Day 24 - Father's Day

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Day 20 Revisited

JOURNAL ENTRY FROM TWO DAYS AGO (Day 20):
[Click on images to enlarge]

We have been absent of internet for the last three days. We spent the night of Day 17 in the Alexander Mansion, a wonderful bed and breakfast located in Winona, Minnesota on the Mississippi River. Staying at a place that was built in 1880 and looked like it was out of the movie Clue was a welcomed break from the highway hotel scene.

Neither of us slept in very late on the morning of Day 18 because we both knew that the following day we would finally cross the Mississippi River into Wisconsin, and after a couple hours of driving Annie would, for the first time ever, get to meet some of my relatives, my Auntie Barb and Uncle David.

She was nervous. Of course me saying "Holy crap, I can't believe you're actually gonna meet another Danko today" probably didn't help much. So I kept saying it, while simultaneously beating on invisible kettle drums similar to when Sauron's Orc army marched in Lord of the Rings.

As I knew it would though, everything went well and was free or Orc darkness. We arrived at their secluded country house in mid-afternoon. When we crossed The River into WI the first thing I did was buy $25 worth of fireworks, so when we got to the beginning of their 100 yard gravel driveway, I stepped out of the car and lit few of bottle rockets off to let them know we had arrived. From that point on we were well taken care of.

Highlights of our stay in Gilman, WI:
1. Going four wheelin'.
2. Using a 223 Mossberg hunting rifle to shoot spray paint cans, old hubcaps, license plates, and a truck cap on which I spray painted a giant blue target and the word FREEDOM (laughs).
3. Lighting off more fireworks.
4. Tuesday morning Annie made fresh buttermilk biscuits.
5. Throughout our stay on their property we saw: deer, sandhill cranes, wild turkey
(the bird and the whiskey), a wolf, a bald eagle and a ton of cows.
6. Eating venison sandwiches, venison sausage, rabbit stew, pheasant alfredo - all made with wild game they had caught.
7. Tuesday night we drank, watched historical documentaries on public television and talked history.
8. Being away from civilization.
9. Seeing a chainsaw graveyard.
10. Eating "squeaky" cheese curds.
11. Wrestling with a black lab named Hollis Jackson.
12. Annie survived the inaugural meeting of my relatives.
13. My Uncle holding this sign he so proudly stole from the neighbors.









Today we head down to Milwaukee and ever deeper into the Land of the Dank...Muhahahahahahahahahahaaha!!!

Gillman Wisconsin at Jimmy’s Uncle Dave and Aunt Barb’s house

Gillman Wisconsin at Jimmy’s Uncle Dave and Aunt Barb’s house

The rain is falling again outside and it is cold and windy here. The heater is on in mid-June and I’m wearing a fleece jacket inside. There is thunder and lightening and that is a novelty for me now, though I knew these things once. When I look at how beautiful it is here outside, so green and thick with trees and grasses and all sorts of vegetation, I have to remember what they go through to get that. I told Jimmy to remind me why we don’t live here, then the mosquitos did it for him. Hot and humid and buggy in the summer and freezing cold and covered with snow in the winter. It occurs to me that I have never been outside in below zero weather, ever. I don’t think below 20 degrees. I’ve rarely seen snow. I think it is likely too late for me to adapt to weather like they have here, as beautiful as it is.

Watching Jimmy with his family has been great fun. He is different with them. Still Jimmy, but differently. It occurs to me as I watch the changes that I’m different around other people too. I wonder how? How am I different with my mom, with my friends, with strangers...?




I think I miss some of those parts of me when I don’t get to be with certain people. I am working to keep those people with me energetically, the people who bring out the best parts of me. I am always me, and, there are parts of me that I enjoy more than others and that fit more with my choices about who I want to be in the world. Some people, Jimmy for sure, and other people too, bring that out in me in unique ways. Something about that person taps in to something really important to me and lights it up. Then, when I’m with them I feel more connected to that part of me. I like that and want more of it so I want to be with this person more. The trick is, how to hold them, and that part of me, close to me when they are not physically near. As I leave my friends and family behind to head further and further into this adventure it is a skill I hope to practice often.

