Michael T. Mondak speaks: 40 til 40 day 34

This is day 34 of the 40 til 40 series about anything and everything relevant to the number 40 leading to my 40th birthday in exactly one week from today.  Last time I talked about my 40 favorite cartoon characters of all time.  Now I’m going to take you on a road trip along U.S. Route 40, also known as the National Road.

We begin our journey at the National Road’s western terminus in Silver Summit, Utah where we get off of Interstate 80 north of Park City.  We climb several large mountains and eventually get near Dinosaur National Monument, an International Dark Sky park.  It was here Earl Douglass of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History discovered eight vertebrae of an apatosaurus on August 17, 1909.  It was the first dinosaur skeleton discovered and excavated at the then-new Carnegie Quarry.

Past Dinosaur National Monument, we enter Colorado.  Along the way, we pass through the Continental Divide via Rabbit Ears Pass, Muddy Pass and Berthoud Pass.  Just before we get into Denver, we need to visit the gravesite of Buffalo Bill.  About 20 miles from Buffalo Bill’s gravesite, we reach Denver, the capital of Colorado.  If it’s a Sunday in the fall, we could see the Denver Broncos play football at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium.  But if it’s hockey season, we could see the Colorado Avalanche play at Ball Arena.  During baseball season, we can take in a Rockies game at Coors Field.  Past Denver, the National Road heads toward Colorado Springs, the state’s largest city.

The National Road then enters the Central Time Zone and Kansas, but we will be driving just to view some beautiful sunflowers, hence the state’s nickname The Sunflower State.

We enter Missouri in the state’s second largest city, Kansas City.  We may see Patrick Mahomes and his Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium on a football Sunday.  But we could also visit the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum where we can learn about the history of Black baseball, during a time where blacks had no opportunities to reach the Major Leagues until after Jackie Robinson played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the late 1940s.  Like Major League Baseball, the Negro Leagues also had an American League and a National League.  Past Kansas City, we might learn about the Battle of Lexington at its State Historic Site.  Eventually, we will get to the Lake of the Ozarks, and ultimately into St. Louis, where we could join Laila Anderson in cheering on her boys from the St. Louis Blues at the Enterprise Center and play Gloria after a Blues victory.  We can also take in a Cardinals baseball game at Busch Stadium.

We then enter Illinois via the Poplar Street Bridge over the Mississippi River.  When we get to Vandalia, we can see where the National Road’s original western terminus was, or we can continue into Indiana and get a brief glimpse of the infamous federal penitentiary in Terre Haute with its infamous federal death row.  But we will just move on and then to Plainfield where we could shop at the Shops at Perry Crossing.  But we eventually will get into the state capital of Indianapolis after crossing into the Eastern Time Zone where we could see the Colts play at Lucas Oil Stadium, or shop at Circle Centre Mall, or feast on the local delicacy, shrimp cocktail, at Harry & Izzy’s.  And we get to Richmond where we can learn about the female pioneers that made the trek to settle the western portion of the United States.

As we enter Ohio, we get into Dayton and take in the Dayton Air Show, as Ohio is the birthplace of aviation.  In Columbus (yuck), our only bet is to either see the Columbus Crew play soccer at lower.com Field or the Columbus Blue Jackets play hockey at Nationwide Arena.  In a much tamer Zanesville, we cross the Muskingum River on the world famous Y-Bridge.  But we depart Ohio on the Fort Henry Bridge over the Ohio River, right next to the historic Wheeling Suspension Bridge.

We will then enter West Virginia where we’ll pass mostly through Wheeling, where we could play some golf at Oglebay Resort’s Crispin and Speidel Golf Courses.

Once we get into Pennsylvania, we could shop at the Washington Crown Center mall and, if they are hosting the Kids’ Fest courtesy of the Washington Observer Reporter newspaper, get some helium balloons from my friends Megan Chicone and Britney Hollick, the local State Farm insurance agents.  But while in little Washington, we could see the Washington Wild Things play baseball at EQT Park, which is also the home of the PONY League World Series.  Then we can continue on the National Road and cross the Monongahela River on the Lane Bane Bridge near Brownsville.  And yes, we will climb the infamous Summit Mountain.  Once we conquer the Summit, we could go whitewater rafting at Ohiopyle State Park, or cross over the Youghiogheny River Lake, where, if the water level is low enough, we could get a glimpse of the Great Crossings Bridge!  Before we reach Maryland, we can play some more golf at the Mystic Rock and Shepherd’s Rock golf courses at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort!

In Maryland, in case you are wondering, yes, we will utilize a part of the National Freeway from Keyser’s Ridge to Hagerstown.  But we must be careful, because we must slow down on the infamous Moose Curve at the bottom of Haystack Mountain, which is prone to poor visibility that can lead to serious crashes.  We continue past Cumberland and then onto Interstate 70’s concurrency with the National Road.  But then both Interstate 70 and the National Road split from each other near Hagerstown.  We then pass through Baltimore to possibly see the Orioles play baseball at Oriole Park at Camden Yards or (yuck) see the Ravens play football at M&T Bank Stadium.  And we then could catch a brief glimpse of Aberdeen Proving Ground Army post prior to crossing the Susquehanna River on the Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge (but it will cost us $8 to drive across if we have the EZ-Pass).

When we get into Delaware, we could spend some time at Rehoboth Beach, or we can cross the Delaware Memorial Bridge into New Jersey and eventually find ourselves on the Jersey Shore in Atlantic City, which was the inspiration of the world famous board game Monopoly.  Atlantic City was also the longtime home of the Miss America Pageant.  There is a statue of the pageant’s longtime host Bert Parks holding a crown.  If one puts their head under the crown, it activates a playback of Parks singing “There She Is, Miss America”.  The song is played through speakers hidden behind nearby bushes.  And we could find ourselves under the Boardwalk down by the sea.