The Lincoln Highway -Three and a third thousand miles: Part 3

 Well, that intermission was a little longer than I intended! Anyhow, let’s get back to the job in hand.

Lost in America

Most people are aware of this thing called 'Route 66' even if they are vague on the details: where it starts; where it ends; how long it is. Many people want to drive along Route 66 because it is somehow understood to be an experience that is quintessentially American. That was one of the factors that made me want to "get [my] kicks on Route 66": seeing the US up close and personal rather than as a blur passing by at 85 mph in a soulless rush along an interstate.When I heard that there was an older transcontinental road, the Lincoln Highway, that was truly coast-to-coast and, therefore, even longer, I knew I had to experience that too. Another chance to engage with small town USA sir? Don't mind if I do! Unfortunately, the romantic notion in my head was to get lost somewhere along the huge meander that constitutes the Lincoln Highway.

About half way into our Lincoln Highway drive we had a shared moment of revelation: we had probably set ourselves too tough a target and, in doing so, had rendered the ‘holiday’ less enjoyable than it could/should have been. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy to have completed the drive, to have travelled (for 85-90% of it) on the original LH route(s) and to have enjoyed a version of the US that many who visit places such as New York, LA, San Fran and Miami will never see. But what we realised half way across the continent was that, when we drove Route 66 five years ago, while that trip contained its own challenges, it was mapped out for us in a turn-by-turn guide of the original route, it included a greater concentration of attractions along the way (a tribute to the great marketing that has been done on behalf of Route 66 in recent years) and it was a thousand miles shorter drive but done in the same 12 day period. The LH, although older than than 66, is pretty much forgotten or at best, only just on the verge of being rediscovered. As a consequence, there are no turn by turn guides although there are books that will detail the history of the road whilke other books list some of the diners along the way and one even gives you an idea what it was like in  to drive it in 1928 (the latter book is a bit of a favourite: a reprint of a driver’s guide from that time detailing the towns en route, their populations and garage and hotel facilities (some are still there!). As a consequence, the LH requires a greater degree of *work* to drive: work by the driver (3,300 miles) and by the navigator who has to try and recreate a turn by turn guide for each day from a combination of an LH phone app and Google Maps. Every night in a new motel, I was knackered and Elaine had to plot the route for the next day. On top of that, stretches of the LH are unmade road and when you’ve agreed via signed agreement not to drive your hire car on gravel roads, it meant that alternative routes were constantly being researched on the fly. All in all  a tough drive.

Along the way - and even more so reflecting afterwards - I realised I’d engaged us in a task, a chore. Rather than embarking on an adventure, I’d sent us out on an endurance test. Consequently, we have made a pact: any future fly/drive trips to the US, indeed anywhere, will be concentrated on a much smaller area with a chance to stay in places for more than one night. I’m not sure that there are any more US road trips based on historic roads but, even if they do exist, we will not be driving them. In future the rule will be no more than four hours driving in a day. That allows for plenty of mileage to be covered but also plenty of time get out and explore places properly rather than worrying about getting to our next destination in daylight!

Bucket list-wise, it is now ticked off so we can finally put the need for marathon drives to bed. That said, I recently heard about the Pan-American Highway that runs from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to Ushuaia in Argentina, a distance of around 15,000 miles. Should I mention it to Elaine? ;) 

The Lincoln Highway: Three and a third thousand miles at 65 - Part 2

The thing I really like about driving in the US is seeing so much that is odd or intriguing, just so much stuff generally! I know that driving in any country that is not one's own is going to throw up things that look alien to our eyes but the US just seems to contrive to be different, to have things along the highways and byways that command your attention and make you stop and engage in some way. Of course, I'm talking about the small towns here, the backwaters, the US of 1940s films, towns like Bedford Falls from 'It's A Wonderful Life'. Sure, big cities have things that will make you catch your breath, things that make you goggle in amazement at their sheer size, height or cost. Likewise it is a country packed with natural sights that are beautiful, astounding and literally awesome like the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, Monument Valley and so on. In the little towns across the country, by and large, they don't have attractions such as these to draw in visitors or make those passing through pause their journey for a while (and maybe spend a little cash too!). Instead, they come up with all sorts of strange attractions to put their hometown on the map, so to speak. It is similar to those people who seem to live on social media, Instagram in particular. It is as if 'likes' and 'follows' are the validation of a person's existence: it communicates their existence to the wider world in life and, assuming that those platforms will still be around in the future, it says "I was here and I was someone" to future generations that might find their published content. Similarly, having the 'World's Largest Knitting Needles' in your little town of around 2,800 souls (Casey, Illinois) puts you firmly on the map. In fact, in Casey, they got so into having 'The World's Biggest...' things, they now have 12 things that are Guinness World Record-certified biggest including a garden fork and a golf tee. It doesn't have to be record-breaking to draw the tourists, however, it might be just downright odd. On Route 66 we came across The Bottle Ranch - why build that? Why not? - and this time, we had two houses that are modelled on everyday objects - a boot and a coffee pot.

