On the Turnpike

My car has offered me freedom since I first acquired my own in my mid-20's.  At the time, I lived far from my relatives while attending school.  My univercity's city had vestigial public transit, only a bus system.  The rail line would appear decades later.  To visit my father in one city, my girlfriend in another, and my future in-laws at their home in another, would take me two days as a solo driver, though a marathon through performance with shared driving.  By myself, I would only drive long distances in daylight or not much past supper during winter's darkness.  That remains true today, after 47 years of marriage, as my wife defers the driving to me.

My car has remained my freedom.  I go anywhere and everywhere around town at whim.  Commuting during my working years got bundled into my work.  Adjacent cities, maybe a radius of 150 miles, get visited with little planning.  I've also done longer trips, those needing an overnight stay, though never two overnight stays.  This task offers a challenge.  I have destinations.  A resort, different city, wife time someplace where we've not visited before, the National Parks with auto rentals, wine country east and west.  

Until recently, as I reached my senior years, the territory traversed often captured my interest more than the arrival to a destination.  Crossing into states I'd not visited before.  Mountains.  Farms.  Roads that have no route numbers.  I've stopped for coffee at convenience stores, wondering why somebody or their ancestors opted to settle in an isolated place.

Interstates have become the mainstay of destination connections.  There seem to be two genres.  Some states, particularly NY and PA, have created dedicated turnpikes.  The NY State Thruway and Pennsylvania Turnpike each came about by intentional design. Not always what everyone regards as intelligent design.  The Highway Departments determined where the exits best belong, often scores of miles apart.  These connect to smaller roads, also operated by the state, to let visitors get to attractions or rural state colleges, often located a considerable distance from the limited-access highway.  Tolls support them.  So do franchise fees paid by businesses to market their travel services at designated rest stops.

The other format developed in a less planned manner.  Roads already existed connecting places that travelers were already visiting.  These thoroughfares received federal dollars for improvement.  The upgraded, high-speed roads include more frequent exit ramps.  Instead of dozens of miles, their town connections are usually a few miles.  Towns each have their history, but most came as a consequence of federal land parcels, towns created by railroad construction, or land grants to establish educational institutions.  These have an element of free enterprise cooperating with government.  As a driver approaches each off-ramp, the Interstate Highway System posts a sign with where drivers can find a place to eat, stay, and refuel as needed.  Most of these services come from regional or national corporations which either own or franchise the individual businesses.  As a driver, I could get a sense of what convenience stores operated over that region and gasoline that sells regionally as well as nationally.  The hotels are nearly always national, but occasionally an independent inn in a more remote area will pay a fee to have its motel on the interstate sign.

The hotels have figured out that motorists overestimate or underestimate how much distance they can safely cover.  Reservations can be made by cell phone from the convenience store or gas station before the anticipated stop, or we've just stopped and asked for a room. Sold out rarely happens.  Drivers need little more than a bed and some coffee to enable the next day's drive.  Since most interchanges have multiple gasoline options, the price stays regionally competitive.  Along the way, signs indicate attractions.  I've found a few wineries or distilleries to lightly sample as I stretch. I've made spot decisions to stop at a university I've seen play sports on TV.  The wineries in particular often situate their vineyards a few miles from their interstate, enabling a few minutes of leisurely motoring without traffic or teamsters getting their rigs as far as possible before union or ICC rules force them to drive off to where they can sleep in their modern truck cab for the required hours.

As I get older, my tolerance for time behind the wheel has ebbed.  To attend a vital family event, I drove five hours along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, coming and going.  I found the drive tedious, probably a consequence of central planning that the less planned interstates avoid.  Monotonous scenery.  State rules limit billboards, which often provide quick visual respites that benefit drivers.  Few buildings to see from the roadway.  Tunnels, four of them, offered welcome relief.  Since the Turnpike connects secondary roads, I exited once time in each direction to find a place for lunch.  These regional centers, small towns that function independent of metropolitan areas, each had convenience stores and familiar name restaurants a short drive from the interchange with easy access back.  While the state franchise fast food at the rest stops, it does not sponsor lodging.  Most of the regional towns will have the familiar motel chains or motorists can identify them online by either exiting or letting a passenger access the options on the cell phone.

I found the driving tiring, something I had tolerated much more easily during my school years, driving a similar route and beyond.  The thrill of getting there, those stops at wineries or shopping malls instead of regional convenience stores, did not happen.  No family eateries like I encountered often at Interstate Exits, which I drove from the airport to the western National Parks.  No bridges with gorges, no railroads running parallel to the interstate.  Just a conduit to get me to where I wanted to be as quickly as a car can cruise control at speed limit.  Something planned by bureaucrats and technocrats.  Functional.   Beauty and meaningful visual interest not included in the plans.

Too Much Driving

As much as I like road trips, I've probably driven my last one.  The route took my odometer up some 1880 miles over a week, traversing five states with two destination stops and two overnight motel rests.  My one-day behind the wheel capacity now seems to be a bit over 400 miles, considerably less than in my 20s when school took me from the East Coast to school in the midwest about twice a year.  If my sleep pattern as a Senior is interrupted in my own bed, the motel beds do not do much better.  

