George Garrett and Tom Shields left Times Square on July 6 and are following the Lincoln Highway west in their vintage Fords, George is driving a 1939 Ford Coupe, Tom a ’37 convertible. Don’t forget to follow their progress on their blog. Here are a couple views from western Pennsylvania.
I’ll be talking about roadside attractions today (Friday, July 11) on Sirius satellite radio with Meredith Ochs. You can catch it on ROAD DOG 147 / OUTLAW COUNTRY 63 from about 11:15 till noon EDT. Both our roadside books include many Lincoln Highway attractions; in fact, the cover of Roadside Giants features a view looking east on the Lincoln Highway at Fossil Cabin in Wyoming.
You can click the covers if you’d like to order or just learn more about them on Amazon.
Noontime Tuesday saw cross-country motorcyclists Buddy and Bob pull into Pittsburgh, fresh from a drive across Ohio the previous day. Actually, they stopped at my workplace, the Senator John Heinz History Center. Greeting them too were PBS Producer Rick Sebak (below, middle) and cameraman Bob Lubomski, filming a program about the Lincoln Highway. (Click here to see it larger on Flickr – once there, click All Sizes above the photo.)
There were photos all around, including some of me on one of their Piaggio cycles. I’m not sure I could trade 4 wheels for a cycle, even one with 3 wheels, but it would certainly offer a more intimate experience with the roadscape. We swapped LH stories and then it was off to lunch. Here’s a very short video clip of them riding away from town on Smallman Street.
The History Center is at the eastern edge of Pittsburgh’s downtown and at the western edge of the Strip District, named becasue it’s a thin strip of land along the river. It’s been home to mills and rails and workers and churches but in recent decades it’s known for prduce stands, and more recently, restaurants and nightclubs. Here’s Bob L getting a shot at Penn Mac, a great place to buy cheese, olives, and other Italian specialties.
Then we headed to Enrico Biscotti. If there’s one thing photos and videos can’t do justice to, it’s the aroma of fresh-baked biscotti emerging from the oven. Lunch there is in a tiny alley that really feels like you’re in a European cafe.
It was over all too soon for me since I had to return to work, but the 4 transcontinentalists were heading eastward in search of LH landmarks. I recommended the Abe Lincoln statue in Wilkinsburg and the tiny iron bridge in Turtle Creek in the shadow of the massive Westinghouse Bridge. I loaned them my PA Lincoln Highway guide in hopes it would help them follow the route. And before we left, we got more photos: from left, Bob, Brian, Bob L, Buddy, and Rick.
Read about their further adventures that day HERE.
Great Race Sports, planning to celebrate the centennial of The Great Race from New York to Paris with a commemorative re-run this summer, had to delay the event after the Chinese government revoked travel permits for foreigners following demonstrations in Tibet and along the Olympic Torch Run. New dates are April 25 – June 28, 2009. But scheduled for later this year is an event that will follow much of the Lincoln Highway.
“The Great Auto Race Celebration Tour” will retrace almost the exact route driven by George Schuster and the winning team aboard the 1907 Thomas Flyer a century ago. The 3,700-mile cross-country event will start in New York City on October 18, 2008, and finish in Los Angeles on November 1. It is meant to be a fun and relaxing event with short optional rally sections. Enthusiasts are welcome to join anywhere along the route for 3, 5, 7 or 15 days for an entry fee of $100/day.
Cars of any era are eligible to participate, and teams can travel at their own speeds while previewing next year’s route before it becomes a competitive event. Here’s the tentative schedule of overnight stops — much of the route covers the Lincoln Highway from Indiana through Nevada.
