-- September 22, 2006 --
In Praise of the Back Roads
On the old highway maps of America, the main roads were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing. But in those brevities just before dawn and a little after dusk -- times neither day nor night -- the old roads return to the sky some of its color. Then, in truth, they carry a mysterious cast of blue, and it's that time when the pull of the blue highway is strongest, when the open road is beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself.
-- William Least Heat Moon, from Blue Highways, 1982
During 18 years of Baseball Trips, I'd guess Ron and I have done somewhere close to 50,000 miles of driving, from Seattle to Miami and Maine to San Diego. Out of necessity and time constraints, many of these miles have been along Interstates. But we've always made an effort to eschew these "superslabs" and explore the Blue Highways whenever possible.
Interstates have their place, of course. If you need to get from point A to point B, and do it quickly, there's no easier or faster land-based way to go. Just aim your hood down the entrance ramp, set the cruise control, and you can make it from St. Louis to Chicago in less than 5 hours, including a stop for lunch. But for that speed, you'll be trading away something precious.
Instead, you could opt for a course comprised of Illinois 4, Illinois 53, and a few other state and U.S. designations that trace the path of old Route 66. If you do, your drive will certainly take longer. And you won't mind a bit. Because your journey may very well create as many pleasant memories as your destinations.
I-55 will take you on a straight, flat, and deathly boring trip through miles and miles of cornfields, interrupted occasionally by the same gas stations and fast food joints over and over. Along old 66, though, you can visit such unique attractions as Henry's Rabbit Ranch in Staunton (featuring both 4-legged and 4-wheeled Rabbits); the Dream Car Museum in Williamsville; the Maple Sirup Museum and Store in Funks Grove; a beautifully restored 1920's-era Standard gas station in Odell; or the Pig Hip "Musem" ("All that's missing is 'U' ") in Broadwell. The Pig Hip was a popular restaurant serving famous pork sandwiches, until its owner, Ernie Edwards, the one and only "Old Coot of Route 66," decided to retire from the restaurant business and turned his place into a Route 66 museum. At 89, Ernie still presides over the place, and will be all too happy to share some stories of the old days. Aside from the Pig Hip, there are excellent 66 museums in Pontiac and Springfield.
Oh, and about that lunch break... When you get hungry on the Interstate, you can pull off just about anywhere and take your pick from McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, or Taco Bell. The culinary options of the Back Roads, on the other hand, include (among many others) Scotty's Route 66 Grill in Hamel; the Ariston Cafe in Litchfield; the famous Cozy Dog Drive-In in Springfield; the Old Log Cabin in Pontiac; the Polka-a-Dot Drive-In in Braidwood, and the Launching Pad in Wilmington. Every one of these places has its own unique history, and more than likely somebody willing to tell you all about it.
The route of the 2006 Baseball Trip carried us on a kind of lopsided "figure 8" pattern across the Midwest. Had we used the Interstate system, the cross-over point of our figure 8 would have been the junction of I-70 and I-35 in Kansas City -- a confusing and tangled spaghetti-bowl of on-and-off ramps in a large metropolitan area. Instead, by taking the Blue Highways, that point became the intersection of U.S. Routes 65 and 50 in Sedalia, Missouri. Here, we discovered a wonderful Drive-In called the Wheel Inn, where we stopped for lunch on our way down 65 from Iowa City to Springfield. The specialty of the house is a concoction known as the "Guberburger," a hamburger slathered with peanut butter. It sounds a little weird, but it's surprisingly tasty. In fact, we liked the Wheel Inn so much, we lunched there again five days later while making our way from Kansas City to St. Louis on 50.
The Interstate doesn't run through Sedalia. And that's the charm of the Back Roads. They'll take you someplace you never would have seen otherwise, and you'll experience things you just can't experience on an Interstate. Over the years, we've driven through White Mountain National Forest on New Hampshire 112; skirted Lake Okeechobee on Florida 441; crossed Indian Reservations on New Mexico 53; traversed the coastal cliffs of U.S. 101 through Oregon; and gone up-close and personal with vineyards and orange groves along California 99.
In all of these cases, we were indeed on our way from one town to another, and there was always a faster way to get there. But whenever we choose to use the Back Roads, the experience becomes a richer one, and our annual trips become so much more than just a collection of ballparks in different cities.
And it keeps reminding us of a great life lesson: Sometimes the journey can be a destination all its own.
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The refurbished Standard station; Odell,
Illinois >
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The Wheel Inn; Sedalia, Missouri
The Pig Hip's own Ernie Edwards >
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Rich Henry of Henry's Rabbit Ranch, and some of both kinds of Rabbits