While the Coffee Pot House would be seen by a fair number of people as it is right on the Lincoln Highway on the edge of the town of Bedford and it stands at the gate of the local speedway fairground where race meets are held, the Boot House lies quite a way off the beaten track and has little around it save for the next door farm and fields. It is the exception that proves the rule: a quirky attraction that might pull a few sightseers away from their route but not to give a town something to hang onto as 'their'attraction, something no other town can boast. It is available to rent and, looking at the photos of the inside, the weirdness stops at the door and it is very tastefully decorated making it a fab place to stay for a week of relaxation.

Slightly tangentially, on the subject of how we are to be remembered, we noticed that in nearly every town we passed through there were banners attached to lamp posts or telegraph poles on the main route through town which commemorated those who had served and died in the US military. All we could think was that they were left over from Memorial Day in May. The fact that they were still there neary four months later and in so many towns makes me wonder if this might become a more permanent memorial to the fallen. It also made me think about the way in which the military is never too far from the surface in the US, like the random display of a warplane, tank, field gun and helicopter that we encountered in the small town of Dixon. It is a Veterans' Memorial with a list of all those from the county who gave their lives in WWII. The list I get: nearly every town in Britain has a memorial somewhere that lists the fallen. The military hardware, however, just felt a bit odd. The lamp post banners and Memorial Park did go to show the strength of pride in service that exists in the midwest where everything is just that little bit more...conservative.

Once we had cleared the urban sprawl of New York, New Jersey and we were in the post-industrial areas of Pennsyvania and beyond, things definitely changed. The proliferation of 'Don't blame me - I voted Trump in 2020' posters on the sides of barns and pro-Life billboards told you we were now a long way from the Godless hellhole that comprises the Eastern seaboard in the eyes of many. These were the towns where, if politics came up in conversation, we would be claiming to be strictly apolitical as "they are all as bad as each other". I realise that I am making a sweeping generalisation (it's my blog, so I can do what I like!) and, of course, there was plenty of evidence to show that not everyone was a cross-burning reactionary, it just felt that it was more 'in your face' here. It was thoroughly depressing to see so much support for a former President, currently the subject of 70+ indictments and who did so little to keep any of his election promises. They'll probably vote him in again regardless, so tight is the stranglehold of the death cult that comprises the majority of the GOP currently.

INTERMISSION

The Lincoln Highway: Three and a third thousand miles at 65 - Part 1

Pre-lockdown, I did pretty well for a while at keeping a regular blog going. It wasn't focused on any particular aspect or interest of mine. It was more general, more about how I happened to feel that day: maybe ranty, maybe poetic. The main thing for me was trying to write something on a fairly regular basis. Isn't it ironic (as Alanis probably wouldn't have said as she patently didn't understand what constitutes irony) that, during lockdown, when I had all the time in the world each day to write a blog, to try and make some connections, however few, with others in the same boat, that was when I chose to write hardly anything. This is a very long way of saying "You've probably forgotten but, five years ago I wrote a four part piece on my impressions of driving, as far as practicable, the original roads that made up Route 66". Well, I did write those blogs and I'm back now to write about our recent trip to the US of A to drive the orginal long-distance highway, the one that truly ran from cost-to-coast, the Lincoln Highway. If Route 66 styles itself as the Mother Road, then the Lincoln Highway is the Daddy, both older and longer than 66.

