Outward Bound
Let me preface this recap by stating that this was an automobile tour designed to see as much of this wonderful country as possible in the allotted time. We did not need to get someplace to start our vacation, the drive WAS our vacation. The places we went to were not our destination, HOME was our destination. We traveled 8,199 miles in 17 days and we planned it in such a way that much of our travel time was at night in places we had been to before and we maintained enough flexibility that we could alter our route as circumstances changed, and they did.
We left Riverside on Friday evening and saw our first and only automobile accident on the way up the Cajon grade as we drove out of San Bernardino. The first leg of our trip was a marathon run to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It was a grueling 24-hour drive on I-15 with just a short stop in Salt Lake City to visit the Mormon capitol. As we approached Las Vegas, the glow of the casino lights could be seen in the night sky from a distance of more than 30 miles. Having traveled the Nevada desert on many occasions, it did not bother me to miss that monotonous terrain again so we drove through the night arriving in Salt Lake City on a bright and sunny Saturday morning.
I have always wondered why Brigham Young would have chosen such a desolate location for his new Zion, but that question was answered when we drove through the beautiful Wasatch mountain range just to the east of Salt Lake City. These are the mountains that are home to so many famous ski areas such as Park City, Alta, and Deer Valley, all of which I have had the pleasure of skiing in years past.
After a brief visit to the state capitol building and the Mormon tabernacle, we continued our journey easterly on I-80, through the town of Evanston, Wyoming until we reached the junction of US-189, at which point we turned north. It was late in the afternoon by the time we reached the town of Jackson (sometimes referred to as Jackson Hole) Wyoming, where we got a room in the center of town so we would be within walking distance of this quaint and historic mountain community. We retired early to rest from our long drive but we were up at dawn for breakfast at one of the many locally owned restaurants and spent several hours walking the “old town” section” of Jackson and shopping in the myriad of stores catering to the tourist crowd. The weather was perfect, with temperatures in the mid seventies and a cloudless sky. That was soon to change.
We left Jackson before noon and headed north on US-191 through Grand Teton National Park, taking the scenic loop at Moose Junction for a better view of the Grand Teton mountain range. We followed the bypass to beautiful Jenny Lake and reconnected with US-191 at Jackson Lake Junction. On the Wednesday before we left, I had watched Alan Ladd in the movie “Shane” (I just love that final showdown at the end of the movie when Alan Ladd takes out Jack Palance in a gunfight). The movie was shot in and around the Grand Tetons and they show up clearly in many scenes. The weather closed in on us as we drove through the park and much of the ensuing trip was under cloud cover. Actually this was a blessing as it kept the blazing sun from scorching us as we drove.
It was only a short drive through the Tetons before we soon found ourselves in the adjacent park of Yellowstone! Yellowstone is typically a tourist destination and even a week or two here would not suffice to see all of its grandeurs, but it was only a pathway for our trip so we did not spend much time beyond seeing the famous geyser, “Old Faithful.” We entered the lower loop and turned west to take in the geyser, the “Grand Prismatic Spring,” and “Gibbon Falls” and then took the connector road between the two loops toward the east, until we reached Canyon Village. At this point, my original plan was to head south to the east entrance and pick up US-14 through Cody and on to I-90, but the scenic route through Tower Junction at the northeast section of the park was more alluring. It turned out to be a good decision.
We turned north at Canyon Village and exited the park at Tower Junction, intending to reconnect with our original route at the town of Cody, but the drive was so stupendous that we soon changed our plans again! We would not go to Cody, but instead turned north on US-212 toward Montana. It was on this route that we got our first glimpse of the buffalo herds that the park is famous for. They were a distance off, but not so far that my telephoto lens on my new Nikon D-90 could not capture them.
