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

Illinois, March 14, 2025

The Art Institute has been my favorite museum in Chicago for as long as I remember. I try to visit it every time I am in Chicago. However, my daughter recommended I visit the Museum of Science and Industry today. I thought I would stop in for a bit and then go to the Art Institute. However, I never made it to the Art Institute, because the Museum of Science and Industry was one of the best museums I have ever visited.

The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry (MSI), was initially endowed by Sears, Roebuck and Company president and philanthropist, Julius Rosenwald and supported by the Commercial Club of Chicago. It opened in 1933 during the Century of Progress Exposition of the World’s Fair. It was renamed for benefactor and financier Kenneth C Griffin in 2024.

Among the museum’s most notable exhibits are a full-size replica coal mine, German submarine U-505 captured during World War II, a United Airlines Boeing 727, the Pioneer Zephyr, ( the first streamlined diesel powered passenger train in the US), the command module from Apollo 8 spacecraft, and a 3,500 square foot model railroad. Other permanent or special exhibits cover manufacturing, environmental science, physics, computers, the brain, the human body, and agricultural science.

I could tell you I about each and every thing I saw. Instead I will post my pictures and encourage you to visit the museum if you can. I would encourage you to visit any museum that is close to you. Walking around MSI, reinforced how much I don’t know, how much I will never know. Learning about anything is good.

This is a 40 foot vortex or tornado.

I watched a movie about Antarctica, learned how music affects your brain, and how ice can teach us about the world’s changing climate. I loved every minute at this marvelous place. There was so much I didn’t have time to see.

At one point I heard a little boy say, “I want to see everything!” Me too, buddy, me too.

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