Road Trip: The Pilot

RoadTrip: The Pilot


Desiring that Ethan get a test drive under his belt (leash) before Roadtrip 2006, he and I set off to Wisconsin to see my sister, Ethan with his doggie backpack loaded with food and bottled water.

Air conditioner blasting in the rental car holds the hundred degree heat at bay, and reaching the Wisconsin border we take blue highways, going through New Glarus, the Swiss village of southern Wisconsin with its cutesie-windowed building and even a chiropractor’s sign in Swiss; Monroe, Wisconsin, home of the Cheese Curd (for those non-Cheeseheads among you, the curds are the scrapings of the cheese barrel, small peanuts of cheese); and winding two lanes with dairy cows, barns, and neatly-painted farmhouses.

The farm my sister has sublet for the summer has two barns. Not a mile away is a shopping center with a Starbucks and across the field, a housing development. In two more years, this farm will be gone, the stone-foundationed barn, imploded, or perhaps taken down stone by stone, beam by beam. The owner, who has gone to Europe for the summer to teach Yoga, has left everything, including the hot pad with the Buddha on it, for our use. But mostly, we need the fans as there is no air conditioning.

There are no animals on the farm save those we have brought: Ethan, anxious to make friends, and Grace, a perfectly mannered but panting German Shepherd, and one-eyed Paco, the Chihuahua-Jack Russell. He looks like a pirate with a personality to match. s. I’m so busy making sure Ethan doesn’t nip at the two-year-old, Fionne, who is attempting to ride him, I forget to be careful where I step and Paco, the Evil-doer, bites my toe. Efforts to make it up to him by leashing him and taking him for a walk result in him chasing me out of the house. Not a cheerful one, that dog. .

For the first time any of us can remember, we four sisters are together without my mother, who is home camped in the air conditioning after a grueling trip to Chicago in the summer heat. We are often one or two together, but never all four. We celebrate one sister’s birthday with a cookout and a cake, flaming with candles. They play rummy after dinner, while I wash dishes, the closest I can get to water and cooling off.

We sleep in front of fans, my sister and I, Ethan equidistant between us so that he can guard us while we sleep. Morning comes early, and we flee to the nearest Starbucks for an iced mocha. The visit is over, and Ethan and I pack up and head home, doggie backpack emptied now of food and water. . If RoadTrip2006: Going to Wisconsin and Turning left is a TV reality series, RoadTrip: The Pilot is the acid test for the series.