What’s In Between

What’s In Between

“ The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between…”. Horton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth.

Why?

This is a question you may be asking. Why would I embark on a solo road trip between Cincinnati, New Mexico, Minnesota and back home? It’s not as if those destinations are close to each other. As a 61 year old women, is this really a good idea? Well, we are going to find out.

As a child, I spent a large portion of my life in the backseat of the family car on vacation. My father worked for Procter & Gamble and we moved from Seal Beach, California to St Louis to Chicago to Chesapeake, Virginia, to Lima, Ohio and then to Cincinnati. My parents loved to travel but with 3 children, and another to be born when we lived in Virginia, it would have been prohibitively expensive to fly everywhere. Plus flying was such a glamorous event back then, I don’t blame my parents for choosing a car trip over a flight where you needed to be dressed up and on your best behavior. So we drove and often camped while seeing parts of the United States. One summer it was New England, another out West, another the Midwest. Usually whatever was near by where we were living at the time. My mother was a history major so we spent one summer visiting Civil War battlefields (as an 11 year old, this was supremely boring as one field looked just like the next). Both sets of my grandparents lived in Arizona, and my cousins lived in California, so there were many road trips to visit them. I think I developed my love for reading during these trips in the back of the car. If I could get in the way back of the station wagon, that was the perfect spot. Old people will know what the way back was.

One of my favorite books in 4th grade (living in Chicago at the time), was The Phantom Tollbooth. For those unfamiliar, a young, bored boy named Milo is gifted a small tollbooth and he uses his little electric car to drive through it and to worlds beyond. The trip changes his outlook on life. As a child, I yearned to drive myself on a trip to unexplored places. Frankly, I was enamored with driving, hoping to become a bus driver when I grew up since I would be able to drive all day long.

I have traveled to many places here in the US and around the world, and each trip has changed my outlook. But I have never traveled by myself. So on March 1, 2025, I will get in my little car, drive through my little tollbooth, and see what is in between here and there. If you would like to see what it is, please follow along.

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jgapfelbeck

South Dakota to Minnesota, March 12, 2025

When I was planning this trip, I realized the route home could take me a few different ways. When I decided to end up in Sioux Falls after my visit to Mount Rushmore, I noticed how close, (relatively speaking), Minneapolis was – only 3 1/2 hours. I had never been to Minneapolis, but a dear friend in college was from there. And she loved Minneapolis. Kris lived in Edina, gushed about how gorgeous Minnesota was, and loved Prince. When Prince’s movie “Purple Rain” came out in 1984, Kris made us all go to the one crummy theater in town (sorry Oxford, Ohio, you have improved in many ways since we went to Miami University) to see it. I could not understand what was so great about this film, but Kris insisted it was a masterpiece. “Prince is from Minneapolis! He is a genius!”, she said. I have come to appreciate Prince and my friend Mona continues to mourn his death.

I was close to Kris for all four years of college. We were in the same sorority pledge class, lived in neighboring halls my sophomore year, and shared an apartment my senior year. She sang at my wedding in June, 1985 right after we graduated. And then, we never saw each other again. I moved to Ft Story, Virginia, with Rod, she moved back to Minneapolis and later married Jim. I moved back to Cincinnati and had two kids, she had three. We exchanged Christmas cards for a long time, and followed each other on social media. But neither of us are big social media fans, and we knew less and less about each other’s lives.

When I knew the distance between Sioux Falls and Minneapolis was short, I thought, “I need to find Kris”. The internet is a marvelous thing. I did not have her phone number or email, but I remembered what town she lived in, I remembered the name of her church. So when I googled her name, it revealed that I could email her through her church – so I did, asking if we could meet for lunch or coffee or something. And to my delight, she invited me to stay with her and Jim. So Minneapolis was added to my places to stop.

I arrived today in early afternoon, and we spent 10 1/2 hours talking non-stop. We filled the gaps of what we knew about each other and 40 years melted away. We looked at pictures and reminisced, we talked about our parents and children, our work and future plans, we laughed and cried. Jim was wonderful, a delight to talk to, and made me feel so welcome in their home. Rod has encouraged me for years to reconnect with Kris, and something has always gotten in the way. Not today.

I encourage you to reach out to those you are missing. It may take a lot of digging, or just a little. It may not be the reunion you think it will be, but it might. You don’t have to drive across states to see them, you could drop them a note, or send a text, or a one line email saying, “I am thinking about you”. But don’t take as long as I did. Don’t wait 40 years. I could have been texting with Kris for a long time now, and I can’t get those years back. But I will text her tomorrow, and maybe next week, and when I see something funny that I know she will make her laugh.

We aren’t here for very long. Connect with those you like, those you love. Find your Kris.

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jgapfelbeck

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