Leaving NYC back across the northern half of the US, I had a hard time letting go of what I was leaving behind and getting excited about what was to come. My first stop was Cedar Point amusement park, one of my all-time top bucket list places I’ve been wanting to visit all my life, as a lifelong roller coaster enthusiast- nay, fanatic. So this one stop on my US Road Trip was so special and eventful, that I felt it deserved its own separate blog post.
Go here to read more about my Cedar Point adventures, including how it was going there solo (since sadly no one was able to come join me), and what pro tips I recommend based on my experience (and years of theme park going) that you should follow on your own Cedar Point travels.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that trip to Cedar Point was life-changing for me. It was like a religious experience that only a true adrenaline junkie can have. And it forever changed my relationship with roller coasters.
Then that mind-blowing experience catapulted me onward to Cincinnati, a stop I’d picked largely in order to catch the Burning Man exhibit that had moved on from the Smithsonian before I could get to D.C. Its next stop was the Cincinnati Art Museum. So there I went too. And it was almost better this way, seeing the wacky world of Burning Man juxtaposed with the more traditional permanent art exhibits.
The museum did a beautiful job of weaving the two together, side by side throughout most of the rooms, as opposed to keeping all the Burning Man pieces quarantined in their own separate room.
After Cincinnati, I decided to take the route through Louisville –
and St. Louis – pausing for only a few hours in each –
on my way to Topeka, Kansas.
Now why Topeka, you may ask. Well it’s where my mother was born. So I promised her I’d go find her old house and childhood haunts, and take pictures for her. I found them alright, and then stumbled upon a most interesting contradiction just a few blocks away. Here lived this beautiful, heartwarming rainbow house painted with words like “love” and “equality” and “acceptance.” And then across the street in stark contrast was this imposing, infuriating church flaunting huge banners that spelled out “Fear God” and “godhatesfags.com.”
It was shocking, and yet quite evocative about our country’s increasingly divisive climate. Deep thoughts.
Kansas was proving too heavy an experience for me, not only because of the heavy downpours that rained down in sheets and thundered with flashes of lightning so close to me that I shuddered while driving and barely slept wide-eyed in the Kansas City Walmart parking lot on the way through.
So onward and northward I went to seek lighter affairs in Omaha. Noticing the state of my over-bitten and outgrown manicure, I’d decided to try to find a nail salon with availability last minute. But alas, everyone was booked solid. On a Saturday afternoon. Imagine that. So instead, I spent that time walking across the country’s longest river (the Missouri River)
on the country’s longest pedestrian bridge (The Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge)
and standing in two states at once (Iowa and Nebraska).
Not a bad alternative. In fact, this whole trip has been happily quite full of those.
