Calling this trip “haphazard” might be a little strong but plans really aren’t very firm. I started on Winter Solstice with some solid plans and also have plans for some stops in Virginia. I hope to eventually reach where my son lives in New York but what goes in between is pretty murky.
This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is here.
I have written several times of being surprised to learn that my great-grandparents drove a Model T Ford to Florida and back in 1920. That surprise came many years ago and since then I have twice retraced their trip and wrote a book about the retracing. Letters my great-grandmother sent her daughter allowed me to follow their general path. A cousin and I dug into those letters as I prepared for the second retracing and were again surprised when we realized there were letters from a second Florida trip mixed in with them. There was great joy in that surprise along with a little disappointment. Unlike the 1920 letters, those from the second trip in 1923 did not document the entire adventure but trailed off mid-sentence shortly after the travelers reached the vicinity of Sebring, FL.
Of course, half a trip is better than no trip, and I’ve used those letters from 1923 to produce the route I’m now following. Granddad and Granny started their journey on October 29, 1923, and my original plan was to start my retrace exactly one hundred years later. But time constraints on the tail end of the outing have prompted me to set out just a few days early in hopes of making things a little more relaxed. At some point, I will be exactly where they were a century ago. There is no guarantee I’ll be able to sort out just where and when that is, though, but I do intend to try.
This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is here.
US-127 is the shortest of the two United States Numbered Highways that pass through the county of my birth. It has naturally been on my list of roads to drive but it has been pretty low on the list and hasn’t received a lot of attention. That changed a little bit last year when I realized that its southern terminus is quite close to one of my favorite breakfast spots. It got another boost, and a date to hang a trip on when I learned of an opportunity to scratch off another list item while traveling the route. So I left home Tuesday morning and headed toward the northern terminus of US-127. I actually reached it and will begin driving the trip’s namesake highway in the morning. Even though today was really just getting ready to start, I did take some pictures and put together a journal page.
This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is here.
The sun has set on the first day of the first “normal” Society Society for Commercial Archeology conference since 2019. The 2023 conference started Wednesday, May 31, in Erie, PA. The 2023 Jefferson Highway Association conference begins next Wednesday. The JHA’s first post-COVID conference took place last year but the site of this year’s conference (Mason City, IA) is where the pandemically postponed conferences of 2020 and 2021 were to take place. The Lincoln Highway Association also broke out of the COVID pause last year and will have things ready to go this year in Folsom, CA, starting June 12. There was a brief moment when I thought I might make it to all three conferences but reality soon set in. The logistics of getting to California following the conference in Iowa were just too much of a challenge for me. With apologies and sadness, the LHA conference was dropped. I will be attending the other two and there’s not a whole lot of time between them. What time there is will be spent in a fairly direct crossing of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. They have separate journals with a switch to the JHA trip planned after the last day of the SCA conference.
This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The SCA trip journal is here and the JHA trip journal here.
Birthday trips may have become a thing. I used my birthday as an excuse for running the COVID blockade in 2021 and last year it served as justification for a drive to an overnight that had long been on my list. The 2021 trip was a three-day affair that got the full journal treatment (Birthday Breakout). The one-night 2022 trip was covered in a blog post (Celebrating). This year’s outing started as a two-night deal that has grown to three nights and will be covered in a regular journal. The first day, which consisted of a drive to a historic inn, has just been posted. Following days will include a railroad roundhouse and museum and a concert.
This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is here.
I headed out on my Christmas Escape Run yesterday and now have the first day’s journal posted. Since my October Route 66 Miles of Possibility 2022 trip was cut short by COVID, I decided to finish it (and then some) for Christmas. The original draft of this post said if things go as planned, every night of the trip will be spent in a classic motel and classic restaurants will account for a high percentage of my dining activities. The classic motel and restaurant comment might still apply but things definitely are not going as planned. Dire weather forecasts for my intended route have me detouring to the south although I still hope to end up where planned for Christmas. The picture is of the winter solstice sunrise near Greensburg, Indiana.
This entry is to let blog-only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
After checking out Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings in 2018 and 2019, I planned to keep the string going with a visit to Fallingwater in 2020. It didn’t happen, of course. Tours were shut down for COVID-19 in March of that year and did not return until March of this year. So a trip once planned for April is taking place in August (Hey, they both start with ‘A’!) two years later. Some Lincoln Highway and National Road mileage is included along with some historic lodging.
This entry is to let blog-only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
I headed south on Saturday morning to ride a train, stay in some old motels, and look at some roadside attractions. Same as it ever was.
This entry is to let blog-only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
After two years of cancelations, it was sure nice to take in a historic highway conference in early June. That event was for the Jefferson Highway and now I get to do it again for the Lincoln Highway. This conference is being held in Joliet, Illinois. I drove here today from my home in Cincinnati, and am looking forward to bus tours and presentations for the next three days. Seeing familiar faces sure does a body good.
This entry is to let blog-only subscribers know about the trip and to provide a place for comments. The journal is here.
I’m on my way to a conference and it feels a little strange. The last time this happened was June 13, 2019, when I set out from home to attend the Lincoln Highway Association Conference in Rock Springs, Wyoming. I spent six days getting to that conference but will spend less than three getting to this one. The journal is here with the first day posted: