Travels With Willow…not exactly Steinbeck, but what is?

At some point when I was a young teenager I read “Travels With Charley,” by John Steinbeck, a rather sour and depressing (in my memory) account of his drive across the U.S. with his poodle, Charley. It didn’t spur my interest in driving across the country. I already had that. Who doesn’t? OK, a lot of poeple. But I did.

My sister and I kind of did one in (I think) 1998, when we drove from where she lived in New Jersey at the time to Glacier National Park, in Montana, then south to our aunt and uncle’s in Phoenix. We camped out most of the time, and saw a lot of national parks. I flew home from Phoenix. It was a fun trip, aside from constantly having to set up a tent during rainstorms. Or at least that’s how I remember it. My sister now lives in Portland, Oregon, and I hate to fly, so I’d been thinking for a few years now that I’d like to do the drive out there.

This summer, the time was right. I have a new-ish car (a hybrid), and figured it was never going to be in better shape than it is now, and neither am I. Liz was visiting the East Coast, so the plan was to drive her back to The Other Portland. In the time since the idea started to germinate, I’d adopted a dog, Willow. I didn’t want to leave her for three weeks, so she joined the trip.

Just like “Travels With Charley” many people remarked to me. More people, actually, than I would have predicted. “Not exactly,” I’d respond. I’d always been bothered by Steinbeck’s makeshift camper, his sour geezer attitude (and gee, he was only 58), and his excessive depressive navel-gazing. Granted, I was 14 or so when I read the book, but I suspect I’d feel the same way now. Sorry-not-sorry to those of you who cherish that book.

Since it’s always good to have a plan, I charted a route through states I hadn’t been to before, as much as possible. I’ve also had an interst in state capitol buildings since I was young child (yes, I was a weird kid), so to give the trip some structure, we’d stay in state capitals and check out the state houses. The dog limited our visits — we wouldn’t be able to go inside — but we didn’t really have the time anway. While the days were long, they weren’t as long as they would’ve been if we hadn’t had a dog, since she can only tolerate so much car-riding. I also had a time limit, having to be back by July 16 for a medical thing, so we’d see the USA, but in broad strokes for the most part.

And what better way to celebrate America’s 250th than seeing it? I’d given up on expectations of the celebratory frenzy that we had for the Bicentennial in 1976, so we’d have to create our own. I didn’t have any big epiphanies along the way. Sorry. But I did find a lot of smaller, intersting stories that make America what it is. That’s what we do as writers, right? See stories everywhere we go.

I won’t bore you with a blow-by-blow written chronicle, just share some stuff and photos. The photos, I admit, are short on scenery, big on state capitols. If you are interested in the dog aspects of the trip, you can check out the column I wrote for Ink Link, the New Hampshire digital news outlet published by my friend Carol. Because of course I parlayed the trip into a writing opportunity, a road tripping with a dog column, Travels With Willow.

We left Maine on Monday, June 29, with Harrisburg, Pennsylvania our first destination.

Harrisburg, PA, state house.

Last year on a trip home from Maryland, I’d seen Harrisburg’s state house across the Susquehanna River and it stireed a need to see it it, and the city, up close.

On the first of what ended up being an unbroken three-week string of hot, sunny days, we stopped by the state house on the morning of June 30. It wasn’t the last time on the trip that I realized I’d have to come back some day to check out the interior.

Then we were off, for Frankfort, Kentucky.

Willow in the lobby of the frozen-in-time Capital Plaza Hotel in Frankfort, Kentucky.

In Frankfort, we stayed at the Capital Plaza Hotel. The reviews on Bring Fido, the app I used to find dog-friendly hotels, said it was “under renovation.” This renovatoin had apparently been going on for years. The hotel seemed to have stopped in time — it’s lobby fountain no longer functioning, the bar long-closed. Signs for ballrooms and event spaces that no longer existed.

When we arrived around 6 p.m. on a Tuesday night, it seemed like we were the only guests. It turns out we weren’t, but after the packed-full kid-chaos chain hotel we’d stayed in in Pennsylvania, this one was so…. quiet. The desk clerk was very friendly, recommended a great restaurant, where we DoorDashed what turned out to be probably the best meal I had the entire trip. And memo to Steinbeck enthusiasts: I prefer DoorDash, whose wonders I fully took advantage of during this trip, to cooking beans in a can over a fire a la Steinbeck.