Sat 10/18 Albany, New York – 184 miles
Sun 10/19 Buffalo, New York – 317 miles
Mon 10/20 Cleveland, Ohio – 215 miles
Tue 10/21 Auburn, Indiana – 185 miles
Wed 10/22 Joliet, Illinois – 323 miles
Thu 10/23 Cedar Rapids, Iowa – 292 miles
Fri 10/24 Omaha, Nebraska – 286 miles
Sat 10/25 North Platte, Nebraska – 308 miles
Sun 10/26 Cheyenne, Wyoming – 244 miles
Mon 10/27 Rock Springs, Wyoming – 228 miles
Tue 10/28 Provo, Utah – 220 miles
Wed 10/29 Ely, Nevada – 270 miles
Thu., 10/30 Beatty, Nevada 310 miles
Fri., 10/31 Riverside, California 283 miles
Sat., 11/1 Los Angeles, California 65 miles
Visit The Great Race site for more information.
Diane Rossiter of the Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition sent an update as Buddy and Bob crossed Illinois on their Piaggio cycles:
Here’s a photo of Buddy and Bob (posing as one of the pioneering motorcycling Van Buren sisters) in the Dixon Welcome Center. They stopped here on Thursday, July 3rd, to visit the Lincoln Highway Interpretive Center. We lunched at The Salamander in downtown Dixon with Mayor Jim Burke and Diane Bausman, Executive Director of the Blackhawk Waterways Convention & Visitor Bureau.
This is the signage at the new location of the Dixon Welcome Center on the corner of River and Galena Streets. It houses a Lincoln Highway Interpretive Exhibit. The center opens Mon – Sat at 10 a.m.
Buddy, Bob, and I then stopped in Franklin Grove to visit the LHA Headquarters where they bought a couple of shirts from Lyn Asp. While there, they sat for 5 minutes and conducted an interview via cell phone with a lady named Karin who was reaching them from France. They are making news worldwide now! They are really nice gentlemen and are full of stories from all of their travels of the world.
From here we drove through Ashton, Rochelle, and stopped at the Seedling Mile Marker in Malta, Illinois. We couldn’t stay long, as they had a press conference in DeKalb. There, they were greeted by two legislators, the mayor of DeKalb, and several reporters. They were presented with several area gifts and ILHC gave them each an embroidered shirt with our logo on it. Tomorrow, they drive on to Plainfield and further east. The big trips ends at Times Square on July 14th.
As Buddy and Bob (traveling the Lincoln Highway on their Piaggio cycles) crossed paths with the LHA conference tour in Wyoming, they snapped some nice pics:
About 10 miles east of Evanston, site of the conference.
New LHA board member Jerry Peppers, center.
Sunset Motel, Evanston, awaiting restoration.
Meeting the PBS crew, also traveling the road: Bob, Glenn, and Rick. They sent more pics too that I’ll post asap.
Two friends are set to drive their antique autos across this summer, and like an increasing tide, will follow the Lincoln Highway and let us all follow along on their blog. SoCal Early Ford V-8 Club members George Garrett and Tom Shields will leave Times Square on July 6 and pass through all 13 LH states (with a short detour to the EFV8 Grand National in Dearborn). George has a 1939 Ford Coupe; Tom’s is a ’37 convertible. Both are quite similar to two of my favorite cars, the 1937 and ’39 Lincoln Zephyr.
They’ll be posting daily updates online; so far, they’ve documented getting their cars to the east coast. George says, “I’ve been talking about this for 5 years and it’s finally going to happen…. I’ve downloaded the route to a GPS and it, along with some maps, is going to show us the way. The whole trip should take about a month.” Thanks to new LHA President Bob Dieterich for the tip.
Randy Wagner kindly sent a photo of the new state historical sign marking the original site of the Henry Joy monument. The sign was recently installed just off exit 184 of I-80. The Lincoln Highway runs to its right, and I-80 can be seen heading to the horizon. For more info, see my earlier post.
Also, the Uinta County Herald ran a nice story yesterday about the just-concluded 2008 LHA national conference.
Rick Sebak has been traveling the Lincoln Highway with his PBS crew mates Bob and Glenn for a must-see production that will air this October. Last week he caught up with the LHA national conference buses heading east. He sent shots from the trip:
CLICK the above view to enjoy it large.
Todd Thibadeau tells tour-goers about Church Buttes.
No coaches — school buses only on those dusty Wyoming trails!
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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