Fernweh

My sister, Karen, is a world traveler and this year she finally did the thing she talked about for so long and started a travel blog. I got the Homebody genes, but she got a double dose of Wanderlust. Except for a 3 year stint while some of her boys attended high school she hasn’t lived full time in the US since ?? I don’t know, maybe 30 years? Her home is in Israel and that’s an entire blog post itself. But she usually spends several weeks in PA over the summer. 2020 is the first summer she has not been able to visit in FOREVER. The past 2 summers she and I have taken road trips together. We weren’t crazy close growing up and she’s lived so far away for so long, but these trips have been so much fun!

Chillaxin’ on the veranda of the Babcock House. Matching shirts are essential attire for a Sister’s Road Trip.

On the shores of Lake Huron

Our first trip was to the Upper Peninsula of MI to deliver Ellen to a camp where she worked for the summer. Most of the itinerary of our trip was planned, except for the night after we left Ellen. We spent a few hours on Mackinac Island and then drove south. I do the driving; she Googles interesting things we should see along the way. Turns out, the middle of Michigan is not a Mecca for Interesting Things. We found a hotel which sounded way better online than it looked in person. The crumbling roof line should have clued us in, but it was indeed sketchy. I told Karen that once we were in our room we were not leaving it. Thankfully we made it through the night.

Maid of the Mist

From Michigan we drove to Niagara Falls. Interesting tidbit here: for all of Karen’s world travels, she had never been further west than Ohio and she had never been to Canada. Niagara Falls was delightfully touristy. It was also raining. I packed an umbrella and raincoat. Karen did not. Being too frugal to buy a plastic rain poncho, she took a few minutes to surreptitiously scout the trash cans for discarded ponchos. She found one! After gawking at the Falls, we made our way to the main drag whose Cheesiness Factor is mind-boggling. Karen collects magnets from her travels, so we had to look for one to commemorate this trip. We did find a delightful pub that really hit the spot. She also dropped her iced coffee, for which we waited in a long line, and it splashed all over me. And she made me pose awkwardly in front of a mini-golf dinosaur for a photo shoot. It’s hard being the little sister.

The Arches on the University of GA campus

Of course we knew better than to pay for a hotel in Niagara Falls, so we hopped the border into NY where we had reserved what appeared to be a vintage-y motor inn. Once in our room we dubbed it “Aunt Edna’s Spare Bedroom”. If you had an Aunt Edna, this is what her guest room would have looked like. The best part was that the bathroom was so small (or perhaps just poorly planned) that you had to lift the toilet seat in order for the door to close. Whether it was our hilarity at this feature or the boxed wine we picked up at Target, we have fond memories of our night spent there. 

Last year our road trip took a southern route. Karen spent two years at the University of Georgia, no doubt inspired by her Gone With the Wind phase. Our objective on this mission was to drive south to Gainesville to retrieve Hayley who had attended a debrief there, and then return north. History buffs that we both are, our first stop was Appomattox, VA. Appomattox was not near a major highway, at least not any highway on which we were traveling. It took us 2 hours on back roads until we found it. I can’t tell you how many pick up trucks with Confederate flags waving we passed. It was a bit cross-cultural. Finally we found the historic park and enjoyed the tour there. The highlight of this part of the trip was the bed and breakfast Karen had booked for us at The Babcock House. This was no Aunt Edna’s Guest Room! It was beautiful and the food was incredible!

Enjoying the retro features of the Graduate-Athens

From there we headed south for a long day of driving, all the way to Athens, GA. We walked around the university campus and reminisced about Karen’s days there. We ate supper at a dive she was fond of. I’m pretty sure it hadn’t been thoroughly de-greased since 1988. The hotel she found for us in Athens was a gem! It’s actually a chain and you can find them in other university towns—The Graduate. It had such a nostalgic, vintage vibe. And they gave us free popsicles.

Gainesville, GA: Poultry Capital of the World

The next day we turned north to Gainesville where we fetched Hayley. We decided to play it easy and stay overnight there. Who knew that Gainesville was such a delightful little city? What’s not to love about a town with a monument to the chicken??

Traveling north the next day took us to the highlight (for me) of our trip—the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro, NC. We noticed a road sign for it on our way south, Googled it, and decided to make it a destination on our return north. I’m so glad we did. Housed in the former Woolworth building, site of the first civil rights lunch counter sit-ins, it was a somber, humbling, lamentable journey through the history of civil rights in the US. If you have the opportunity to go, take it! We also encountered a happy coincidence while in Greensboro. Some of Hayley’s friends, with whom she had just been, were coming to Greensboro that night for a concert. We looked up the venue which happened to be about 500 ft. from where we were standing! I bought Hayley a ticket and she spent the evening with her friends! It was another blessing of being open to opportunity.

Thanks for indulging me in this “trip” down memory lane. These few days of travel are special memories to me. In Karen’s latest blogpost she eloquently describes something we English speakers don’t have a word to adequately describe: Fernweh. In German it means “distance sickness”, the opposite of home sickness. It is sad that we aren’t able to travel in ways we’ve been accustomed to. Restless souls like Karen miss it terribly. As this summer draws to a close no doubt some of you are feeling fernweh. Hopefully the restrictions we’ve faced make our freedoms to travel so much sweeter when we finally experience them again!

International Civil Rights Center and Museum. Sit ins began on February 1. The “Colored” entrance to the store was renamed the February One Entrance.