A week ago today, in my hybrid Toyota RAV4 loaded with a suitcase, a weekender bag, two tote bags, a computer bag, two coolers, an insulated bag, two camp chairs, and a purse, I left home. And I haven’t gone back.
I’d planned to get home today, but realized that driving nine hours a day is beyond my capabilities (fucking migraines). I’m okay with that, as I sit in a Holiday Inn Express room in the far northeast corner of Ohio with a late check-out and a bowl of chicken shawarma and rice. Tonight I’ll sleep in Indianapolis after putting some more miles behind me.
This is the most I have ever driven by myself. I expected a few more side trips, but when there’s 1,128 miles to cover and a music festival to attend, those quests and planned hours wiled away writing in coffeehouses in new-to-me towns fall by the wayside, replaced by the endless stretch of interstate and thruways.
Not that I’ve just been stationed behind the wheel. The first day was full of new friends and food and a happy dog and love.
I stopped in Indianapolis to have lunch with a friend I’d never met in person, Jade. We know each other through our shared love of the Afghan Whigs, but failed to meet up when we were both in Cincinnati and Joshua Tree on their tour this spring. No way was I going to miss seeing her while passing through her hometown.
We spent so much time lost in conversation that time became meaningless, and I left around the same time I was supposed to arrive at my next stop in Xenia, Ohio. Thankfully my friends there—Susie, Greg, and Buddy—were beyond gracious and waited an extra two hours for me before making dinner.
I’d met Susie and Greg once before, and it’s one of my all-time favorite meeting stories. In May, 2025, I was in New Orleans for a Wilco show and general New Orleans bullshittting. While having brunch at Elizabeth’s, I noticed that their biscuits were as big as the giant bun on top of my head. Seriously, this thing was as close as I could get to Kate Pierson’s ‘do without adding fake hair to the mix. I ordered a biscuit and asked the server if she’d hold it by my ridiculous hair for a photo, which she did. We were laughing the whole time, which caught the attention of a couple at the next table. Susie and Greg from Dayton. We started talking and left with contact info and tentative plans for dinner that night that fell through. No matter. We did this weird thing that doesn’t happen enough—we kept in touch.
Since I was spending my first night on the road in Dayton, they invited me to their home on the outskirts for dinner. And despite my ADHD ass rolling in at 8 pm, they were beyond gracious. On this textbook beautiful summer night infused with more lightning bugs than I think I’ve ever seen in one place, we lingered on their patio with grilled steak and swordfish, baked macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, red wine, whiskey, gooey butter cake from St. Louis (I’m not a totally horrible guest), and chocolates we forgot to eat because we were so engrossed in conversation and playing with the young elkhound mix, Buddy, who instantly became my buddy.
After dinner Susie and I took their golf cart on a tour of their park-like five acres where they have a huge garden with almost enough potatoes to get me through summer (that’s a lot of potatoes), a grove of paw paw trees, and stories of their two decades turning a plot of land into a lovely oasis. We went down the road and waved to the neighbors’ security cameras before bumping back to the house to visit some more.
When I had the inevitable dizzy spell and explained that I get vestibular migraines, I found a kindred spirit in Susie, who has also dealt with this shit. She’s the first person I’ve met who also has this weird disorder.
Eventually they sent me on my way with cake, the remains of the bottle of wine we were drinking, and the warmest of glows.
On day two I plowed through Ohio without stopping at Jeni’s or Graeter’s. I needed to put some miles behind me, and there’s plenty of ice cream in New England. There was also a natural wonder awaiting. But not before stopping for coffee in Erie, PA and discovering that I’d had another financial misunderstanding and wasn’t nearly as flush as I thought.
I’m about tired of this happening. Maybe I should actually use one of the financial apps on my phone.
Anyway, it’s all worked out.
I spent the night in a vintage roadside motel that has been slightly modernized. Safe, clean, and comfortable was all I needed, and it provided. Burrito delivery was a nice bonus.
The next morning I had a rude awakening that involved vomiting bile into the bathroom sink, something I’ve watched my non-eating cat do plenty of times but have never experienced myself. I don’t recommend it. This sent me down the Cleveland and Mayo Clinic wormholes to figure out what the hell was wrong with me. I felt fine. I am fine. Best as I can tell, my stomach was empty and the migraine nausea hit. I cautiously got myself together and headed to the falls, hoping I wasn't about to spontaneously explode or something.
(I’m happy to report that was the only time I’ve thrown up on this trip so far.)
It was pouring rain when I left the Moonlite and headed to Niagara Falls State Park. Between sleeping in a bit, vomit time, vomit research time, and the rain, I hate to admit that I had to force myself to go look at the falls. There was a bit of a walk in the rain and I wasn’t confident I was up to it after the way my morning had gone.
I’m so glad I tried. And succeeded.
Are you familiar with megalophobia? It’s a fear of really big things, and I have it. In the past it was just a fear of really tall things. Like, I can’t stand under the Gateway Arch back home and look up without getting a rush of panic like it’s going to fall on me. As I’ve gotten older it’s evolved to include all big things.
That also might have played a part in my hesitation. From my teenage trip to the falls, I remembered the magnitude. Standing next to where the whitecaps rush by before gravity takes hold, sending them plummeting down the jagged rocks, capable of taking me with them.
Just typing that gives me a shiver. In some ways I was much braver at 17. In other ways I’m braver now. It’s all balanced into a lifetime of remaining the same degree of chicken shit.
But I made it, and I loved every rainy, soggy second of it.
When I was at the falls with my parents when I was 17, we talked a lot about how the first European settlers must have felt upon discovering the magnitude of Niagara Falls. They would have heard the roar of the water long before it was in sight. Probably noticed the foggy cloud of mist that hangs low from where the water impacts the river below.
This time, I thought about the people who lived by the falls and knew nothing different. Indigenous people for whom this wonder was just … life. It’s hard to comprehend but then I think of how I take the Mississippi River, eight miles from my house, for granted.
I would have loved to have lingered at the falls, but there was a guesthouse on the other side of New York awaiting me, so I got back on the road, crossing upstate in the rain, not venturing off the thruway until I was in Troy on the state line, on to tiny little Petersburgh on the state lines of New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts, my home base for a weekend in which I was unsure of my abilities and what to expect. With no solid plans to meet up with anyone, no answers from MASSMoCA regarding ADA accommodations, and no word from Wilco’s publicist about interviews, I braced for a trip into the unknown. Solid Sound was feeling anything but solid, but I was on my way regardless.