Rocky Frisco wrote:
<<<Does anybody else like to take the back roads and scenic routes?>>>
Absolutely! We had a ball going from Chicago to St. Louis to MG 2003. We went
down in a 3 MG (two Midgets and an MGB) caravan down old Route 66. Covering
the length of Illinois on two-laners is a world apart from the mind-numbing
drive droning down Interstate 55. We stopped for things like maple sirup (their
preferred spelling) at Funk's Grove and lunch at the Dixie Truckers Home. We
admired restored Rt 66-era service stations as well as abandoned and decaying
ones and appropriate (for us) architectural oddities like the octagonal library
building in Atlanta, IL. A pleasant hour was spent in Broadwell at the old Pig
Hip Restaurant (1937-1991), now a museum opened the week before dedicated to
the Pig Hip's Route 66 era. Our host was Ernie Edwards, the Pig Hip's founder
and owner, who had a hundred stories to tell. A great time with a gentleman
who is still proud to have been designated "an old coot" by Mike Royko in an
early 80's Royko column.
We returned with one more MGB added. We headed northwest on two-laners along
the Missouri side of the Mississippi up to Hannibal. After crossing the
Mississippi, we took various backroads working our way home. It turned a 5 hour
Interstate trip into a 12 hour drive, but it was time well spent. As Roger
Goebbert, driver of one of the MGBs and a recent retiree kept saying over the
course
of the day, " I got time". It's one of those things in life that I feel that
if I don't have time for, I just need to make time for.
I have to agree with Rocky's premise of feeling unthreatened in these cars on
the backroads and in close contact with the local populace. I feel more
threatened on the Interstates by SUVs used as battering rams by drivers who
feel
invincible.
I am looking forward to the trip to New Jersey next year in the same mode.
Indiana by Toll Road is simply not the way to go. I love taking US 6 across
Indiana and Ohio and have used it often over the last 20 years to go visit my p
arents near Cleveland. The mountains of Pennsylvania make for more enjoyable
driving regardless of route, but I am looking for two-laners to replace the
Pennsylvania Turnpike and Interstate 80 routes we often used for family
vacations in
the 60's and 70's. I have always liked the PA Turnpike, but I have been
warned that the truck traffic is massive these days on that route. The
Parsippany/Morristown is familiar to me from visits I used to make to the home
of a
college roommate's family in Whippany. And I had an Aunt and Uncle nearby in
the
Poconos in Stroudsburg, PA. It's going to be a great convention in a nice area.
Kim Tonry
Downers Grove, IL, USA
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|