NY Times Hits the Road

If you’re getting ready for a road trip and want to get in the spirit, or if you like the idea of hitting the road but can't spare the time or money right now, hop in the virtual driver's seat and tag along a twelve-week, who-knows -how-many- 1000s-of-mile-journey around the continental USA. Funded by the New York Times travel section with a $100-a-day budget, and cruising the backroads and byways in an elderly Volvo wagon, the Frugal Traveler (aka Matt Gross) is taking the long way home, driving between New York City and Seattle.

The route seems open to suggestion, from readers and the roads alike, and so far it’s been a fairly down-to-earth trip, as Matt stops to take photos of old “Mail Pouch Tobacco” barns, eat fried chicken in Georgia and sip whiskey in Kentucky, listen to handmade music in Iowa, and generally enjoy the delights of the American Road.

Follow his progress, which is documented in stories, photos and videos, by clicking here:

(You may need to register to see the whole shebang!)

Happy Trails, and Happy Summer!

Pony Express Rides Again!

Still on the subject of “living history”, yesterday saw the start of one of the most ambitious historical reenactments in the USA: the annual “re-ride” of the entire Pony Express trail, between St. Joseph Missouri and Sacramento California. Teams of riders, horses and support crews are tracing the entire 1,966-mile route, riding around the clock just as they did in the early 1860s, when the Pony Express had its brief but fabled heyday. While the riders themselves pass through at a very quick pace, there are numerous activities all along the route, so if you’re interested and in the area, join in the fun and help celebrate an American legend.

Today (June 12th), the riders will be passing through North Platte, Nebraska, the home of Buffalo Bill, perhaps the most famous of all the Pony Express riders.

On Friday June 14th, the re-ride will pass through the fascinating stretch through Glenrock and Casper, Wyoming – home of the Bureau of Land Management's National Historic Trails Interpretive Center.

And next week, June 19-20th, the route follows the longest, wildest and loneliest stretch – across the Great Basin deserts of Utah and Nevada, right alongside the famous “Loneliest Road in America,” US-50.

After this, the riders skirt the alpine gambling dens of South Lake Tahoe, then race down the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento, where the riders are expected to reach “Old Sacramento” at 11:30am on June 21st.

To follow the progress, check out the official National Pony Express Association website.

This Day in History

There's something captivating about stories that begin with words like "100 Years ago today...", or even "Four score and seven years ago..." It makes me want to read more -- and sometimes even gets me to think about things that happened a while ago, seemed important at the time but maybe have faded into the mystery of history. Over the years I have made many efforts to stand on the very spot where big things happened, and if I could get there on the anniversary of the actual day, so much the better.

I've been trying to decide whether the "This Day in History..." approach offers anything more than an easy way to draw readers into a story, but even if that's all it does -- well, that works for me. So here goes -- a rundown of road trip themes and story ideas I am grabbing and tying together under this not-so-original, calendrical rubric.

I got started on this a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed that the same date, May 23rd, is the anniversary of two significant but (as far as I can tell..) completely unconnected events. The first event occured back in 1934, and offers a compelling mix of pop culture and criminality: the day that Depression-era bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde met their makers in a hail of bullets, on a lonely road outside Gibsland, Louisiana. Most attractively remembered in the 1960s Hollywood movie starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, the infamous pair have inspired a small museum and an annual festival which includes a full range of all-American evnts: a Lions Club pancake breakfast, a parade with live bands, and theatrically noisy displays of firepower and automatic weapons.

The other key event on that May 23rd date took place a few years earlier, in the very different world of "Roaring Twenties": Charles Lindbergh and his 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, from Long Island to Paris. The "road trip" interest here is a bit more of a stretch, however. Lindbergh's childhood home in Minnesota is a fascinating stop along a lovely section of the Great River Road, but what I like about his story comes just before his famous achievement. Before he flew across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis, he trained by flying cross-country around the USA -- finding his way by reading from a Rand McNally road atlas, spread out on his lap. Oh, those were the days...

(** NB: Once I'd posted this, I checked my facts and realize that Lindbergh's 33-hour, 3,500-mile flight landed on May 21st, not the 23rd... so much for my theme!)

Continuing with the theme nonetheless, the day I'm finally posting this (June 6th), is of course, the anniversary of a later French Connected event: "D-Day", the Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy in 1944, which lead within a year to the end of World War II.

For car culture fans, June 6th may mean something else as well: the date (in 1933) when the very first "drive-in" movie theater opened, outside Camden, New Jersey.

A few more dates to mark on your road trip calendar:

June 19th -- also known as "Juneteenth", and "Emancipation Day", this marks the day after the end of the Civil War when black slaves in Galveston, Texas were given their freedom. It's now a state holiday in Texas, with celebratory events held there and elsewhere around the country.

June 19 is also the original date of Father's Day, a holiday first celebrated in Spokane Washington in 1910, and made "official" in 1972 by President Richard Nixon.

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June 21st: Summer officially begins today, so celebrate the solstice with a trip to the car fiend's totem, Carhenge, an unforgettable recreation of that ancient astronomical observatory at Stonehenge, using junky old 1950s and 1960s American cars instead of stones. It's fun, and free, and located in lovely corner of northwestern Nebraska.


Finally, there's June 27th, the day when (way back in 1985...) the magical old Mother Road, Route 66, was officially bypassed by the anodyne Interstate Highway System. The last stretch of Route 66 to survive was through Williams Arizona, which has become something of a hub of the Route 66 historic preservation movement.


Tell me about your favorite "Days in History", and I'll do my best to blog all about them.

Happy Trails!