Day 6: Missouri and Indiana

February 9, 2021February 13, 2021 steveboilard1 Comment

Editor’s note: Given limited travel opportunities these days, I decided each Thursday to post travel stories I’d written prior to starting this blog. The following is from a cross-country trip I made along the length of US 50 in the spring of 2018. I hope you might vicariously enjoy this trip while we’re all hunkering down at home. Because this is a longer trip (a week and a half), I’m going to post each of the daily entries over each of the next 10 days.

I think I’ve achieved the Zen of US 50. There’s something very freeing—what the current argot might call “in the moment” – about living for almost a week on this road. In some ways, it’s ever-changing–—passing through 12 states, four time zones, countless communities, and various climates and topographies. It reveals the diversity at least of some of America. Unlike an interstate, which studiously avoids small towns, US 50 seamlessly wends its way through the middle of communities, with houses lining either side of the road. In many communities, US 50 is literally “Main Street.”

Despite revealing enormous diversity of our country, US 50 is also a very constant companion. It’s primarily a two-lane ribbon of asphalt with standardized signage. At this point, after driving it for over 2,000 miles, I recognize the familiar “feel” of 50. One of you asked me if I need to use GPS to keep up with all the twists and turns. The answer is no—US 50 is extremely well marked. You know when you’re on it. I haven’t gotten lost once. And, as you know, for me, that’s saying something.

This morning I passed through the greater St. Louis metro area and then crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois, where the countryside is remarkably green and open. It was a very calming and pleasant drive through the state, and soon I found myself in southern Illinois. I’ve noticed that the communities (that is, at least the ones along US 50) seem to be tidy, well-kept, solid communities. This contrasts with the ghost towns of Nevada and the worn, dying communities of eastern Colorado and Kansas. In Illinois I stopped at an Amish restaurant, nestled in an Amish community replete with simple farms and horse-drawn buggies. The lunch wasn’t great, but the dessert (peanut butter pie) made it worth it. I explained to the waitress that I was traveling all of US 50. She seemed confused, not quite understanding what this entailed, and why I would do it. But she wished me safe travels anyway.

After driving through Indiana all afternoon I stopped for dinner in Lawrenceburg, which sits right on the Ohio River. The road had flirted with the River a little bit before I arrived in Lawrenceburg, so I wasn’t quite sure whether I was now on the Indiana side or the Ohio side. I asked my waitress if I was in Ohio, and she burst out laughing. “No!” she spluttered. “We’re in Indiana!” Now, maybe they don’t get many tourists, but surely it’s not that unreasonable to not know which side of the river you’re on, when you’re 2000 miles from home. Changing the subject, I asked what kind of dark beers she had on tap, and she offered me a lager (which is so light it barely qualifies as beer). Undaunted, I ordered dinner (and a milk stout). When she returned with my meal, the waitress noticed my atlas and asked where I was heading. I told her I was driving US 50 coast to coast. “50 doesn’t go coast to coast!” she proclaimed. “It’s just in Indiana!” I showed her on the map that US 50 does indeed span the country. She seemed astonished. She called to another waitress to come over and get a load of this. “Can you believe it? Our 50 starts in California!”

After dinner I did in fact cross the river and enter Ohio proper. US 50 skirts around Cincinnati, but I did get a glimpse of what can only be described as the Rust Belt, replete with rusty railroad bridges and other decaying infrastructure. Very quickly, however, the road entered hilly, forested land which felt like I was in the Santa Cruz mountains. I ended up stopping in Athens, OH for tonight.

And now, a few photos from the day:

Cool abandoned bridge, originally built in 1923, that US 50 used to run across in western Illinois.

North Vernon, IN. The age, style, and condition of the downtown buildings is typical of the towns I saw today.

Butlerville, IN. The road in this photo is US 50.

Ohio & Mississippi RR Depot in Aurora, IN. Originally constructed in 1854, now nicely restored.