On our way to Milwaukee, we stopped at the Ory farm in central Wisconsin. We didn't know they'd be here. Jimmy's Aunt Barb found them while she was out camping. The name Ory is unique to my family so if you carry that name we are related. We made a connection and headed on. This morning we go to meet Jimmy’s parents and I get to meet Jimmy again, with another new aspect of him. This should be good...

Day 17 - Rain, The River and Giant Broccoli

Our day started in Des Moines, Iowa with pouring rain. The kind of rain where the sky turns green and the drops are the size of grapes. "BEEP BEEP BEEP - THUNDERSTORM WARNING", says the weather channel across the bottom of the tv screen in the hotel lobby...just like ol' times I thought to myself.

I was hoping we'd hit a nice solid midwest thunderstorm at some point on our trip, and today we did. It rained nearly all day, and from what we saw, it was the last thing Iowa needed. We passed flooded fields and tornado torn trees. We found the underwater playground pictured above in Dyersville, near the Field of Dreams.

Water would continue to be the main theme of the day as we rolled up to the Mississippi. The countryside would change though. Fields were exchanged for rolling riverside forests. We got off the interstate and followed the back roads North. Instead of cookie cutter highway stops, we drove 25 mph through little river towns enriched with character from the mighty (and now swollen) river.

It was a drive of drives. Everything was a deep lush green, like driving through rolling Jolly Green Giant broccoli groves. Rain machine-gunned the top of the car. Lightning strobed the late afternoon sky. The windshield wipers were on high. And we were at complete peace, following the western bank north, with Johnny Cash singing of ghost riders on the stereo.

The Mighty Mississippi

The Mighty Mississippi



Morning comes
Another hotel along the highway
The voice of a friend’s celebration with my coffee
Breakfast with a stranger’s family & bags packed skillfully
We head North East again from Iowa toward the Mississippi
Long slow roads, big gray clouds and green green everywhere
Independence Iowa and the Devil took to beating his wife again



Lost in a Field of Dreams
Grasses dancing in the wind
Giggles against the sound of thunder
Lightening strikes the sky alight with wonder
Our wheels turn and turn and turn again toward



The mighty Mississippi, not so wide, not so fast, not so dirty way up North but a mighty river still

Bridges to the other side whisper “cross here” but it’s not time to cross over yet, we will, morning will come soon

Clancy’s Supper Club warms up slowly to the sound of our song, then shares a song or two of it’s own before Lansing too fades from view

Warnings of road closures don't change the course of this train, the end of this day holds a promise of comfort and stately decadence in a well heeled old lady's embrace



Day 16 - The End of the West

Fort Collins to Des Moines

The Rocky Mountains.
All of their grandeur disappears behind us.
And so begins the plains.
The Heartland.
Caution Nebraska ahead.
All of it.
Telephone poles dance like scarecrows,
and billboards sit empty.
I thought I saw a cloud,
but it was just more blue.
Big expansive blue.
We pass John Wayne's birthplace,
and every exit is 60th Street.
We keep the pedal down.
All of it.
Hours, miles and caffeine dissappears.
North Platte, Lincoln, Omaha.
It's 85 degrees,
and the wind is hot and thick
like the King Kong burgers we find.
The glorious state line.
We escape with the sun at our back,
and hours later,
say goodbye to the day in Des Moines.

Miles To Go Before We Rest...

Miles To Go Before We Rest...

Today is our longest driving day of the trip, we’ll do 12 hours or thereabouts today. Many miles will pass under the wheels of the car that is carrying us closer to a dream we share of a new life in a new place. This trip, even the long hours passing through the corn fields and the cow farms and the neighborhoods, past the Starbucks’ and the Home Depots and all the little diners, past the gas stations with ever changing price signs in front, is also a celebration of the place we are leaving behind. Jimmy and I grew up in, and were nurtured by, this land and the people in it. I am struck by the presence of so many people in so many places who love us, who are interested in us, who are connected to us in one way or another. The process of deciding where to stop was one of the hardest parts of preparing for this trip. If we had stopped everywhere, to see everyone, we would have been on the road months.
Today we’ll pass near the home of my friend Deanna and we wont see her. She will feel me near though, as I hope all the friends we miss as we journey North and East will. Though we won’t see them they are as much a part of the trip as the people we’ll stop and visit with a while.