After a short drive on US 296 from Tower Junction, we turned north on US-212 through Beartooth Pass in the Shoshone National Forest. Although this route was extremely winding with many dangerous curves with few guard rails, we found ourselves stopping very often to take in the views that seemed to change around every curve. We stopped so much that we probably could have made better time on foot, but someone had to drive the car. I have to say that I have never seen such beautiful landscape in all my travels. We stopped for lunch in Cooke City, Montana at the “Buns ‘N’ Beds” restaurant where the food was cooked outside on the BBQ’s. The place was obviously owned by a Pittsburgh Steeler fan as there was memorabilia all over the walls. The food was great!
Upon leaving the forest, we finally connected with I-90 near Billings, Montana and followed it through the Crow Indian Reservation to the Custer monument at the Little Big Horn Battlefield. We arrived there late in the afternoon and stood on the hill overlooking the Little Bighorn River, and just a few feet from the spot where General Custer and a few of his men fell. It was a moving experience to see all the white monuments marking the spots where the soldiers fell in battle. They were scattered all over the hillsides, sometimes alone and other times in small groups. On the back of the hills are a few markers for the men who were holding the horses before they were ambushed and killed so the horses could be scattered. It was a very moving experience to sit there in the silence of the late afternoon and imagine the chaos that had taken place there almost 135 years before.
At the suggestion of the park ranger at the Little Bighorn, we once again altered our route and, once again, took US-212 in lieu of I-90 and headed east toward the Black Hills of South Dakota and Mt. Rushmore, and thereby saving an hour of driving time.
It was late by the time we entered the town of Spearfish, South Dakota, just a few miles short of Sturgis and Rapid City. We chose that location because it was on the edge of the Black Hills and ideal for an early morning drive through the park. We started on route 14A which was an easy drive through deep canyons and followed a beautiful little stream for most of its length. 14A eventually took us to the town of Deadwood, where the infamous Wild Bill Hickock met his waterloo. I found my way to the “10” saloon where the fabled incident took place but modern conveniences had robbed it of most of its charm.
We followed highway 14A back to I-90 and turned south toward Mt. Rushmore, which was about 35 miles away. With the overcast skies following us, I had some concern that the monument might be shrouded in clouds. I need not have worried. We arrived early in the day and the sunshine, as if on cue, broke through the clouds for the first time since we left Yellowstone Park. There is not a lot to do at Mt. Rushmore after you’ve taken the obligatory photos and visited the gift shop (I splurged on a cap) so we returned to I-90 and headed east once again.
I wanted to see the small town in the northern part of South Dakota where my father was raised by a German family after his father abandoned all the kids. The town was Eureka, and I chose a route to get there that took us through Pierre, the state capitol. US-14 took us off the main route and into the midst of more sunflowers than I have ever seen! I am not exaggerating when I say that there were sunflowers as far as the eye could see on both sides of the road, and they continued for more than a hundred miles! What in the world are we doing with that many sunflowers? Sunflowers everywhere, all with their heads bowed as if in silent prayer. Maybe that is because the sun was not out? Don’t sunflowers follow the sun during the day? In either case, it was an amazing sight to see. Route 14 connected to US-83 at Pierre and we turned north at that point. We followed US-14 until it connected with US-12 where we turned east. It was only a short distance from there to state highway 47 that took us in to Eureka.
Eureka is a very small town even today, and the part that existed when my father lived there in 1928 was even smaller. The railroad tracks had long been torn up, but it was not difficult to find the old station house where I imagined my father hopping freight trains on his many trips to the west coast as a young boy of 14 or 15 years of age. It had been raining shortly before we arrived, and we saw strange looking creatures flopping around on the roadways. A closer look revealed them to be salamanders. I had never seen one before and found them to be a little creepy.
The town of Eureka seemed almost deserted. They had a visitor center and the door was open, but nobody was on duty. We heard a siren and wondered if it was not a tornado alert and everyone but us was in a shelter. We did not see a single soul until we drove to where the railway station used to be and were relieved that there were others up and about. We followed state highway 10 out of town until it connected with US-281 where we turned south to reconnect with US-12. We stayed on US-12 all the way to Willmar, Minnesota where we changed to state highway 23 for the final push to St. Cloud, and nearby Becker, Minnesota where we spent the night and the next day and night with my brother and his family.