Frisch’s Big Boy in Milford, OH. When I was growing up in the south bay area, there was a chain called *Bob’s* Big Boy. They even had a “big boy” statuette, similar to this one. The full story is here.

…and don’t forget to turn your engine off when you get to your destination.

bridges · Cars · Road trips · Uncategorized

Day 5: Kansas and Missouri

February 8, 2021February 13, 2021 steveboilard3 Comments

Here’s a picture of the first grain elevator I saw this morning, heading east out of Larkin, KS:

And here’s a picture of the second grain elevator I saw:

Now, multiply those pictures by 100, and you get a sense of the scenery along US 50 through Kansas. Seriously. It’s flat, with lots of open space and no trees, and periodic, looming grain elevators. I suppose there’s some kind of charm to the monotony. But monotonous it was.

Breakfast was at Richie’s Café in Cimmaron. I was craving a good cup of strong, fresh-brewed, artisan coffee, a toasted bagel and cream cheese, and some good juice. The outside of the place didn’t look promising, but it was the only game in town. I entered the double doors, and found myself in a small, dark anteroom with another set of double doors. These I opened, and stepped into a large, windowless auditorium with ancient wood flooring. It looked like the place where the Peanuts put on their Christmas pageant in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” In the middle of the room were rows of long tables surrounded by folding chairs. A group of about eight people, all of retirement age and none with a healthy body mass index, where chatting over coffee and a couple of empty plates. They evidently had been there awhile. The waitress (if that’s the correct term) brought me a menu, which I searched in vain for my artisan coffee and bagel and juice. I had to settle for a greasy breakfast taco. I was back in the Yaris and on the road within 10 minutes.

I suppose it’s fair to say that there wasn’t a lot notable about Kansas. I was looking forward to Dodge City (pop: 27,000), which is on my route, but just about all traces of the old west there are contained in museums or reconstructed facsimiles. It felt too touristy for this trip. I did stop at a grocery store in the town of Meridian (pop: 813). You haven’t truly heard laughter until you’ve asked a Kansan if they have Naked Juice.

Oh, I also made a stop to check out an old 19^th century stone arch bridge in the town of Clements (pop: 0). The bridge crosses the Cottonwood River in an idyllic setting. I think I may have walked through poison ivy to take the photo, so I hope you appreciate it!

So, that’s about it for Kansas. After I got to Emporia, US 50 again merged with an Interstate (I-35), which sped me toward Kansas City. Soon I was in Missouri. Once I left behind the congestion of KC, the drive became quite pleasant. Missouri is a greener, hillier state than Kansas.

I stopped in Jefferson City at the state Capitol, which was unfortunately being renovated. It appears to be much larger than California’s Capitol. It strikes me that US 50 goes through four state capitals as well as the country’s capital. That seems to be a testament to how important the road was when it was originally designated.

I was enjoying the drive when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a Studebaker truck parked in a driveway. I stopped on the side of the road, and asked the two old guys sitting on the front porch of a tidy brick home whether they owned the truck. One of them (whose name turned out to be Roy) claimed ownership, and came down from his porch to show it off, opening the hood to reveal the small-block Chevy engine he had dropped into it. He had bought the truck about three years ago, and as he used to teach body work at the local technical school, he had no problem fixing up the truck. Roy retired 11 years ago, and when he isn’t working on his Studebaker, he’s sitting on his front porch with his friend Dean “counting cars as they pass.”

Studebaker owners’ motto: We’d rather fix than switch. (Youngsters can learn the reference here.)

Dean lives across the street, and after I had praised Roy’s Studebaker, Dean insisted that we go over to his place to check out his 1950 Chevy convertible. We walked over, and Dean pulled the car out of the enormous, warehouse-like garage so that I could see it in the sunlight. It was a beauty. He then invited me into the garage to see his other cars (3 or 4 of them, including a Mustang convertible).

After thanking Roy and Dean for the tour, I got back in the Yaris with a bit of embarrassment, and made the final leg of today’s trip, to Union, MO (just west of St. Louis).