At 80 miles per hour, in the wee hours of the morning (when the moon looks like a flashlight shone through a Vellux blanket) the world becomes a much simpler place. Simple in a pervasive sense. Language is reduced to blinking lights and varied speeds. The syncopated pulse of painted road and light post lulls the senses, leaving only the most pertinent ones to interpret the muted symphony ahead. The entirety of each vessel, regardless of the number of occupants, nature of cargo, or make of vehicle, represented by 2 burning embers.
Reflected in the reverse distance, a new cast member joins. An abstracted dream...an old friend...a stranger in our midst...a far-flung regret returning to haunt. It catches up, and we regard each other in a voyeuristic peep show of speeding shadows behind windowed conveyance. It disappears in the periphery, but its presence is felt. At this speed, it's just as dangerous forgotten or remembered. Once it moves on towards the invisible horizon ahead, it becomes marked...red. Perhaps we'll meet again, but, for now, it must blend in with the rest. A never-ending series of introductions ensues.
After 16 or so hours of this crap, the road is anything but friendly.
Sometimes, the stripes in the pavement seem to spontaneously move forward (like a fans blades in certain light). When this happens a brief terror ensues, and the subtle alpha state must be immediately set aside for the more practical self-preservation mode. I struggle for as many points of visual reference I can muster. Dodge. Parry. Thrust. The whole process is such a bizarre concept. To hurtle oneself forward at this velocity for such an extended period of time...how can this be considered acceptable? Just "something you do" to get from one place to another. I suppose we never would have gotten out of Africa a half a million years ago if folks kept asking questions like that, but it's still a dubious procedure if you ask me. Just like everything else worth doing on a regular basis, it's probably just a matter of discipline...knowing which facilities to shut down at the right times. I wonder if there's a secret "Road Bible" written for/by truckers...or, maybe, some sort of ancient medical practice that removes/augments certain parts of the brain. Were I to ask at the next truck stop, I'm sure I'd get a nice punch in the face for that level of inquiry. The things I suffer through for science and enlightenment...

CHICAGO
Beautiful. Clean. Windy (surprised?) Huge suburbs...it's hard to see where metropolis ends and suburbolis begins. No Ebert. No Springer. Just as well...I'd hate for their deified images to be tarnished by actual one-on-one contact. Navy pier...huge and self-sufficient. A modern-day Atlantis. It could break away from the mainland and sustain life for years. Wrigley field...very nice. The copper and steel Harry Carry effigy ranks as one of the most frightening man-made constructs I've ever encountered.

MILWAUKEE
Schimeel...Schimazel...empty-ville incorporated. The lakeside Art museum (designed like a massive stylized manta-ray) was the only thing that stood out. Didn't seem to belong there. Maybe it actually floats and somehow ran adrift the Milwaukee shore.

PENNSYLVANIA
On the way back we chose route I-80 which runs the whole of my vote for the worst state to drive in the union...Pennsylvania. The roads are, for the most part, unlit and they wind trough the Appalachian mountain range. One also gets the impression that hundreds of deer are airlifted to an altitude of several thousand feet and subsequently dropped onto the pavement. Every hundred yards or so I dodged one mutilated carcass after another. If the world were populated by only deer, one would definitely get the impression that the end times were upon us. I hope these truck drivers get commission/GRIT points for the deer kills (as opposed to some sort of fleeting moment of glee-type thing).

HOME
Nothing like it...even if it is mostly a place in my head these days.