The Long and Winding Road IV

The Long and Winding Road IV

It had been many years since I drove more than 150 miles or so in a single day; longer than that alone, and I had never driven more than 200+ miles in the truck with a fully loaded camper and pulling a closed trailer. The rig totaled over 6 tons, and my Dodge pre-dated the company's update to the product to the hemi-engine and four wheel disc brakes. It is underpowered and underbraked, and barely able to handle the load. 

Once out of California trucks are no longer limited to a 55mph speed, and on Interstate 80 both cars and big rigs were ripping along at 75...a speed virtually impossible for me to reach or maintain, particularly uphill. The tension was significant; the distances vast. My Day 1 journal entry was titled “Inches on the Map- hours on the road". After 325-350 I was exhausted, and the maniac inside my head with the hammer was having a ball.

But despite the headaches I was enchanted by the land. Here's a few clips from my writings:

In western Wyoming I wrote:

“Runnin on Empty...what a choice of music- Jackson Browne's poetic song of life on the road; here the perfect accompaniment to the unearthly landscapes of western Wyoming.

Not a tree in sight, and strange flat plateaus from which the far from flat plain seems to hve sunk away from.”

Not the greatest English, but a pretty effective picture.

In Nebraska I commented:

“And everywhere this huge vault of sky- a constant reminder that we really are beings of the stars.”

And in Iowa an attempt at haiku:

“Impossibly green field

White house

Sky full of

Dirty cotton ball clouds”

We visited an odd little museum in Minden, Nebraska which included some cars, including a Crosley sedan. But the real prize was a steam driven merry-go-round run by a soft spoken young guy adorned in a cowboy hat. ( http://pioneervillage.org/I. had commented:

“We al road it, me on a zebra, and it was a wonderful step into this very different world than the one we left so far back down the road.”

The Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Museum in Indiana was so spectacular we spent the better part of two full days there: http://www.automobilemuseum.org/#home.html.

And about which I said it was:

“...an Art Deco vision of perfect proportion and balance from the magnificence of cars that are the height of American craft, ingenuity, and accomplishment to the glass of the light fixtures and the tapestry-like draperies and accents on the walls.”

Remember this guy?
The car Whittell gave John
and the model Ernie built is in my shop
More information can be found at: http://duesey186.com/Datasheets/Model_J_Index/data2354.htm
Though I suspect the owner listed was not who John sold it to
See the notes below this picture, from the book "The Survivor Series"
The photo was taken, along with others, after John Mozart bought
As far as I know he still ownes the car

An Amish village we visited, on the other hand, just confused me. Although impossible to achieve, I could somewhat understand an attempt to stave off the “evils of modern society.” But to simply draw the line sometime in the 1830s was baffling. I do “get” that this was a cutoff just at the invention of the full, instant communication between people, via the telegraph. Still, it seemed arbitrary and just strange, as Illustrated by horse-drawn carriages with electric tail lights.

On the 1^st of September we finally arrived at Lime Rock, Connecticut. It was already 16 days since I had left home. But...

“It is achingly green

and starkly manicured

as if not a blade of grass

dare be out of place

But it is charming

and steeped in 25 years or more

of history

at a depth

(at least for White America)

that exists nowhere else in the land.”

The Main straight at Lime Rock
Tower and building desgined by Sam Posey
A study in green beauty