In all the driving, from Salt Lake City to Becker, Minnesota, we had spent less than two hundred miles on the interstate highways system. We passed through many small towns with architecture reminiscent of the 1920’s. Many of the building actually had dates imbedded in their stone facades. Remnants of the early 20th century were everywhere. They were in the buildings, bridges, streetlights, and many old farm structures that were slowly giving way to the weather and gravity. Seeing these windows to the past was, for the most part, what this automobile tour was designed for. I couldn’t get enough of it and it was a treat to get to the next town to see what historical marvels it would present.
When we departed from my brother’s home in Becker, we made a short stop at a small cemetery in St. Paul, on county road B, just west of William Street. I had made some inquiries to the Roseville Historical Society before we started this trip and only received information while at my brother’s home that my grandfather on my dad’s side was buried there. The name of the cemetery has changed several times, but it is generally known as the Rosedale or Dale/Rice cemetery. Obviously, the name has some connection to the community of Roseville and the two streets that approximately border it, Dale and Rice streets.
Sadly, the cemetery is in disrepair and records of burials do not provide plot locations. I spent about two hours walking the rows and in some cases having to clean off the markers to read the names but did not find my grandfather. Many of the markers were not vertical and grass had grown over many of them making identification even more difficult. I did not have the time to conduct a thorough search. At least I had finally discovered where he was buried, if not the exact plot.
The next leg of our tour would be almost exclusively on the interstate system. We took US-52 out of Minneapolis/St. Paul and headed south until it connected with I-90 near Rochester, Minnesota. From there we followed I-90 into Wisconsin, passing through Madison along the way. We stayed on I-90 into Rockford and Chicago, Illinois and on to Gary, Indiana and all the way through Ohio, “rolling into Cleveland to the lake” (a line from an old Randy Newman song) at two in the morning. I immediately knew why Randy Newman referred to Cleveland as the “City of Lights,” It was lit up like a Christmas tree. I don’t know what it looks like in the daylight, but Cleveland is a stunning spectacle at night.
Continuing on I-90 we crossed a small segment of Pennsylvania and passed by the lakefront metropolis of Erie. Had I reached this location during daylight hours, I might have stopped in historic Erie, but I was there in the middle of the night, and I needed to be in Whitehall, NY by the following evening. By the time the sun rose, we were in Syracuse, NY and decided to visit Rome, the town we lived in when I was stationed there with the military in 1968. We found the Mohawk Garden Apartments where we lived and took some time to reminisce about our days there. Amazingly, things had not changed much even though Griffis Air Base had been an early casualty of the base closings and was now a public community of its own.
Rome, NY is also where we, once again, left the interstate system and ventured onto secondary roads. Our original plan was to stay on I-90 all the way to Albany, and then take US-4 north to Whitehall, NY. As it turned out, we departed Rome on state highway 365 until it connected with state highway 8. We stayed on 8 until it connected with state highway 22 which we took south to Whitehall. We stayed the night in Whitehall, NY.
The next morning, we began our trek across Vermont and New Hampshire, hoping against hope that we would get lucky and see some “Fall” colors even though we were about six weeks too early. Our original plan was to follow US-4 across Vermont, exiting the state near White River Junction and then to enter New Hampshire on I-89. We would have stayed on I-89 until it connected with state highway 11 which we would have followed east through the town of Laconia. At that point, the plan was to use US-3 and state highway 25 to get to state highway 16 which was the recommended route to take north for viewing the “fall” colors.
In Vermont, we followed US-4, passed through the town of Rutland, and made it as far as Killington before we accepted the fact that we were far too early to see the changing of the leaves. At that point, we changed our plans again and, at the suggestion of a local shopkeeper, headed north through the Green Mountain National Forest on state highway 100. It was a magnificent drive through beautiful forests filled with roadside waterfalls and many ancient barn structures, weathered and worn, leaning almost to the point of collapse, and only a few feet off the road. Some were so close to the road you could almost reach out and touch them as you passed by.
