Roads to Drive: September 2006

September may mark the end of summer, but for many it means peak season for road trips. Since schools are back in session there are fewer crowds and cars on the roads, while in most places the weather can be as nice as any time of year. Coastal areas often experience what used to be called (in pre-PC times...) "Indian Summer", while in the mountains the trees begin their famous "fall color" transformation from leafy green to fiery red and gold.

So now is the time to plan one last great trip for 2006, and here are a few ideas of where to go.

Drive of the Month: Olympic Peninsula
The end of summer is perhaps the best time to take a tour of the amazing region around Seattle. Not only are rains unlikely to dampen your day, September in Seattle means it's time for Bumbershoot, the unlikely-named Labor Day Weekend (September 1st-4th) festival of live music, art, and poetry that’s been a blast for 35 years. Bumbershoot is held at the Seattle Center, where the landmark Space Needle stands near the voluptuous curves of the Experience Music Project, dedicated to local guitar god Jimi Hendrix. Seattle itself is a fantastically fun place to visit, and makes a great base for exploring the mountains, islands, and volcanoes that surround the Puget Sound. Heading east, take US-2 over the Cascade Mountains to Lake Chelan, the Ohme Gardens, or Grand Coulee Dam. Heading west, hop a ferry past the magical San Juan Islands to the historic towns of Port Gamble and Port Townsend. Continuing along, loop around the rugged peaks of Olympic National Park, where glaciers and mountain lakes rise high above the mossy green foothill jungles of the Hoh River Rainforest. Hikers will have a field day--or longer--here, but you can also relax along the shores of fjord-like Lake Crescent or wander along the driftwood-strewn sands of Kalaloch Beach. Another attraction are the grand lodges at Lake Crescent and the forests of Lake Quinault.

And if fabulous festivals and stunning scenery aren't enough, you can also share in the celebrations of two very different Pacific Northwest cultures: At the northwest tip of the continent, the Makah Indians have established a wonderful museum at Neah Bay, while further south on the shores of Gray's Harbor, the rough-hewn town of Hoquiam hosts the "Loggers Playday," a September 9th showcase of chainsaw carving, log-rolling, and other lumberjacking skills.

Meanwhile, up in Maine:
Fall color peaks almost everywhere in October, but by the middle of the September leaves in northern New England have usually started to turn. There are many great "fall color" roads all over the eastern USA, but it's hard to beat a driving tour along the Appalachian Trail, which starts atop Mount Katahdin and makes its way south to Springer Mountain in northern Georgia. In September, some of the best "leaf-peeping" spots are found in northwestern Maine, between the prep school town of Bethel and the mill town of Rumford. Try Hwy-26 through Grafton Notch, Hwy-17 along the Swift River toward Rangeley Lakes, or Hwy-113 up to Evans Notch.

Out West:
Before the snows start to fall, enjoy a last taste of a Wild West summer by driving scenic US-93 in the 200-year-old footsteps of Lewis and Clark. Cruise through the ruggedly beautiful canyons and vallleys of Montana and Idaho. While you're here, meat-eaters might like to enjoy a taste of western hospitality: from noon on Saturday September 16th, the town of Mackay Idaho has a massive "Free BBQ," with all the beef you can eat.

Summer Travel = Stormy Weather?

Labor Day marks the traditional end of summer, and many Americans are planning one last escape to the beach before schools start up again. But if you’re traveling to the Outer Banks, the Jersey Shore the Sea Islands or anywhere else along the Atlantic Coast sometime soon, be aware that you may encounter one of Mother Nature’s most powerful phenomena, the hurricane. All across the southeastern US, hurricane season begins in June and lasts through November, and the threat of a storm can put a sudden end to the summer fun. The current tropical storm, Debby, looks likely to grow to hurricane force while staying away from landfall, but travelers and residents of coastal areas should definitely pay attention to storm warnings. Radio and TV stations broadcast these updates whenever stormy weather threatens, and if you hear one heed it and head inland to higher ground.