Willow mulls the urban renewal logic that’s now left Frankfort, Kentucky, with a two acre empty lot where its convention center (1969-2018) once stood.

I did a little Googling and found out that the hotel was built as part of an urban renewal project in the late ’60s that also included an office tower and convention center. The office tower had closed in 2016, and it and the convention center were torn down in 2018. There was an empty two-acre lot of very nice grass behind the hotel where the convention center once was. Just this past February, an $11.5 million bond was passed to renovate the hotel and build something in the empty two acres. I couldn’t help wonder about the waste that went along with all of that. Some neighborhood that had probably been there a lot longer was bulldozed in the ’60s to make way for buildings that didn’t even last 50 years. America!

I’ve always been interested in urban renewal, the evolution of cities and communities, and the politics and attitudes that drove that stuff, so the Capital Plaza’s store interested me more than it probably would some other people. In fact, it’s one of the most American of the stories I discovered during our trip. As far as the Kentucky State Houe, that, too, had a story. It’s closed until 2029 for repairs becasue of years of neglect and deferred maintenance. The dome was wrapped in scaffolding, but it was still a nice-looking building.

Even with the scaffolding, Kentucky’s State House is looking good, though Willow’s more interested in the bird that just flew by.

Speaking of urban renewal, one of the podcasts we listened to on our way west was “The Big Dig.” The first season, which I’d listened to a while back, was about Boston’s Big Dig. The second is about cities across the U.S. that are dealing with highway infrastrucutre issues. [Does it horrify you the way it does me that they’re going to expand the interstate that cuts through Austin, Texas, to 20 lanes? Yikes.]. Totally coincidentally, as we left Kentucky for Jefferson City, Missouri, the episode that came up was about Louisville and its struggles with either expanding or getting rid of the interstate that cut the city in half. As we ambled toward Louisville on Interstate 64, the panel on the podcast laughed about the city’s notorious Spagetti Junction, where several highways all merged in a terrifying tangle as cars roared 20 miles above the speed limit from every direction. I’m glad we had the warning, because it made what we encountered — a fairly empty highway system with signs not nearly as confusing as I thought — a total relief. No picture of that! Sorry.

In Missouri, we stayed in a nice inn in the town of Fulton, near the capital, Jefferson City. The state house was the most impressive we’d come across as far as walk-around exterior went. A sidewalk (and drive) circled the building, with a variety of fountains, other water features, statues, little parks, and a walkway down to the Missouri River to the spot where Lewis and Clark… did something. It was very hot out. The fountain, which looked like it was about four feet deep was very inviting. But we did not take a swim, as much as Willow wanted to.

Willow and I take a break at the fountain on the grounds of the Missouri capitol building in Jefferson City. Willow wanted to swim in the fountain.

Lincoln, Nebraska, was a highly anticipated stop on our trip. On Crime & Stuff, the true-crime podcast I’ve been cohosting with my sister Rebecca since 2016, I’d recently done a three-parter on the fate of Darrel Parker. Darrel was wrongly convicted in the 1955 murder of his wife, Nancy, despite a very obvoius alternative suspect. Darrel was done in by lie detectors and the Reid technique. In fact, it’s the case that vaulted Reid and his interrogation methods into the national spotlight, and it’s still used by many law enforcement agencies across the country today, despite it’s propensity to elicit false confessions. Ironic, of course, that it was a case that ended up being a wrongful conviction that vaunted Reid into the national limelight. Fun note: That murder trial cost Lancaster County $3,200, the most a trial had cost the county to that date. Two-thirds of that money went to Reid and his mentor, Fred Inbau, who didn’t testify, but attended every day to “consult” with the prosecution. Another “America 250” story for my list.

The little house in Anteloope Park in LIncoln Nebraska, was even smaller in 1955, when Nancy Parker was murdere there.

I was excited about checking out the little house in Antelope Park where Darrel, who was the city’s forester, lived with Nancy. The house is still there, a little less remote than it was in 1955 because the park has been changed around, but it was still cool to see. As much as we live in our imaginations, seeing the actual place where a crime that had historic impact took place kind of makes my imagination sit up and take notice.

The Nebraska State House, in Lincoln, was the most utilitarian so far of the trip.

Lincoln’s state house, by the way, was the least ornamental and most business-like (so far) of the trip.