We ended our northward trek on state highway 100 at the town of Johnson which was about 90 miles directly north of Killington. Johnson is famous for its woolen mills that produce a special weave that is tight enough to repel rainwater. Supposedly, they are the originators of the black and colored, checked pattern that is so universally associated with the northern lumberjack. The price of their goods and the fact that we lived in sunny California prevented us from purchasing anything. A simple shirt could cost anywhere from $170 to $300! I guess if you are a lumberjack you would need it, but I didn’t.
From the town of Johnson, we took state highway 15 toward the southeast until it connected to US-2, at which point we turned northeast toward the Vermont town of St. Johnsbury. We stayed on US-2 as it meandered for 34 miles across New Hampshire, passing through Lancaster and Gorham. The state of New Hampshire is really narrow when you are that far north. All of this was a really beautiful drive, until we reached the state of Maine, then things changed rather abruptly. It was like we had entered one big dilapidated “trailer park.” Instead of quaint farmsteads with manicured pastures, we were suddenly surrounded by mobile homes, all of which had trashy yards with abandoned automobiles everywhere. A good example can be seen in the “Street View” on Google Earth at Longitude –70.7397, Latitude 44.4173. There were a few exceptions, but for the most part, northern Maine is not a pretty place.
We stayed on US-2 all the way to Bangor, Maine, passing through Bethel, Farmington, and Pittsfield before we stopped at a nice hotel in Bangor before proceeding on to Bar Harbor the next morning. It was just a short drive on US-alt 1 to the town of Ellsworth and state highway 2 that would take us into Bar Harbor. Bar Harbor (pronounced “Bah Haba” by the locals) is a very quaint fishing village located in the Acadia National Park. No one goes to Bar Harbor or, Maine for that matter, without indulging in a Lobster dinner, and Bar Harbor is where I indulged myself. Gail, being allergic to shellfish had to settle for what she described as the best calamari she ever tasted. The lobster was good, but what stood out in the culinary department was the clam chowder. I wish I could have brought some home with me. Gail and I spent most of the day browsing the shops of Bar Harbor and then took some time to tour the rest of the Island, visiting the “lighthouse” at Bass Harbor. The lighthouse was really not much of a lighthouse at all, but just a short structure with a beacon on it operated by the Coast Guard. Acadia National Park was nice, but by this time we had seen so many trees that we actually wanted to cut some of them down so we could get a better view of some of the other sights.
We departed Bah Haba late in the afternoon by the same route we had used to come in, at least as far as Ellsworth. At Ellsworth we turned south on US-1 and followed the coast all the way through Maine and New Hampshire until it connected to I-95 near the border of Massachusetts. As we turned south, the state of Maine completely changed character. Suddenly the homes were elaborate with manicured lawns, and not so much as a scrap of paper blowing around in the wind. This change was especially apparent as we approached Kennebunkport, the vacation spot of the rich and famous.
From the time we left Bar Harbor, the road was almost congested with bikers on their Harleys. We estimated the average age of this geriatric biker crowd to be about 60 years old, and guessed there would be a glut of Harleys on the market in the “not too distant” future as these baby boomer bikers retired to their rocking chairs.
Our original intent was to bypass Boston and avoid the infamous traffic clogs but since we arrived there on a Sunday we estimated the traffic would not be too bad and we took the plunge, visiting Bunker Hill, the site of the first full battle of the Revolutionary War. The site was so congested with buildings that it was not possible to view it from a strategic angle that would allow a mental replay of that famous encounter. We moved on to Braintree, the ancestral home of John Adams, our second president and then on to Plymouth and the famous Rock. Boston, Braintree, Plymouth, and Cape Cod are all places that would take weeks to explore, and it is the one area on this entire trip that I would like to return to for an extended visit. Standing in Plymouth and looking out across Cape Cod Bay to the tip of the peninsula at Provincetown is a sight to behold. Imagining that little ship, the Mayflower, dropping anchor out there and the Pilgrims scouting along the shoreline for food and signs of life.