We had researched different methods of getting from JFK airport to our hotel in Manhattan. The subway seemed impractical (wrangling luggage on potentially busy stations via escalators, plus a 1 hour journey time with changes), a shared minibus at $40-ish per person, plus tip worked out about the same as a yellow cab and a pre-booked private hire (minicab equivalent) was convenient, but expensive. We went with a yellow cab and the journey was great. We chatted with our Turkish driver all the way to the hotel as we negotiated the frankly alarming New York traffic. It must be getting on for 20 years since I last drove in New York and that was ...memorable. What I was observing now, however, was a whole new level of crazy. Cars appeared from the left, from the right, stopped suddenly in front or tailgaited at an overly intimate distance. I suddenly felt fear: when we picked the car up, the amount of driving in Manhattan would be fairly minimal but it still suddenly felt as if it might be far too much. I had visions of pranging the car before I'd gone ten blocks. I then realised a Feature of Ageing (TM) was kicking in: a diminution of confidence in one's ability to breeze through things in a way that one once did. I suspect there may be more age-related musings to follow. You have been warned!

As we did with the Route 66 trip, we began our stay in the US with three nights in the city that is the starting point for the roadtrip: Chicago in the case of 66, but New York this time as the official beginning of the Lincoln Highway is Times Square. There was one major similarity to both starts: our list of planned activities in both cases got a little spoiled by torrential rain. In Chicago, low cloud had made a trip to the top of the Sears Tower pointless ("Look at that great view of...the inside of a cloud!") but it also delivered the rain that ruined the waterway tour of city architecture and limited the 'walking around the city' discoveries that we like to do. This time, in New York, the rain's arrival was rather more physically painful for me. Dodging the biblical downpours, we had managed to get to Grand Central Station, a cinematic icon, a thing of architectural beauty and home to the poshest Apple shop in the world. In another break in the weather we set off to walk back to the hotel and a misplaced foot on a slippy piece of metal resulted in a fall and a fractured rib for me. Did I go to hospital to confirm the injury? Not likely! I've fractured enough ribs to know what I'd done and, painful as it was, I could still breathe, so no punctured lung. They would have only provided pain relief for me and an outrageous invoice for my insurer, so there was little point. Unfortunately, it did mean I didn't feel upto dining out at Gallagher's Steakhouse that evening. A burger from a wannabe upmarket burger place near hotel was okay but not quite the same level of steakiness! The way the fries were put in the bag to transport back to the hotel really upset Elaine: they were in flat, open trays so they a) spilled out in transit and b) cooled down quicker. Thinking forward to picking the car up, I started to worry that driving might be beyond me, certainly for long periods. At least, with a left-hand drive car, the seat belt would not be sitting across my (very) tender left-side ribs.

The day following my breaking news (ho ho) we had tickets booked to go to the top of One World Trade Centre/Freedom Tower. Now, the cancellation of the meal at Gallaghers had cost us nothing, but not using the One World tickets would have been an expensive waste, so it was time for me to grit my teeth and get on with it. Luckily, the grim weather had finally broken and the low cloud had gone! When I'd booked the tickets for the visit, I hadn't really thought about the date but the penny dropped a bit later - 9/11. The morning news covered a rememberance ceremony from the WTC site where, movingly, surviving family members read out the names of the victims of the terror attack. It added an extra resonance to the experience of looking out over Manhattan Island from a point not too far from where we would have probably been standing had WTC1 and 2 not been destroyed 22 years earlier. A stone's throw from the One World Tower stands St Paul's Chapel, the oldest church in Manhattan dating back to the colonial era and modeled on St Martin-in-the-Field in London. It is amazing to think that, as the gigantic structures of the Twin Towers collapsed, this tiny 18th century building avoided serious damage and was actually used as a place for emergency services personnel to rest in the aftermath of the disaster. Also in the shadow of as well as under the One World Tower site is the Oculus, a massive shopping centre, a structure that starts on the surface looking like a graceful wing composed of multiple arches that then continues down into the ground into an enormous white space that gives the impression of being within the ribcage of a giant animal. A breathtaking cathedral to Mammon. Post-Tower, we had a wander around, another couple of subway rides and we bumped into the home of the Ghostbusters. I recognised the building even before I saw the Ghostbusters signs. Even though it's not a film that means that much to me, even I felt a little fanboy thrill!

There were some things that we didn't get done, the Highline being the main casualty of the weather/rib combo, but there are always going to be things that fall off any list of 'to-do' items in somewhere as vast and varied as NYC. We look at it this way: we'll just have to come back and do those things we missed out on! Anyway, it is now Tuesday, 12th September, we are sat in our car (a reasonably-sized Hyundai Tucson this time) and ready to head out across America.

INTERMISSION