of the monthly art gallery open hop. Thousands of people walked the streets. It was like nothing I've ever seen, though I've spent late nights out in Portland, New York and Berlin.

Home by 3 A.M., we winded down by watching an episode of Cheaters on TV. If you are unfamiliar with the show it features what must be a once-jadded-by-infadelity host employing "operatives" to spy on the cheating partners of the guests. With camera evidence in hand, the guest and host always confront the cheater, usually producing Jerry Springer type results. "You always hurt the ones you love," we concluded, after hearing one scorned lover rattle off a series of lovelorn cliches soon after keying her ex-boyfirend's car.

Sunday was a low-key day, which ended with the glorious win of the Celtics over the Lakers. Hard to ask for anything better, though, I might have liked to beat Brad at Scrabble after coming back from a bad start. He held on though.

Leaving this morning, after a delicious pancake breakfast — Cami's cooking made me a happy guest —I headed for the south.

When we last left off, I was just making it out of Illinois, where tornadoes had again unsettled what would have been a peaceful night of camping. Such as it was, I decided to finally get my night of camping in Indiana.

In the grand scheme, Indiana will be forgotten as little more than a four hour drive, but my night next to a lake was good camping. What's in Indiana, you ask? Well, NASCAR has to find support somewhere and we'll just leave it at that. The next day, not realizing I had entered into my final time change, I moved on toward Columbus, Ohio, where college chums Brad and Cami now compose pedantic papers on literary subjects while studying lit at OSU proper — opposed, of course, to OSU minor, that of the Beavers.

The Freemans hold a nice little apartment — old plumbing, wood floors, fireplace, etc. — just off campus. It's a lovely place and the conversation with old friends is certainly welcome after the last few weeks of relative loneliness. Much to my surprise, their social circle consists of the types who get the same geeky joy out of rhetoric I do, leading to some good jokes — if they can be called jokes — about Derrida's thoughts on the L.A. Lakers triangle offense.

Brad gave me a tour of the city yesterday. A huge campus, never ending High Street and the life-more-ordinary downtown finacial and government districts.We both complained of the humidity, which today sits right at 50 percent. Oregon's climate, we lament it, along with cheese, beer, pizza and other such Pacific Northwest lifestyle choices. Things here are beautiful — historic Victorian brickwork, blue skies and a college atmosphere.

After Indian food with some grad school friends, we watched game one of the NBA finals. Brad and I rooting for Boston on the "anyone but L.A." logic line familiar to most Pacific Northwesters. Much to the chagrin of Brad's friend Chris, an L.A. native, Boston pulled it off. It was during the game that long conversations about movies spun off to the afore mentioned Derrida analysis of basketball strategy. Nerds and sports do mix, turns out.

Today, more bumming around in Columbus and perhaps a movie for the central air. Later on, more introductions to Columbus literary types, and perhaps one of the strictly rhetorical persuasion, a pitch to consider a second OSU for my future, I suppose.

I spent the morning at the Lincoln Library and Museum, which one guide said "was better than Disneyland, we have all the same technology." And while the museum was neat, I didn't ride anything at all like Splash Mountain — in fact, I didn't ride anything.

Honestly, the museum was a little cheesy, focusing on a lot of the same myths the displays often discouraged. However, seeing his handwriting, letters, documents and the like in the library was a real treat for me. I bought a rather thick biography in the gift store and I'm already well into it.

After leaving the museum, which didn't allow pictures, I made my way east to Kickapoo State Park, staying based on the silly name alone. On my way, I suffered through humidity like I had never felt before. Also, the entire state smelled of a wet dog. Sticky and wet and think, not qualities you want in air.

Everything was stacked up to be a nice evening — I had a nice fire, made a good dinner and put my feet up to read. I even made a friend, who I named Rocky, of course:

Soon thereafter, a thunderstorm started to move in. I had the radio on so that I could listen to coverage of the last primary — thank goodness — and a local weather warning broke in.

Friends, the tornadoes had returned.

I closed up Pam and sat on the floor with my map, watching the thunder move toward me. The radio started to name cities I had recently driven through, and then flash flood, tornado and thunderstorm warnings all were declared for the county I found myself in.

As the tops of the trees started to sway and tiny hail started to ping against Pam. I decided to cut my losses and speed east, away from the path of the storm.

At 11:00, I made in to a hotel in Danville, where the storm missed by a few miles. However, things here got pretty wild, wind blowing out the power multiple times.

I'm serious now, I'm done with this stuff.

I've been in Illinois for a couple of days now. I made the decision to skip Chicago on the recomendation of my friend Echo, who had recently traveled there and shared horror stories about the traffic. Also, most major roads leading into the city carry tolls and I spent the morning avoiding toll roads, so why start then. As to why I was avoiding toll roads, it was just something to do — sometimes I just need little games to give me something to do. Frankly, Illinois got nothing out of this Oregonian to pay for roads. Take that Illinois.

Anyway, I don't feel too bad about missing Chicago, as I feel like some time in the future it's a place Ellyn and I will visit together. Plus, no driving stress.

I camped out last night, without much adventure. I did manage to build one of the best fires yet with half-burnt wood I collected from other vacant sites. I pride myself on that because it was free and it entertained me for a good portion of the evening. Seeing the country isn't all excitement and adventure, you know.

Today, I drove down to Springfield, the home of the Lincoln Library, as well as his final resting place. I followed signs to his tomb, which sits in the middle of a large cemetery. I visited with the former president for a while, it was a somber experience.

Tomorrow, I'm up early to wander through the Lincoln Library and Museum. The excitement inside me can only be known to those who spent four years reading his speeches over and over again. That is to say, it's a very nerdy excitement. A very, very nerdy excitement.