You want Extreme? This is Extreme. I recently put together an itinerary that would have sent me to 46 European countries in 46 days. No flights, except from Chicago. (Well, just a couple. Driving to Iceland, for example, would be a challenge.) Former Soviet republics count as separate countries, as do all Balkans, Baltics and San Marino.
My idea. And it would have worked–not that there weren’t quirks involved.
A couple of border crossings would have required slipping through under cover of night while singing “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” and maybe one more would have required renting an armored vehicle–but supplied with a Master Card, ATM card, some local currency, the ability to say, “Beer, please” in five languages, the usual no-questions-asked Tribune expense account and lots of personal charm, nothing would have been impossible.
Today this great notion probably rests comfortably in my boss’ mental file. He’s an Extremist. I’m an Extremist. We’re on the same page.
What generated “46 European Countries” was “48 States in 48 Days.” That one was his idea, but I became a willing co-conspirator. He proposed it, I think, on a Thursday. Friday morning, I had the first four weeks figured out and in his hands.
For those who missed this seven-part-plus series, which ran last year in the Tribune’s Travel section and has just about been milked for all it’s worth, including this essay, here’s what it was:
The plan was to spend one night in each of the 48 contiguous United States over 48 consecutive days. We added a 49th stop, Washington, D.C., because it fit the overall theme–the United States of America, except for Hawaii and Alaska–but mainly because it was on the way to Maryland.
Which made the actual trip “48 States Plus Washington, D.C., in 49 Days,” but let us not quibble, and besides, as Descartes must have said, “Sometimes reality doesn’t make the best headline.”
Travel would be by car because that’s Every Man’s Adolescent Dream.
(There are actually three Every Man’s Adolescent Dreams: Hitting the Road and Driving to Every State is No. 1. The other two: Seeing a Game in Every Big-League Ballpark, and Being With Jenny McCarthy When the World Is About to End, Insisting: “Seriously, Why Not?” and Her Saying: “You Know, You’re Right!”)
The drive put 14,052 miles on my rented Ford Contour. Hertz will be delighted–and Tribune accountants outraged–to know I actually had the car’s oil changed once, in beautiful Susanville, Calif.
Only once did I almost fall asleep at the wheel.
The following is a true story.
The motel I chose for my night in Wyoming (in Sheridan, neat town) was host to some kind of major Alcoholics Anonymous conference. My room, by pure chance, was directly over the hotel bar.
Given certain assumptions, that would seem to have been a safe room assignment.
Well . . . it turned out recovering alcoholics, gathered together for something like this, can generate a lot of enthusiasm while sipping seltzer with a twist. Especially when there’s a band.
Next morning, dawn came too early in Sheridan, Wyo. And sleeping late, on this assignment, was not an option.
Soon after, while tooling carefreely down a mighty two-lane cutting through the lone pray-ree, my head involuntarily nodded. Fortunately, not far from this land of nod there appeared a little gravel ranch road. I turned left onto the gravel, stirred up a cloud of dust for about a half mile, pulled off to the side, stopped the car, let the dust settle, opened all the windows, activated the manual seat-recliner mechanism (a lever) and, serenaded by a long, little dogie (several dogi, actually), napped.
I awakened 15 minutes or so later, fully refreshed, saddled up and headed for Idaho.
No, Montana. It went Wyoming, then Montana, then Idaho.
Still, considering the Extremity of this sea-to-shining drive, there were no major crises. A few minor ones. Locked the keys in the car in a small Kentucky town (sounds like a country lyric, doesn’t it?); left my MasterCard in Oregon; woke to a flat tire in Oklahoma; got a parking ticket in Louisville (no, wait–that was the Ohio River Towns Extreme Drive); was chased out of Texas by heavy rains, damaging winds, boulder-size hail and an almost certain tornado; and almost ran over a woman in Upstate New York who was wearing a chicken suit.
In all, a very liberating drive–which is the essence of Extremism: Traditional boundaries, traditional restraints disappear.
Later, there was Ohio River Towns Extreme Drive. In that one, I tracked the river from its birth in Pittsburgh to Cairo, Ill., where it vanished into the Mississippi, exploring every town along the way with a foreign name: Warsaw, Moscow, Vienna, Rome, etc.
Then there was this year’s Best Little Town in the Midwest Extreme Drive, 8,000 miles through eight states in search of the place–it turned out to be Bayfield, Wis.–I would send anyone I really, really liked.
And there have been other Extreme Drives–in search of magic in Morocco, in search of great golf in Scotland, in search of the perfect gazpacho in Spain, in search of answers in Northern Ireland, in search of answers in South Africa . . .
The common thread in all these was Freedom–to learn, to taste, to discover, to test.
Testing limits is cool.
Even to the Extreme. Especially to the Extreme.
Anyone know a good diner in Minsk?