In Cheyenne, Wyoming, we hit our first disappointment of the trip. My fault. As a newspaper reporter, I’d covered breaking news on the Fourth of July and other holidays, and knew to make sure I wouldn’t get hung up by a parade. But, the night of July 3, hot and tired, we picked up some Italian food and headed to our nice cool hotel room, with plans to visit the Wyoming state house the next morning. Cheyenne’s not a big city, and the state house was just two miles from the hotel, so we could pop over, see it, and be on our way to Utah. My heart dropped when I saw the first blinking detour sign. Then came the throngs of people with their lawn chairs and coolers. Parked cars lined the streets. With the parade, we wren’t going to get anywhere near the state house.

We caught a little bit of a break when Liz caught sight of the dome over some buildings. We double-parked so she could take a photo of Willow and me and a distant silhouette of the state house dome. For the map that charted the trip for my Travels With Willow column, I ended up improvising.

You can barely see the Wyoming State House dome a little to the right above my left shoulder.

Almost like the real thing, right?

We spent the Fourth of July driving across Wyoming to Utah, just one in a string of truly spectacular landscapes. I don’t have photos, because I was driving, but I have them in my head. BTW, there were no photos in “Travels With Charley,” either.

My loyal companion waits by the door after I left the hotel room in Utah to find some soda and ice.

We spent Fourth of July night, America’s 250th birthday, in Midvale, Utah, just outside of Salt Lake City, and were treated to a great fireworks display fully visable from our window. It was one of the few hotels that allowed us to leave dogs alone in the room, so we also enjoyed a very nice meal from Kabob House, just a two-minute walk across the parking lot. It was owned by a friendly and efficient family of Afgahn immigrants, another great American story. The meal was not only delicious, but it was enough for us to save some for lunch the next day.

The Utah State House was impressive. Up on a hill, and visible from all around, it was surrounded by a lush lawn with a nice tree-lined gravel walk (by now on the trip I was desperate for any shade opportunity). It was one of the few state houses at which we encountered a lot of other visitors. There were dog-walkers, tourists, people just walking around. I guess it’s a big draw on a Sunday morning of a holiday weekend. Despite the relentless sun and heat. I don’t know what I expected, but the grounds and atmosphere were a nice surprise.

On our drive from Salt Lake City to Boise, which would be our last night on the road west, we stopped for lunch at Centennial Park in Twin Falls. The park is at the bottom of a spectacular gorge, made less spectacular by the limitations of my iPhone camera. I was hoping for an opportunity to get Willow into the water — I found out after adopting her that swimming is her absolute favorite thing in the world, and she’d been such a good girl that she deserved some fun.

I ventured down the boat ramp into the Snake River with her, but much to her disappointment, wouldn’t let her off the leash to swim freely. All I could picture was her disappearing down the river to wherever it went. That would’ve been a bummer.

Willow takes a swim, more or less, in the Snake River.

The snake river gorge in Twin Falls, Idaho, at CenteAtnnial Park.

Boise, our last night on the road for this leg of the trip, is a cool city. We also stayed at a cool hotel, The Modern, which was a renovated 1950s-era Travelodge. Very mid-century mod, if you like that vibe. Which I do. It was not only a neat place, but the most dog-friendly we stayed at. Dogs were allowed in the breakfast room as well as the restaurant (which was closed since it was a Sunday night, but still).

We visited the state house that evening, since we had time and wanted to get on the road for Portland, Oegon, the next morning. We got ice cream and had a lot of fun. Onc thing I realized with all our state house visits is the attention to native plantings. The Idaho State House in Boise had some beautiful ones, which we admired quickly since it was more than 100 degrees out, even though the sun wsa setting.

We check out eastern Oregon at a rest area right over the Idaho-Oregon line.

As much fun as seven nights on the road had been, seeing the country change from the hilly green of the East Coast to the flat yellows and browns (but such a variety of them) back to the differently hilly and green West Coast, it was a relief to crash at my sister’s in The Other Portland.

Speaking of scenery, if you’ve never driven west on Interstate 84 along the Columbia River in central Oregon, go do it. It’s some of the most spectacular scenery you’ll see. People knock interstate travel, but if you’re crossing the country and don’t have weeks to do it, you have to get on the interstates. Probably 90% of our trip west was on them. That said, we still saw absolutely spectacular scenery in almost every state.

Willow kind of enjoyed a swim in the pool below Multnomah Falls, but then had to police some children playing nearby, so that ended that.

