On the road again! Nashville bound – Day 1

Before the era of total connectivity taking a vacation had a very different meaning. There was no phone or laptop to leave at home if you wanted to truly disconnect. On the flip side, having access to one’s work and other obligations from the road can make it possible to be away from home or work longer without being out of the loop. And you can get great ice cream recommendations from friends while on the road – more about that later!

There are large swaths of the US I have never visited. Among the top spots on my list was Nashville, so Dan indulged me by crafting our annual DC=> Hilton Head, SC, summer trip via Music City. None of this shortest distance/least time route as calculated by Waze for us! No, our goal is to take the opportunity to explore places that we have not seen.

STOP 1 – Cincinnati, OH: After a dinner pizza break in Breezewood, PA, we continued on and spent the night near the West Virginia line. Driving through Wheeling early in the morning brought a lovely sight. The soundtrack to the drive was Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, the terrain a reminder of the difficult miles that slaves seeking freedom and settlers had to traverse to find home. Shortly before noon, we arrived at the American Sign Museum. Out in an industrial area of Cincinnati, it is a true gem. They have gathered advertising signs from all eras of American industry, with wonderful audio descriptions. Thanks to the staff of the museum, we headed to Findlay Market, the oldest municipal market in Ohio, to find lunch. Wandering through the outdoor stalls, we came upon a familiar face, Teeny Morris, owner of Teeny Pies, one of our daughter’s housemates during their time in Chicago. It is very good to know a top-notch baker!

 

There were two more major events planned for Cincinnati. Once we dropped our bags off at the hotel, formerly the Cincinnati Enquirer Building, we walked to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Open since 2004, the museum tells the story of the search for freedom from the arrival of slaves on our shores until today, worldwide. It is an ambitious effort and the targetted exhibits are well done. Its location looking across the Ohio River to Kentucky is echoed in a film of abolitionists aiding fleeing slaves leaving Kentucky.

I am a big baseball fan. The Cincinnati Reds were hosting the Milwaukee Brewers for a late afternoon game, so off we went. As practiced fans, we beat the heat by choosing seats in the shade and were lucky enough to score Rosie the Red bobbleheads! The Great American Ballpark is very roomy with great sightlines and wide concourses. It also has two huge screens with different player info and more advertising than I’ve seen at any other park.

Daughter #2 had been in Cincinnati recently on business and sent us to Nada for dinner, noteworthy for people in our area because they are expanding to Pike & Rose very soon. And then we took our Facebook friends’ recommendations and found Graeter’s ice cream nearby on Fountain Square, listened to live music and chatted with some Milwaukee Brewers fans before calling it a night.

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So many choices for a summer read

Stone fruit, long days, baseball and endless reading choices are some of my summer favorites. Come summer I have less pressure to read books for upcoming discussions and tend to range farther afield in my choices.

Since we do spend time on the road each summer, e-books and audiobooks have a greater presence than when I stick closer to home. The public library is my go-to source for audiobooks that Dan and listen to long trips.  Once you get the hang of it, it’s not hard to download titles that are available for up to 3 weeks. An inexpensive Bluetooth speaker makes it much easier to hear if your car is not so equipped.

We’re hoping to listen to The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore, a fact-based novel of Westinghouse, Edison, and Tesla in 1888. Joshua Hammer’s telling of the rescue of Mali’s treasured Islamic and secular manuscripts from impending destruction by Al Qaeda is the narrative of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu. Mysteries or thrillers can also be a good traveling pick. I’m looking at The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie King, the first in a series of Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes stories. We have also enjoyed John Grisham’s Sycamore Row, David McCullough’s The Wright Brothers, and Bill Bryson’s One Summer: America, 1927. Any of their books would be fine picks – good readers with easy on the ear accents, engaging narratives that sustain your attention without distracting from the road ahead. Try out a new genre, if you dare.  We loved Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. A mix of dystopic and classical storytelling, it was a great listen.

Above is a photo of some of the books I hope to read as the summer progresses. A bit of everything, fiction based on fact, memoir, literary fiction and mystery. I’ve listed them all at the end of the post. The plan is to review as many as possible. Some are certain to appear on my book groups lists. If the library waitlist treats me kindly, I’ll also read Daniel Silva’s latest, House of Spies, and  Louise Penny’s Glass Houses.

Right now I’m finishing up Miriam Toews’ All My Puny Sorrows. Toews is an award-winning Canadian novelist. This is a family story of two sisters, Elfrieda, a concert pianist, and her sister, who has a more well-rounded life despite some poor decisions. I’ve been listening to Behold the Dreamers since before it became one of Oprah’s Book Club picks. It is Imbolo Mbue’s story of two families, one in the 1% but with many problems money cannot solve, the other an immigrant family desperate to stay in the U.S. with the father working as the driver for the wealthy family. Set in New York where spectacular wealth and barely-scraping-by live barely a few miles apart.

Before I forget, plan to stop at local bookstores while you are visiting new places. Yesterday I picked up Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood’s modern retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest in narrative form while at Four Seasons Books in Shepherdstown, WV. There are knowledgeable booksellers in independent bookstores just about everywhere. Invest in the future of the book. Patronize these shops wherever you find them. IndieBound is one good source to scout them out.

Finally, what have I finished already? Anita Shreve’s The Stars Are Fire, Joanna Trollope’s City of Friends, Charles Todd’s A Casualty of War, Bianca Marais’s Hum If You Don’t Know the Words, The Forgotten Seamstress by Liz Trenow and Enchanted Islands by Allison Amend. All would be fine choices to pack in your carry-on and those I have reviewed are linked.

Titles Pictured Above

  • Daring to Drive by Manal al-Sharif
  • Celine by Peter Heller
  • The Leavers by Lisa Ko
  • The Golden Light of Northern Fires by Daren Wang
  • The World Tomorrow by Brendan Mathews
  • The Lost History of Stars by Dave Boling

 

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