A Chicago-Style Dog. Complete with Onions, Tomato (!) and Relish

Gulp.

Glad I have a raincoat. 

Cubs Today, Cleveland Rejoices Yesterday

Cleveland didn't rejoice because we left, but because a man they call "LBJ"—a moniker I thought was already taken—is coming back. They could have been rejoicing about a late-inning explosion the previous night that gave the Indians a 9-3 win over the Yankees, who were well-represented in the stands. More on that later.

But I rejoiced at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, one of those places I wouldn't mind being locked inside. They could

We've pulled into Skokie, IL, where it's rainy and threatening to thunderstorm before our 3:05 date with the Cubbies and Braves. Go Cubs. (The Mets are 7 back!)

We're crossing our fingers that the rain will abate. If it doesn't, I'm sure I wouldn't mind hanging out at—or being locked in—Wrigley Field. I've come to that baseball rite of passage: a pilgrimage to the brick-and-ivy shrine on the North Side. I made my first trip (for baseball—I already saw Union beat Harvard there) to Fenway this year. So let's play two, a great Cub once said. 

I'm coming, Ernie. See you soon Wrigley (and yes, you too, Northwestern. We're seeing Adam, Rachel's brother, for breakfast).

Finding a Clearfield

If Clearfield, PA seems an inauspicious place to start a multi-city, two-country, going-through-different-time-zones trip, it is. Clearfield, a town founded on the inalienable American precept of plentiful gas and indistinguishable hotel chains, is like so many “Ike-towns” in this country: dependent entirely on the interstate. This time, it was I-80, by way of 84, which begat 81. This is almost certainly unfair: I am extrapolating based on a stretch of road I saw at 12:30 and then at 7:30 the next morning. But it begs the question: what did these towns look like before Dwight D. commissioned the interstate system? Did it have a personal flavor that was lost in the urge to make every rest stop, pull off, and diversion equally recognizable from sea to shining sea? Was there a time when every Dunkin’ Donuts or McDonalds order would be received with a quizzical look instead of dispassionate, universal acceptance?

But my hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing decrying the fall of the mid-American town was noticeably absent Wednesday night. I was happy to find Clearfunk Clearfield’s Best Western, after whiffing on booked-solid Holiday and Hampton Inns. Pennsylvania is especially treacherous, what with the Homeric ineptitude of PennDOT—cones that pointlessly bottleneck traffic to one lane are the elixir of nowhere-to-be-found workers—and the equally mythic length of that damn state. Seeing signs for State College lead you to believe you’re somewhere close to Ohio, or at least Pittsburgh, but maps will glumly inform you that no, by some cosmic quirk, you’ve managed to rip a hole in the space-time continuum, into a worm hole that has somehow redeposit you east of the Hudson. You’re returned to the plunger like the second ball in a pinball machine, and have to drive the entire length again. Sorry kid, you didn’t make it this time. Try again, avoid the bumpers traffic cones and run up that high score. Don’t tilt the game, or we’ll send you to New Jersey.

Route 80 swerves and dips and dives through pretty mountains and rolling, green hills. Coal country can never be far from the road, but you wouldn’t know it. Odd town names dot signs zip by increasingly thinned westward traffic. (Sugar Notch was a memorable favorite. Probably something out of a Homer Simpson fantasy sequence). A glowing, almost-full moon was our co-pilot, dutifully staying to our left, all while making any street light unnecessary. 

Making the drive entirely enjoyable, however, was the tandem of Howie and Josh. We were able to coax the 710 WOR signal into Pennsylvania, but not for long. Thanks to the wonder of radio-on-the-phone, we streamed the rest of the game, hearing Travis d'Arnaud put the game out reach with a towering homer to left. Dillon Gee returned to the mound after two months off of it. Rachel and I exchanged incredulous glances. "He's been gone two months?" Ever steady and without the flash of a Wheeler, deGrom, or even without the showmanship of Bartolo Colon, Gee (and Jon Niese) can't be called workmanlike—that's a backhanded insult, especially for someone who now sports a 2.56 ERA. He's more than that. He's ours. Entirely home-grown, Gee is a doubter's nightmare. A guy without overpowering stuff, he's gotten better with age, defying armchair projection-ists and talk-radio skeptics. He's what we want Kirk Nieuwenhuis to be (in the stead of Chris Young, sadly). Captain Kirk added a go-ahead sac fly prior to the d'Arnaud-doubter.

Taking the first three against the Braves is pure ecstasy, but it also rekindles a Metsian optimism. Only 7 back? We can do this. Gratuitous fist-pumps and yelps punctuated the calm night air flowing into the car.

The Yankees' broadcast bookended our drive, following a podcast of This American Life. Deep into central PA, 660 was strong, which is not something people are saying about the Bronx Bombers these days. The scrappy Indians joined them in a 14-inning affair, which Jacoby Ellsbury helped end with a late-inning homer. "Jacoby Ells-buries it!" John Sterling crowed.

I was singularly pleased with our cushy queen beds. Gnash and spew vitriol toward roadside homogeneity, but I think the spirit of a Clearfield, PA has endured. It may not be much to the traveler, but it is an oasis—a well-booked oasis. It’s a model that hasn’t gone out of style in thousands of years, across many continents. There’s something special, temporal, and thus oddly memorable about these places we have to stop, even if the names and logos are all the same.

I even relished the Sheetz—a gas station chain with enough Midwestern chutzpah/charm/hokiness to proudly stamp its name on any article of clothing. (Not unlike a baseball team, I suppose). But Clearfield was soon a memory. We set out early toward Cleveland, and made it there in record time, as far as I could tell. I was fast asleep on the way there, and woke just in time for beer.