Hurricanes are tropical storms which form over the Atlantic Ocean as far away as Africa, covering upwards of 400 square miles. Hurricane winds reach speeds of 75 to 150 mph or more, and even more dangerous than the high winds of a hurricane is the storm surge--a dome of ocean water that can be 20 feet high at its peak, and 50 to 100 miles wide. Ninety percent of hurricane fatalities are attributable to the high waves of a storm surge, which can wash away entire beaches and intensify flooding in low-lying areas (like New Orleans, or New York City) many miles from the ocean. The strongest hurricane recorded in the United States was the Labor Day storm of 1935, which killed 500 people and destroyed the Florida Keys Railroad. More recent East Coast hurricanes include Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which killed 54 people and caused more than $25 billion worth of damage across southern Florida, and the multiple ‘canes that pounded Florida in 2004. Last year saw the most stroms in history, including the Hurricane Katrina disaster at the end of August, which killed some 1,800 people and caused over $120 billion in damage. Katrina pointed the storm-watching spotlight back along the Gulf coast, which was the location of the deadliest US hurricane ever: in 1900, back before stroms were given proper names, a hurricane hit Galveston Island, Texas, killing more than 6,000 people--the worst natural disaster in American history.

Classic Cars, Classic Setting



In my travels around the USA, I keep my eyes, ears and nose tuned in search of great local food and drink, interesting historic sites, fun, twisty roads and twilight baseball games... all sorts of stuff, as you can tell from Road Trip USA. I also stop for eye-catching cars, of all makes and models, and if you are into cars you'll know all about a big event coming up in California this weekend: the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance


Now in its 56th year, the Pebble Beach Concours is the creme de la creme of car shows -- and a celebration of snootiness as well, as you can guess from the rampant Francophilia. But all the money raised from the (~ $150 + !) admission fees goes to charity, and the cars on display are true classics, magnificently restored and rare to the point of being truly unique. The show takes place Sunday August 20th on the 18th hole of the famed Pebble Beach golf course, near historic Monterey and right off the famed 17 Mile Drive.

While I (to be honest...) have never been there in person I do love to read about and admire the pictures of the magnificent machines on display, like this one, last year's "Best of Show" winner, a 1937 Delage D8-120 S Pourtout Aréo Coupé:

See Jane Go!


For those of you who have trouble making decisions, travel writer Jane Woodridge of the Miami Herald is taking a novel approach to cross-country road trips: she will go wherever you tell her to go. Blazing yet another new trail here in the cyberspace blogosphere, Jane will be driving between Miami and Seattle, blogging all the way and -- here's the clever part -- she'll be following reader suggestions of where she should go and what she should see and do in places like Nashville, Memphis, St. Louis, KC, and Montana's Glacier National Park.

She is setting off on Sunday, August 20, and throughout her leisurely 30-day trek will be posting daily blogs and taking reader advice at her "Travels With Jane" blog.

So "Vote today", and help her on her way!

Back Seat Driver

One of our dear readers (Dennis B. Petersen of faraway Denmark) posted a comment the other day pointing me to another funny road trip website. This one is fully animated, composed of some 12,000 snapshots taken from the back seat of a car as it is driven from Portland Oregon to somewhere in New Hampshire, back in June 2003. Pictures were snapped every 10 seconds for 5 days, and the whole viewing experience takes less than 10 minutes. Food and rest stops have been left in, but the overnights in motel parking spaces have been kindly edited out.

Alas, the route follows Interstate Highways most of the way, and so the movie vividly documents what the late great Charles Kuralt once said -- that Interstates let you drive all the way across the country without seeing anything -- but it's still captivating. (And a good lesson about how "blue highway" road trips are superior to the fast-lane long-haul!)

On The Road


“I thought of all my friends from one end of the country to the other and how they were really all in the same backyard doing something so frantic and rushing about. And for the first time in my life, the following afternoon, I went into the West."

-- Jack Kerouac, leaving for Colorado and California via Chicago circa 1947

Bringing Kerouac’s mid-Twentieth Century odyssey into the Internet age, a neat little website charts his “On The Road” tour using Google maps. Working like a kind of interactive hitchhiker's guide to the novel, the low-frills site traces the bard of the Beat Generation’s route from NYC to Denver, and links places along the way to quotes from his classic text.

If you want to tour some of Kerouac’s haunts, I follow in the footsteps of Jack (or at least his fictional alter-ego Sal Paradise…) in parts of Road Trip USA – most closely at Bear Mountain NY, in the Appalachian Trail chapter.

Real fans will want to visit Kerouac’s grave, in his hometown Lowell Massachusetts, especially during the “Lowell Celebrates Kerouac” festival, in early October.

You gotta love a guy wanted to “… be strange and ragged and like the Prophet who has walked across the land to bring the dark Word, and the only Word I had was 'Wow!'... “

Wow, indeed.