Well-known roadie Denny Gibson has been cruising down the Pacific Coast this week and passed through San Francisco the past couple days. Like producer Rick Sebak, he stayed overnight at the Pacific Heights Inn and reports it to be good and priced right. Yesterday morning he went in search of the last original 1928 Lincoln Highway concrete post. With a little help from me and Sebak’s blog and video diary, he found it with the surrounding bushes cut back to better reveal the post: “Yep, it’s so much easier that I walked by it twice without seeing it. I was looking for and into shrubs and certainly entertaining anyone who was watching.”
Then he cruised to the nearby Terminus marker, also an LHA concrete post but this one a modern reproduction.
Then it was off to the Cliff House to see where dedicated transcontinetalists really ended their trip – at the ocean, dipping their tires. (With the beach now closed to cars, there was no dipping for Denny’s tires.) Read more about his adventures from this trip, with tons of roadside info and images, at www.dennygibson.com/. (Note, his blog is a couple days behind so no LH mention is posted yet.)
Friday found me with PBS producer Rick Sebak as he filmed around Pittsburgh for his upcoming special, A Ride Along the Lincoln Highway. First up was Peppi’s Diner (known to locals as Scotty’s or Charlie’s) where we talked about the highway and places to see around town.
Then it was on the road to find those places, from the Mullins-made Lincoln statue just down the road in WIlkinsburg …
… to the yellow-brick section of old road in Glenfield.
Camera and sound were handled by Bob Lubomski and Glenn Syska. They do tons of work trying to get the best angle and sound and lots of other things that, when done right, nobody notices. (Same for the crew that will edit the video and sound in a couple months.) Bob and Glenn even climbed up on that overpass to get aerial shots of the road.
Read more of their adventures on Sebak’s blog and tune in two days before Halloween to see the show on your local PBS station.
George Garrett and Tom Shields, driving their 1930s Fords across the US on the Lincoln Highway, have reached the Western Terminus in San Francisco. Including some detours to car shows and museum, they traveled 4,446 miles in 20 days (not counting their biggest detour to Detroit). That’s about 222 miles per day. George says they got about 19 miles per gallon at a time when gas was about $4 per gallon. Here are some images from their blog, which has some fun stories of their adventures:
Above two are Ohio.
Hard traveling on the road west of Rock Springs, Wyoming.
Businesses along old 2-lanes such as the Lincoln Highway often struggle to compete with chains that locate at Interstate off-ramps, but Ron Warnick reports on his Route 66 News about a non-chain motel in Barstow, California, that has found a way a pretty basic way to attract tourists. The story from the city’s Desert Dispatch notes that a simple image makeover instantly began attracting travelers who otherwise were passing by. For all those independent motels struggling in the face of brand-names that feature oodles of amenities and AAA ratings, it’s proof that business can be improved by attending to the look and cleanliness of a place.
Their current property, the Topper Motel on West Main Street, is popular with people, mostly locals, owner Ken Patel said, needing a room for more than a couple of nights. But tourists running down Route 66 passed right by and rarely stopped to rent rooms for just a night or two.
The Patels’ solution: Renovate the west side of their property, paint it the appealing color of an orange Creamsicle and slap a new name, The Sunset Inn, over the office….
Ken said problems with longer staying customers on the Topper side of the business made him consider ways to bring in shorter-staying out-of-towners. He said the rooms where people stayed for weeks or months at a time were often unkempt, dirty and negatively effected the entire appearance of his motel.
The Sunset looks like a completely different motel from the Topper sitting next to it. The rooms are crisp and clean and the parking lot features a small courtyard and desert landscaping. Day Manager Bill Snyder said the remodel has been so successful with the Sunset that there are plans to give the Topper the same treatment soon.
A story in a 1950s diner industry magazine advised owners to pave their decrepit parking lots. Many diner owners howled at the idea, saying customers were more concerned with the food that the lot. Yes, if you know a restaurant has good food, you’ll overlook the shortcomings, maybe even calling them “charming,” but for those not familiar with a place – as most travelers aren’t – they’ll pass by a run-down motel or restaurant. In the same vein, would you buy a beat-up used car or one that looked cared for?
YouTube offers many views of US 50 in Nevada, dubbed The Loneliest Road in America, much of which follows the Lincoln Highway. Here are some time-lapse videos, heading west, that show that, if the road is not exactly deserted, it can be lonely.
Ely (look for the Hotel Nevada on the left at 0:42) westward almost to Eureka:
Then westward to Austin (arriving about 2/3 in):
Want those two trips all at once (but kinda fast)?
Since Eureka was lost in the editing of the above, maybe this will make up for it – all I’ll say is “Rawhide” gets sung at the town’s wacky Keyhole bar, right on the Lincoln Highway:
As PBS producer Rick Sebak and crew followed the Lincoln Highway to the Pacific Ocean and back, he snapped lots of photos. Here are a couple from Utah.
