Well... for me, anyway.
But, to tell that story, I have to back up to October 11, 2008. Yep, that's where this trip began.
Backside of Forty went online August 14, 2008 with a single post (Welcome to "UNTITLED") and a link from my short-term Chinese adoption travel blog, titled To China, For Lily. In those days, I had a few more readers and a few more comments (and a few more frequents posts) than BoF enjoys now, the majority coming from two categories: 1) friends and relatives; and, 2) having recently completed the adoption of our daughter, those somehow connected to what is known as the "adoption community". It was rare for comments to show up from strangers unassociated with the adoption community...
...until October 11, 2008.
On that date, an email message indicated that I had received a comment to the post, Great movie!, from a fellow blogger who called himself "The Father of Five" (who we later figured out stumbled onto my blog in a list of blogs with "fatherhood" as an interest). I clicked on the link to the comment, and this is what he had to say:
Intrigued by this Father of Five character, I clicked the link to his profile and found that he was a family guy, a blogger and an outdoorsman from Minnesota. I further clicked on the link to his blog, read a few posts, and found the "flavor" of his blog similar to mine. However, since my family had just completed the adoption of our daughter from China, I already had a fairly extensive adoption blog reading list. While The Father of Five seemed like a decent guy, I did not put him in my reading list, and dismissed him as someone who stumbled upon my blog, commented, and would never cross my path again.
And so it was, for about three months, until he showed up again. Now, I was more intrigued. Not so much by The Father of Five himself, but the writer in me was intrigued that this stranger must think I have something to write that is interesting enough to keep him visiting my blog to read my content, at least on a semi-regular basis.
At about this point, I put his blog in my reading list, read sporadically, and made an occasional comment. Over the next few years, we became decent acquaintances through the increasing practice of reading each other's blogs and commenting about each other's posts. I found he had many similar viewpoints to mine, and we often seemed to resonate with each other's writing. So much so, that I sometimes looked at the link he provided in the sidebar of his blog to "connect on facebook". Nah, I though... I barely know the guy... that seems awkward. Yet, he felt somewhat like a friend. So, on September 11, 2010, I took a risk and sent the following facebook friend request (to which he favorably responded):
From that point on, a very strange and unique friendship was built... to the point that he as become one of my closest and most trusted friends.
Strange, you ask?
Yes, strange... try explaining to people that your best friend is a guy you met online, lives 800+ miles away, and with whom you have only interacted virtually (well, other than one Skype call and, I think, two actual phone calls). I get some strange looks!
For a couple of introverted guys, though, it has worked pretty well.
For some time we have discussed someday meeting each other, but the distance and daily responsibilities we each bear makes that not an easy feat. This summer's schedule and events did not lend themselves well to scheduling a week's family vacation, as I like to do. So, I half-jokingly said maybe I'd just take a solo road trip to meet Father of Five. Jen, being the ever-impulsive one, said "go for it!"
Still not very serious, I inquired about his schedule during my July week off and he had July 21 and 22 open. I mapped the trip and looked at my aging car and thought better of it. I then remembered that my brother has often rented a car for road trips, and when I looked into that option, a Priceline deal on a compact car, coupled with the better gas mileage made this fairly feasible.
About a week before my vacation, I left it in the hands of Priceline. I bid on a car, figuring that if I got one at a price I was comfortable with, I would go. After a few a Priceline trials, a bid was accepted... no turning back now.
Mancation!
I left early Saturday morning and drove about halfway, camping at Illini State Park.
Illini State Park is on the bank of the Illinois River, where barge traffic is a normal part of the scenery.
The small town of Marseilles, Illinois is just across the river from the campground. An easy walk over the bridge put me downtown for a little geocaching and a car show, where there were many sweet rides to admire. Being a fan of classic VW's, this one made me smile. I'd love to own one of these... maybe with a slightly calmer paint job, though!
On Sunday's drive, my rented Ford Focus hit an MPG high over 41... I could get used to that!
I took a freeway diversion and explored some of the backwoods of Wisconsin on the gravel roads of the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge.
Because Father of Five and I are both geocachers, a few years ago, I launched a "travel bug", which is a trackable tag that is attached to an object and moved by fellow geocachers from cache to cache. Travel bugs have an owner-assigned goal and mine was to get from one of my caches in Ohio to one of his in Minnesota, in the most efficient route possible. Efficiency did not work out, since this bug went everywhere BUT Minnesota! However, just a few weeks ago, it landed in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The location was 1.3 miles off the freeway, so I diverted into Eau Claire to find the cache and retrieve my own travel bug, taking it on to Minnesota to reach the goal of landing in Father of Five's cache. Mission accomplished!
I arrived at the workplace of Father of Five late Sunday evening, and met him face-to-face for the first time, as he finished up his shift. After a tour of his workplace, we proceeded to the Minnesota home of Father of Five, where I met his family. Though I was a stranger to the family, the Mother of Five graciously insisted that I stay in their home, if I wanted to. Being introverted, I was nervous about this, but being more frugal than introverted, I agreed. I was treated like family and given 4 of 5's bedroom during my stay, causing her to be displaced to her sister's room for a few days.
The obligatory visit of the nearby and HUGE Mall (Maul?) Of America
Minnehaha Falls
We visited Jim's Apple Farm... a local business that claimed to stock Minnesota's largest candy selection.
They also had Minnesota's largest soda selection. I thought I would pick up some candy to take home to my family... but I was more intrigued by the soda. Over 175 different kinds of root beer, alone! I decided, instead, to select a bottle of soda that reminded me of each person in my family and take them home as a souvenir of my trip. My selections were this:
Jen: Chocolate soda. She loves chocolate... but chocolate soda is not very good!
Dylan: Buffalo Wing Soda... yep, it tastes as nasty as it sounds!
Zachary: Because he is 12 and has a decent pre-teen sense of humor, what better than Gross Gus's Pirate Piss Soda? It was actually quite tasty and, as expected, he thought it was hilarious!
Lily: Because she like classic musicals, Wizard of Oz Cherry Cola.
Ben: Big Ben's Cola Soda.
These are frowned upon in today's society, but my cousin, Mike, will remember, as do I, buying (and "smoking") these candy cigarettes years ago from Grey's General Store. I found them in the candy selection and had to buy some for nostalgia and to show my kids.
Yes, back home with the politically incorrect kids-smoking-the-candy-cigarettes pose.
We spent two days seeing his stomping grounds, hiking, geocaching... and talking. For a couple of introverts, we never seemed to shut up!
Then, it was back to work for FoF and back to Ohio for me. I drove home a different route through Iowa on the way home and it was a little further... just over 900 miles straight through on Wednesday.
Selfie with the Sinclair dinosaur
Yep, a just over 2,000 mile round-trip, solo, 5-day (3 days of it driving) mancation to visit a "virtual" friend is wild and crazy for me... even a little awkward for this introvert. But, it confirmed that this friendship, though unique, is really not strange. Rather, it's real, and I'm grateful that the internet made blogging possible, and that blogging made a great friendship possible.
The Father of Five