While in Portland, we took a trip along that end of the Columbia River Gorge, on the old Lincoln Highway (Route 30), which until 84 was built, was the main route from the east into town. Hard to believe people driving that narrow, windy road above the river as a matter of course, but they did. We stopped at one of our favorite places, Multonomah Falls. Liz moved to Oregon in 2001, and when I first started visiting her there, the falls were a fun and relaxing spot to visit, one of several waterfalls along that road. Since the pandemic, they’ve become everyone’s Instagram moment and are a little too crowded for me. Also, an aside, carry in, carry out, people! I was bothered by the amount of trash, particulalry large plastic iced-coffee type cups, dumped on the stone walls and every other flat surface at the falls stop. Who does that and feels Ok about it?

We did brave the crowds, and I even took Willow down to the pool at the foot of the falls for a little on-leash swim. She was distracted, though, but some kids splashing nearby. At the same time that I discovered she loves to swim, I also discovered that it’s her job to herd and protect any children in the water. Such a good girl!

Liz, at Cascade Locks, discusses the discover of the missing Martin family’s car.

We also got a chance to visit another scene from our podcast. Liz, who is a history professor [just retired in June], is a frequent guest host, bringing us tales from the Great Northwest. Last year, she presented the case of the mysterious disappearance of the Martin family. They were a family of five who went out to look for Christmas trees one December Sunday in 1958 and never came home. In May 1959, the bodies of two of the girls were found in Cascade Locks, along the Columbia River. But the mystery remained a mystery until late 2024, when a diver found the family’s 1954 Ford Country Squire station wagon, along with human remains, in the river at the locks. It doesn’t totaly solve the mystery, but did answer some questions.

We visited Cascade Locks to take a look at the scene. It was very very very windy, while still being sunny and hot. We tried to film a little video for a planned YouTube page for the podcast (hasn’t happened yet), but the wind may have wrecked that.

The Cascade Locks, by the way, were built by the Army Corps of Engineers between 1878 and 1896 to help boats, particularly steamboats, which were a major method of travel in that area back then, to navigate the Cascade Rapids on the Columbia River. The rapids, by the way, had caused major issues for Lewis and Clark, who kept cropping up during our trip out and my trip back east. When the Bonneville Dam was built just to the east in 1938, the higher river swamped most of the locks, but they’re still visible in some places. Another cool infrastructure American history item!

One of the Cascade Locks, in the Columbia River in Oregon.

Willow and I began our trip home to Maine on July 10, after dropping Liz off at The Other Portland airport so she could go to a family funeral in New Mexico. The trip back was on a more northern route, and only would take in two state capitals.

Our first stop was that morning in Hood River, a town about an hour and a half east of Portland on Interstate 84. Much to our delight, we discovered Waterfront Park, and Willow got to have another on-leash swim, along with a nice walk along the Columbia River.

Our route took us up through Washington State, where we got glimpses of Mount Adams and even Mount Rainier. We stayed just west of Spokane, then continued east through the panhandle of Idaho and into Montana, where we took a detour to Helena, to bag another state capitol building.

Willow grabs some shade under the scaffolding at the Montana State House, in Helena.

The heat was rising, despite the drive through spectacular mountains, and by the time we got to Helena, it was 102. Despite this, there were several people besides us taking photos at the State House. I guess there’s not much else to do in Helena on a Saturday in July?

It was a kind of cool building, particularly with the mountains as a backdrop. The dome was wrapped in scaffolding (we’d had that issue in Frankfort, too), but that didn’t detract much and actually provided

Montana Stae House, 102 degrees and rising.

some shade for Willow, who was not as into visiting another state house as I was. After that, we angled southeast to Interstate 90. Made a quick stop in Belgrade, Montana, just to see it, since I live in Belgrade, Maine, and stayed over night in Billings. At this point, the temperature was 107, and we could smell smoke that turned out to be from the Canada wildfires. That would have a much bigger inpact in a few days.

Our next stop was Bismarck, North Dakota. The scenery driving from central Montana to central North Dakota, was spectacular. Lots of rock formations and badlands. The heat reached 114 as we drove. I got off the highway in Terry, Montana, hoping to find some food that was actual, real food instead of fast food or plastic-wrapped refrigerator sandwiches. I didn’t. But it was interesting to see the little town. The door to the Pioneer County Museum was wide open, and I was tempted to stop, but the temperature gauge in my car said 109, and it was a few hours to Bismarck and I was hungry. So it’s on my list for next time.

Scenery along Interstate 94 in western North Dakota. The iPhone camera doesn’t do it justice.

