Later Let Downs: My geographic curiosity has made domestic and international travel a joy, but two places I wanted to visit for over thirty years before I finally got the opportunity proved to be disappointments. The realities did not measure up to my imagination or expectations.
The first disappointment occurred circa 1992 on a family road trip from Minnesota to Phoenix. (It was the same trip to which I referred while discussing the Eagles album in my May 31, 2020 post.) We had a planning meeting or two with our travel partners, the Cipolles, to determine which of several possible routes we should take on this journey, which would cover over 3200 miles round trip. We unanimously agreed to do some sight seeing along the way. I was adamant about just one destination, the Four Corners. It is the only place in the United States where four states come together. Clockwise from the northwest they are Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. Ever since I was a boy I had pictured a grand scene, complete with sculptures, a garden with beautiful wild flowers, historical plaques documenting the significance of the site, souvenir and gift shops (maybe even an ice cream shop or a candy store) and, who knows, a saloon or two? I predicted the four states would want to use the uniqueness of the site to do a little bragging, setting up tourist information storefronts or at least kiosks, touting their respective attractions and nearby points of interest. Of course there would be a professional photographer who, for a mere $10 or so, would be happy to take a keepsake picture of you and your three friends each standing in "their own state," or perhaps a photo of just you with an extremity planted in each state as if you were playing a game of Twister. People would be willing to go out of their way to see this one-of-a-kind national landmark, so the mood would be happy, festive and celebratory. Most of all, I wanted to see how The Spot was marked.
Instead what we found was grim and uninspiring. There were few signs directing the minimal traffic off the county highway to the dirt road leading to Four Corners. The Navajo and Hopi Indians had set up makeshift huts with plywood tables, forming a semi-circle about forty yards in radius from the exact Four Corners spot. On those tables were trinkets and inexpensive jewelry for sale. Near most of the huts were faded flags, some Old Glory, others probably state or tribal flags, still others representing unknown entities. The point of intersection of the four states was marked by a simple brass disk, with a diameter of eight to ten inches, imbedded in pavement. In the middle of the disk were two engraved perpendicular lines, with the name of one of the states occupying each quadrant. There were no sculptures or plaques, nor was there a garden, beautiful or otherwise. The huts with the cheap tables were the closest thing to a shop. Not a tourist information kiosk was to be found. To my dismay, there were no postcards for sale. If you wanted a photo you were on your own. In truth, it was a bit of a personal letdown, though still worth a one-time visit. In retrospect I should not have expected more from this remote desert station. The words of my favorite poem, Ozymandias, later came to mind: "...boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away."
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You are no doubt familiar with the saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” You would think, following the Four Corners experience, I would have learned to lower my expectations, but eleven years later I fell victim to unjustified hopes for the second time.
I grew up in the far reaches of northern Illinois, fifteen miles as the crow flies from the Wisconsin line. Downstate Illinois -- which for most natives of that state means roughly its southern three-quarters -- was an intriguing mystery. I tried to convince my parents to take my sister and me on a Downstate road trip so I could discover what the rest of our native state had to offer, but I had to settle for a one-time weekend jaunt to Springfield, the historic capital located in central Illinois. Our family summer vacations invariably took us in the opposite direction to the North Woods of Wisconsin, where my dad enjoyed his single hobby, fishing. Downstate would have to wait.
As a boy I read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn twice each. I loved the way Mark Twain described life in the river town of Hannibal, Missouri. His descriptions led me to think of Hannibal as being similar to Libertyville, only with the extra benefit of being on the Mississippi. How great must it be, therefore, to experience Cairo, the southernmost city in Illinois, blessed with not one (the Mississippi) but two (the Ohio) of our country's most important rivers? Plus, there was something exotic about the name "Cairo." Even its pronunciation, KAY-roe, was a little offbeat. I had to see the place for myself. It finally happened on a road trip with Momma Cuandito in 2003.
I've considered several adjectives to describe what we saw driving through Cairo. No single descriptor I came up with paints an exact picture. I had ridden on the Vomit Comet through the ghettos of Chicago's South Side on my way to South Bend many times. I drove through some scary neighborhoods in Detroit shortly after the riots there in the late '60's. Gary, Indiana at night made my heart go "pitter pat," and not in a good way, even though I was with a couple of fellow Domers who lived there. In spite of those sorrowful recollections, I was shocked by what had become of Cairo. On a much smaller scale, it was just as disheartening as those other places. Unlike Chicago and Detroit, where at least the downtowns were immune from the ravages evident in other parts of the city, downtown Cairo was in shambles. Boarded storefronts, broken glass, crumbling sidewalk and street pavement, piles of rubbish, and nary a soul to be seen. More than one social observer has called Cairo a ghost town.
The history of the town, details of which are beyond the scope of this post, furnishes a combination of reasons for its demise. Racial injustice dating to the antebellum era, the building of railroad and highway bridges which destroyed the once-booming ferry boat business, and the rerouting of railroads which had helped Cairo become more or less a mid-South transportation hub are three major contributing factors.
Momma Cuan and I continued our drive a mile or two south of downtown to the actual confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. During the Civil War it was the site of Fort Defiance, a citadel which enabled the Union army to control navigation of those waters. This historic property is now deserted. The most remarkable items are the scores of fallen timber which drape the grounds. There was no commemoration or shred of evidence of the existence of Fort Defiance and the strategic role it played in the Civil War. There was not even a small sign indicating that this point is, in fact, where the two great rivers merge. At least Four Corners had that engraved brass disk.
News Flashes: We haven't had an exam on the Quentin Chronicle since June 10, 2014 when I presented my Citizenship Test. Try your hand at this one question quiz.
Question: Which state is the closest to Africa?
A. Maine.
B. Massachusetts.
C. New York.
D. Delaware.
E. Florida.
A large portion of Americans tend to think of the "Lower 48" as a rectangle. I attribute some of that misconception to our preoccupation with sports. For example, teams along the Atlantic seaboard are often clumped together in one division. In Major League Baseball's American League, the American cities in the Eastern Division are Boston, New York, Baltimore and Tampa. None of the five cities in the AL Central Division are anywhere near the coast, with Cleveland being the closest. In the National Football League, the four metropolitan areas with teams in the East Division of the American Conference are Boston, Buffalo, New York and Miami. There are other examples at both the pro and college level, but my point is that the southern teams and northern teams along the coast are grouped together as if they were lined up vertically. Yet, consider these tidbits: Atlanta is practically due south of Detroit, and Miami is lined up longitudinally with Pittsburgh.
The counterintuitive stuff isn't limited to the East. Did you know that Carson City, the capital of Nevada, is west of Los Angeles? So are three other state capitals in the Lower 48: Sacramento, Salem and Olympia. The lesson to be gleaned here is that LA is not situated at the bottom left hand corner of the country's rectangle because -- wait for it -- there is no rectangle.
And now, back to the quiz. The correct answer is "A." Maine juts out far enough into the Atlantic to make the seemingly impossible true. If you win any dough via wagering, I'll expect a small cut.
Eating Crow: I am going to close this post with one more geographic oddity, this one regarding my native state, Illinois. I read in a recent publication that six states border Illinois. I could not believe an editor did not catch the egregious error. As someone who lived in Illinois for over thirteen years and was fairly well-versed in its geography, I knew for a fact that the correct number of its bordering neighbors was five: Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Iowa. Any Illinoisan worth his salt can tell you that. But, here is the catch! Technically, Illinois also shares a border with Michigan. It is located northeast of Chicago in the middle of Lake Michigan.
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