And here’s a video clip they made while skirting the Great Salt Desert and Dugway Proving Ground:
Learn more about their travels and the forthcoming show, A Ride Along the Lincoln Highway, on Rick’s blog. Here are some of his other nationally themed shows:
Scott Berka, city clerk of Colo, Iowa, sent some great photos of the RAGBRAI® — The Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. Yesterday (day 4 of the week-long event), the bicyclists traveled the Lincoln Highway from Ames to State Center. He snapped the photos at the Reed/Niland Corner in Colo about 9:30 a.m.. They show the restored gas station, cafe, and area near the just-reopened motel. CLICK each one to see it larger.
RAGBRAI was started in 1973 as a 6-day ride (not a race) across Iowa by two Register columnists; it’s still planned and coordinated by the newspaper and is now hosted by the Register’s front-page cartoonist, Brian Duffy. The Des Moines Register naturally has numerous daily updates, including news that tacks strewn near Nevada, Iowa, caused at least 100 flat tires. Learn more by visiting the RAGBRAI® site or read a brief story at at WHO-TV.
The Deseret News had a nice feature on Gregory Franzwa, author of 20 books including a state-by-state series on the Lincoln Highway. His new book, The Mormon Trail Revisited, retraces the 1846-47 route of the Mormon pioneers across the midwest and into Utah. The book mixes history with driving directions to the 1,400 miles of trails and country roads. Its 284 pages include more than 200 photographs of the trail and historic sites.
The article offers some insights into the author’s work and the trail:
“This exodus was the most amazing thing. There’s been nothing like it before or since. You think of the 2,500 humans and 500 wagons that left Nauvoo and camped at Sugar Creek. That has to be the biggest wagon train in history times 10.”
Franzwa and his wife, Kathy, who now live in Tooele, spent three years tracking the trail. They follow the mass exodus across Iowa, where the “adhesive mud so frustrated the pioneers’ plans to cross the Rockies that year that they had to hole up along the Missouri River. That must have been so discouraging for them.”
He then follows the trail that Brigham Young and the lead wagon train followed across the plains and into the Salt Lake Valley. “We found every single campsite,” he says.
His purpose in writing the guide was twofold. He wants to help people get there — “right in the traces. Right where the mules and oxen and wagon wheels left those scars. To get out of the car and stand in those ruts….
A second reason for the guide, however, is equally important, he says — to encourage preservation. “When a person has read that history, stood right on those pioneer pathways and driven or hiked the pioneer routes, it is unlikely that there will be much support for proposals which would damage or destroy the historic trails or sites.
To purchase the book ($24.95 paper, $39.95 cloth) or for more info, check Franzwa’s Patrice Press site patricepress.com/.
As Buddy and Bob pulled their Piaggio MP3 scooters into Times Square on Monday, ending their coast-to coast drive across the Lincoln Highway, reporters lined up to interview them. Their arrival was covered by The New York Times,Forbes, CNN, New York Daily News, NY Metro, and others, including a number of blogs. Buddy and Bob were nice enough to mention to the NYT that they used my Greetings from The Lincoln Highway as their travel guide.
LHA director for New York Jerry Peppers was there to greet them and provided the photos above and these observations:
Piaggio’s marketing people got a police escort so we could occupy the NW corner of Broadway and 42nd Street for a half hour or so without being harassed by traffic. They also arranged for media coverage and I was personally interviewed and talked about trying to get a bronze plaque to mark the eastern terminus on the building corner that was only about ten feet from where we were standing.
I took the paper sign that I had previously attached to the post on the corner where we are endeavoring to get a permanent sign post and pasted it there again for this event. The second photo shows Bob Chase on his bike next to that temporary marker. The Piaggio people produced a hand-held sign that found its way into many photographs as well.
I talked to both riders at some length, particularly Buddy who is a New Yorker. They were appreciative of meeting the LHA members in Evanston and the treatment they got. Also, Bob Chase has joined the LHA and actually carries his membership card! He lives in Livermore in the Bay area.
After 3,400 miles but just $300 in gas on their Piaggio cycles, Buddy Rosenbaum (71) and Bob Chase (72) are set to reach the eastern terminus of the Lincoln Highway on Monday, July 14. Scooter commuters and the New York Scooter Club will welcome them to Times Square, which will close briefly just for them!
You can greet them too – here’s the schedule:
9 am — Breakfast at Vespa Jersey City.
10 am — Ride via the Lincoln Tunnel (a later LH route) into NYC.
10:30 to 10:45 am — Welcome at Times Square, 42nd and Broadway.
11:45 am to 2 pm — Reception and lunch at Bond 45, 154 W. 45th St.
Above: Bob, Buddy, and their Piaggios in San Francisco at the western terminus. Read more at www.noagelimitpiaggio.us/.
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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