We also droe through the “newly updated” Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, another place I would’ve stopped if we had time and it wasn’t by now 114 degrees out. A $51 million upgrade had fixed roads at the park, which had been closed since damaged by storms in 2019. There was also the addition of the Theordore Roosevelt Presidential Library, which had just opened July 4. Next time!

The North Dakota state capitol building in Bismarck, our last state capitol of the trip, is interesting in that it looks like an office building. No dome, no columns, none of that stuff. The descriptions say it’s Art Deco, but that’s a reach. It’s the tallest building in North Dakota, at 21 stories. I don’t want to make too much fun of it, though, because the original state capitol burned down and this one was built during the depression, with money and labor issues slowing things down. Give North Dakota credit for having a state house that’s built to do business, not to be fancy. It also had a nice shady lawn.

Our next stop was Duluth, Minnesota, which took us off intestate highways. We’d be off them for most of the rest of the trip. I’d been to Duluth before, about 20 years ago, when I ran a marathon and Liz and I, both Bob Dylan fans, visited his hometown of Hibbing. A story for another day.

We check out the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth.

Willow and I didn’t have a state capitol to go see, but we did stop in downtown Duluth and checked out the big Aerial Lift Bridge before we left for our next stop. My memory of downtown Duluth had been that it was easy to navigate. The reality was, no, it wasn’t. Adding to the issue was the fact that Interstate 35 cut right through it, along the shore of Lake Superior. Maybe the Big Dig podcast can do an episode about that — because it definitely is a wall of inaccessbility in what should be a nice downtown. I’ll write them a note.

We crossed into Wisconsin from Duluth, and drove along Lake Superior to Michigan, where we crossed the Upper Peninsula, stopping in a little town, Brimley, just west of Sault Ste. Marie. It was a little before 7, and the clerk at our hotel, Willabee’s, suggested we check out the lighthouse on a point about seven miles from the hotel. The bonus was that Willow could get herself into the water.

It was a beautiful spot. Lake Superior looked great, Willow finally got to get off her leash, though the water was too rough for her to actually swim. Instead she ran at the waves, nipping them and jumping around. The sky was hazy, a little yellow. Must be the wildfires, I thought. Other than that, I didn’t give it much more thought.

Willow gets her paws wet in Lake Superior in Brimley, Michigan.

Willow’s a little freaked out by the carved eagle bench at Willabee’s, the motel we stayed at in Brimley, Michigan.

The plan for the next morning was to check out the Soo Locks in Sault Ste. Marie, something I’d wanted to see for a long time. That plan was scuttled by the smoke from the Canada wildfires. Just a haze the night before, by the morning of July 15, it was a thick yellow fog. Not only wouldn’t we be able to see much, I had a head cold and didn’t want to add the smoke to it, and I didn’t think it would be good for the dog, either.

Crossing into Canada was quick and efficient.

Unlike John Steinbeck, I’d done my research and found out that I’d need a rabies certificate to bring Willow into Canada. The nice border crossing guard didn’t even want to see it, but I had it and that’s what counts. [To come back into the U.S., I’d had to fill out a “dog import form” online and have the reciept. Just an FYI if you’re crossing the border with a dog].

The drive on Route 17 in Ontario would’ve been pretty, if it hadn’t been for the smoke, which got thicker as the morning wore on. For a few hours, it was so thick it was hard to see the cars ahead of me. By lunchtime it had cleared up enough that I felt comfortable stopping for a picnic lunch at a rest area on the Spanish River, but it was still enough that we didn’t want to linger.

Smoky rest area on Route 17 in Ontario.

By the time we got to Pembroke, Ontario, though, it wsa nice and clear. It was also hot, though not triple-digit hot.

The next day was our final day of the trip. I’d hoped to stop in Ottawa and check out the Parliament building, but after sitting in traffic on the highway through the city, I put it on my “next time” list.

Willow was a good and loyal companion on the road, keeping watch from her special spot in the backseat.

The plan was to enter the U.S. at Coburn Gore, about two hours from home. We did that, but not without some detours. I’d intented to go around Montreal, but missed the exit, so ended up sitting in traffic for an hour in that city. Then took another wrong turn and ended up seeing a lot of southern Quebec farmland, cute towns and dirt roads, before finally getting on the right road that would take me into Maine. It didn’t help that my atlas wasn’t detailed emough and my GPS app kept getting me confused and re-routing me to Vermont.

Anyway, we made it home! It was nice to get back, but we kind of miss the trip, too.