By Mike Morsch, Executive editor
When zigging and zagging across the country on a leisurely drive, one can end up in places like Mitchell, South Dakota, home of “The World’s Only Corn Palace.”
That’s what happened to Andy Moutenot this week, although truth be told, the Corn Palace was on his list of places to see from the get-go.
Mr. Moutenot, of Cranbury, left Aug. 23 on a cross-country trip that will eventually take him to Washington state. He’s doing it in honor of his late wife, Karen, who died in February 2016 of breast cancer, and to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Central and South Jersey organization in Lawrenceville.
He’s making the trip in his Morgan Plus 8 (eight-cylinder) roadster, a two-seat aluminum-framed car with a wooden chassis. The car has a newer engine, but the design of the frame hasn’t changed since the 1930s.
The Corn Palace, just one of the many sites on Mr. Moutenot’s wish list to visit on the trip, is a Moorish Revival building that is decorated in crop art. The building’s murals and designs are made from corn and other grains and a new design is constructed with the new harvest of every year.
“Picture something that kind of looks like the American version of the Taj Mahal with corn plastered all over it,” said Mr. Moutenot. “That kind of gives you a 100-yard stare of what the place looks like. It’s truly amazing.”
Inside, the building is an auditorium with a basketball court. The day Mr. Moutenot visited — Labor Day — there was a tractor pull for little kids.
“There must have been a thousand little boys from 8 to 12 years old. They must have had 200 trophies there, so I guess everybody was going to get something. You can imagine this hollow cavern with a couple hundred screaming little boys going on. It was bedlam,” said Mr. Moutenot.
That’s just one of the highlights of the trip, which on Sept. 7 had reached its 15th day and had encompassed 3,360 miles to that point.
Next up on the itinerary is a visit to the Wild Bill Cody Museum in Cody, Wyoming, and then a trip to Yellowstone National Park. From there, Mr. Moutenot plans to visit Salt Lake City and Park City in Utah; Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam in Nevada; up the California coastline to San Francisco; on to Portland, Oregon, and then Seattle, Washington.
The car itself is performing quite well, according to Mr. Moutenot. But drivers in the West do like to put the peddle down, and the Morgan — along with Mr. Moutenot’s driving habits — aren’t exactly built for speed on this trip.
“I’m used to driving 60 mph, 65 mph tops. But if I see a state trooper on the side of the road, I speed up so it doesn’t look like I’m being a hindrance to the other drivers. I’ve never had that experience in my life,” he said.
The weather has also mostly cooperated. That’s good because the Morgan, a two-seat convertible, also isn’t built to withstand the elements that well.
“I stopped to see the Crazy Horse monument (in the Black Hills of South Dakota) yesterday morning (Sept. 6) and you couldn’t even go up in the buses to the base of the mountain because of thunder and lightning, but there was no rain,” said Mr. Moutenot. “Well, as soon as I got in the car and took off, there was rain. It came down in biblical proportions. And I found out that with the top up, this car is far from watertight.”
Mr. Moutenot believes his wife would have enjoyed the trip to this point, with one caveat: “I can tell you without any reservation that the trip would have been made in a sedan or an SUV car,” he said. “There was no way I could get her to go this far in that Morgan. But there has been many a sight that I’ve seen and I’ve kind of looked up to the heavens and said, ‘Boy, honey, isn’t that a good one?’ She would have absolutely loved it.”
You can follow the trip on Mr. Moutenot’s Facebook page at facebook.com/mymorganandme.
Donations to the Susan G. Komen Central and South Jersey group can be made at http://csnj.info-komen.org/goto/mymorganandme. All donations raised by Mr. Moutenot will benefit the two New Jersey affiliates of Susan G. Komen with up to 75 percent of the funds raised benefiting survivors and local community programs throughout New Jersey and the other 25 percent supporting national research initiatives.