When I first read of the landing, I thought the Pilgrims followed the shoreline around the peninsula because they could not see the mainland, but it was obvious that they must have had an unobstructed view. I guess the captain, Christopher Jones, felt safer in the deep water at the end of the peninsula. Eventually, the Pilgrims ventured across the Bay in their small skiffs and, as we all know, settled the town they named Plymouth. Plymouth is the home of Leyden Street, America’s first street! Leyden Street leads to the town square and Hilltop cemetery where many of the original settlers are buried. We spent most of the day in Plymouth and did not have time to drive the 75 miles out onto the peninsula to see the actual landing spot. Our time was limited and I thought I needed to press on but in hindsight I wish I had added the day it would have taken to make that side trip. So much to see, so little time, sigh.
We found our way to US-44 and followed it to Providence, Rhode Island, at which point we jumped on I-95 for a quick run to Baltimore, Maryland. The I-95 passes right by Warwick, Rhode Island, a community founded by one of my ancestors, Samuel Gorton. It was Roger Williams, Ann Hutchinson, and Samuel Gorton who were branded as religious dissidents and banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The founding of Rhode Island was the result of that banishment.
In Baltimore, we stayed at a hotel in the “Inner Harbor” district and had dinner in “Little Italy” at Ristorante Italiano “La Scala.” We visited the USS Constellation, built in 1854 and used during the Civil War. The original Constellation, built in 1794 was used to subdue the Barbary pirates operating out of Algiers in the Mediterranean and was the second ship built for the U.S. Navy.
The final leg of our outward journey was the U.S. capitol of Washington in the District of Columbia. Again, several weeks would not be enough to take in all the offerings of this city so we had to condense our visit to the offerings of the Capitol Mall. Even that was a trial for these old legs, but we managed it. The Washington Monument was much larger than I had imagined, as was the mall itself. It was 0.8 miles between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial on the banks of the Potomac River.
Being a novice historian, I felt like I was drowning in history as we traveled the east coast. The very soul of this country was evident everywhere you turned. It’s beginnings in Jamestown, Plymouth, and Boston, and it’s struggle for survival during the War of 1812 at Fort McHenry in Baltimore. The struggle for unity during the Civil War was expressed over a larger area but began, for us in Washington D.C. and didn’t end until we emerged from the Midwest near Hillsdale, Iowa where we found the small (less than half an acre) Hillsdale cemetery where my great, great grandmother and two of her step-brothers are buried. The two step-brothers had both served in the Union army, Johnathan in Co. A, 4th Iowa Infantry, and William in Co. K, 29th Iowa Infantry.
Luckily, before we left California, I had used Google Earth to locate the cemetery and measure it’s distance from roadway landmarks. I thought it would be easy to find, but when we arrived in the area there were so many options that we had to return to the junction of US-34/US275 and measure our distance to the correct turning point. From there we again measured our distance to where the cemetery should have been, but we found ourselves in a roadway that had been cut through a high hill, and we had high ground on either side of us and could not see the cemetery. Moving a few feet farther we saw the sign “Hillsdale Cemetery” and breathed a sigh of relief. The site was on the hilltop on the left side of the road, right above where we had driven. The cemetery was so small that it only took a few minutes to find their final resting places.
Finding our way in and out of large cities was not always an easy task but we had purchased a Garmin GPS device before we started out and it proved almost indispensable in places like Washington D.C. and Baltimore. It had to be watched closely on the open road because it had a tendency to take the shortest route to whatever destination you entered, whether the road was paved or not! Anyway, it successfully guided us in and out of many large cities and I made a decision to read the instruction more carefully before our next journey.
