On the road to Michigan

from my visit to Matamata, NZ in 2015

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

     I thought about starting with the whole 'road less travelled' quote, except that in my most recent journey I was only interested in taking the road most traveled: aka with speed limits 65mph+. The compromise there is that there's not too much scenery to see. In my voyage through 6 states, the most notable shift over the whole trip was from the expansive stretches of highway in New England to the hilly terrain and black shale outcroppings of southern NY and Pennsylvania to the open fields of Ohio and Michigan. I think the most memorable landmarks I saw were the signs denoting the highest point on I-80 in PA, at 2,250 feet, and the crossings into the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes Watersheds.
     Besides munching and drinking coffee constantly, I found that the best buddies for a road trip are Tom Ashbrook, Jad Abumrad, and Matthew Yglesias, accompanied by their podcasts On Point, Radio Lab, and Vox's: The Weeds. I've been trying to get my fill of these and other podcasts in the last few months, but sometimes it's hard to carve out 50 minutes or so where you're really not doing anything besides listening. 14 hours of time alone in a car is also good for getting some much needed singing out, and for having some time of reflection that in other circumstances might have been replaced with other distractions. I'll have to keep those strategies in mind, since I'll be doing this drive twice more this summer.
     There's a feeling you get from a road trip that you don't get from just flying somewhere. It puts distances in perspective, even though you're just a phone call away from your friends at home. Having been here in East Lansing, MI, two weeks now, I find it amazing how by just driving around my brain has already built a mental map of this new place, and you get a sense of the size of it pretty quickly. What at first seemed like a big city is already looking more familiar.

More updates to follow on adventures in East Lansing!
-Tyler