Index

  • First Motorized Crossing of the US in 1903

    2022-05-31 In 1903, ten years before the idea of the Lincoln Highway came to be, and travel was dominated by horse and buggy, George Adams Wyman accepted a challenge to ride a motorized bicycle across the continent in 40 days, the first attempt by a motorized vehicle. The California Motor Bicycle Company provided the bike…

  • Swedes Across America

    2022-05-31 I stopped at the Lincoln Monument a few miles east of Laramie, and highest point on I-80/US-30. The visitor center there has a lot of information about the Lincoln Highway. It gives all the credit for the Lincoln Highway to Henry Joy, the president of Packard Motor Company and the first president of the…

  • Small Town Iowa

    2022-05-22 I spent time in two small towns, Missouri Valley Iowa and Cozad Nebraska. I stayed in their city park campgrounds and both experiences were great. These city parks are clean, safe and well kept… and inexpensive. One of the reasons I like small towns and their parks is you come across truly interesting people…

  • THE Railroad Town

    2022-05-24 North Platte Nebraska is THE railroad town. It was created by Missouri Pacific, and the railroad still dominates the city. When Grenville Dodge was laying out the route for the first transcontinental railroad, he identified this location in central Nebraska as the ideal location for a routing, service and maintenance facility – the midpoint…

  • The Wall

    2021-02-21 This is a long report, but there is a lot to say. The wall is here. I found it in its many forms. If you drive along US-281, Military Highway, and look south, you will see many the barriers, both old and new. I have been joking about “Biden gates” but they won’t be…

  • Another Dam Site

    Spring, 2023 Update Since I wrote this in June, 2022, the western United States has seen a lot of precipitation. The “atmospheric river” dumped weeks of rain on the northwest. (I was hunkered down on the Oregon coast during most of it.) Snowpack in the California mountains is more than double normal levels. Wyoming has…

  • Crooked River Gorge

    The most fun I have on these wanderings is when I come across a place that is truly spectacular and I had no idea it was there. Such a place is the Crooked River Gorge. Because of a scheduling problem, I had an eight hour driving day; pretty long for me, and stopped at a…

  • Goodbye Lincoln Highway

    2022-06-11 After wandering through the National Park Canyons, I again picked up the Lincoln Highway in the guise of US highway 50 in Ely Nevada and followed it through Nevada on the “loneliest road in America.” Some news organization gave it that moniker quite a few years ago, and I did not find it to…

  • Goodbye Lincoln Highway

    2022-06-11 After wandering through the National Park Canyons, I again picked up the Lincoln Highway in the guise of US highway 50 in Ely Nevada and followed it through Nevada on the “loneliest road in America.” Some news organization gave it that moniker quite a few years ago, and I did not find it accurate.…

  • Heads of State

    In the summer of 1970 I took my first vacation. Ever. I had a new yellow Fiat 124 Spider convertible that I packed with a tent, a duffel of gear and a cooler, and headed west from Detroit. It was maybe the second or third day out; cold, constant rain and dark. I saw the…