The Cross at the Crossroads

Dear journal, 

So begins this summer’s road trip. We hadn’t planned on leaving until next week, but the calendar betrayed us—turns out a lot of what we wanted to see is closed on Mondays. Rather than sit around waiting for the week to roll over, we shrugged, packed the car, and hit the highway. It wasn’t a grand departure—no send-off, no playlist perfectly timed to the first hundred miles. Just two brothers, a bag of snacks, and a growing suspicion that spontaneity might be the better itinerary anyway.

First stop: Effingham.

Now, Effingham isn’t exactly a bucket-list destination, but it does have a claim to fame that’s hard to miss: the Cross at the Crossroads—a 198-foot-tall steel cross rising from the flat Illinois prairie like God’s own billboard. It’s impossible to miss and even harder not to gawk at. The surrounding plaza features the Ten Commandments and the Stations of the Cross, just steps from where semis idle and soda fountains hum.

Local boosters proudly declare it the largest cross in America, though that’s only mostly true. The one in St. Augustine, Florida edges it out by ten feet—but who’s counting? (Besides Florida, obviously.) And let’s not forget Groom, Texas, where their 190-foot cross once held the title and still holds a grudge. It’s a spiritual arms race out here in the heartland, and Effingham’s not backing down.

Dubious or not, the Cross at the Crossroads fits right into my favorite genre: roadside Americana—that special blend of sincerity, spectacle, and subtle absurdity that makes you pull over and say, “Well, would you look at that.”

Tomorrow, we cross into Canada. After that? Who knows. We’ve got a list, sure, but it’s flexible. The road has its own ideas.

Always, 

Dave