In some ways, long drives have gotten easier over three decades. GPS far outperforms maps and written turn directions. The Interstate Highway System is reasonably complete and sophisticated.  At each interchange there are separate signs for lodging, food, and gas to be found nearby.  At the end of the ramps, signs indicate which direction the driver needs to turn for the chosen service.  Smartphones have made setting up hotel reservations on short notice straightforward.  The gas stations have affiliated convenience stores for coffee and refreshments, sometimes more substantial food.  And all these places are economical, with gasoline costing less than at home and quick overnight motels less expensive than the places I booked for my intended destinations.

As I drove along the Interstates in Virginia's full north-south dimension and the eastern half of Tennessee's east-west dimension, there were places to stop such as state parks, wineries, or mini-historical sites, each providing brief rest to those who need to move on, though perhaps more of a destination to people who live near those places. 

Modern automotive advances also make these journeys easier.  My smartphone will read an audiobook as I drive or I can set Bluetooth to music.  Radios have channel selectors that find local stations.  Cruise control can be used for large sections of highway.  Speed limits have gotten higher.  Virginia made the scenery visible from the highway attractive.  TN and WV did not.

The drive sometimes has its hassles.  I like stopping at universities as the break option, visiting the bookstores, often purchasing a logo coffee mug.  I didn't do well this time, as we visited close to moving day and signs for visitor parking were few.  My long drives are always to some pre-determined attraction, this time Nashville and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  This always raises an important element in the analysis.  Was the effort of getting there, whether a substantial time on the road or airport irritations, justified by the purpose of the trip?  For the western national parks it always is.  It usually is to visit an international attractions such as Niagara Falls or a unique city like Charleston.  Nashville and the Smokies seemed less so.  A lot of driving for a garish few blocks of loud country music and a park with limited geological uniqueness, to say nothing of the mostly annoying town that supports it. Parking provided by hotels, but something of a ripoff and ordeal when dealing with the municipalities.  I think of Gatlinburg as rural, but parking fees may keep the town afloat. I avoided the expensive flat rate lots.  In Nashville and in Gatlinburg, each city has automated parking validation by card, with a mechanism I delegated to my wife, as it was not obvious to me.  Meters were better.

Travel also brings you to people.  They were invariably pleasant.  Our weekend at the Park coincided with a national convention of Jeep owners, thousands of them, so I got to chat with a few briefly about their interests.  With the Grand Ole Opry I expected people wrapped in the Cross and the Flag.  While it attracted almost no people of darker complexion, and some Gospel elements were built into the music, the experience seemed less sectarian than I expected.  And The Hermitage, plantation of Andrew Jackson, offered much insight into the era and its economics, the estate required much walking.

While I considered driving all the way home from the park, about nine hours, safety concerns prevailed.  I left the final three and a half hours, much through populated areas, for the following morning.  I arrived home at mid-day, unpacked after some rest in my own bed, then picked up a few things I would need to make supper.  I'm tired.  

While I needed different scenery, which is what I got, the strain on me this time might have exceeded the benefits of the two destinations.  And my wife, as passenger with a chance to amuse herself with her cell phone for hours as I drove, did not seem to tolerate the travel very well either. She developed a fever, testing positive for Covid. Likely our last multiday drive.

Spring Getaway

Travel had been scheduled next week.  I had reservations at an attractive consumer level hotel, a franchise of a major chain, with indoor pool and hot tub, at the eastern reaches of Long Island where I could indulge a bit for three nights.  As restful as this seemed, I cancelled.  When I travel to a new place, I like to visit the attractions that make it unique.  Long Island has wineries, which left me mostly unimpressed when I visited a few not that many years back.  Theodore Roosevelt lived his final years there.  The homestead would be burdensome to visit with scheduled hours only minimally intersecting my time there.  Sag Harbor has remnants of its whaling heritage.  Closed for the season.  And Montauk Point with its lighthouse and park is more of a schlep than I really want to pursue in mid-winter.  

Spring Break, the final week in March, offers more opportunities.  My wife's choral obligations will have eased, leaving us an extra day or two of travel.  This means either a longer trip or more time at where we decide to visit.  Think of this as a box of time:  leave Sunday/return Thursday.  Ground rules a little up in the air.  Basically, as sole driver, I do not want to stop overnight en route, so not more than eight hours of driving, or about 400 miles.  There are now maps that draw a radius from my home.  There are maps that will draw a radius.  Allowing 350 miles, as highways have their curves and turns, North gets me to about the Thousand Islands, South to the Southern Outer Banks, East deep sea fishing, and West to Central Ohio.  And just beyond range:  Ottawa/Montreal, the LL Bean flagship location, and Duke University.  And a good deal of stuff within the circle:  all of Pennsylvania, eastern West Virginia, all but Western Virginia, all of NY State, all of southern New England.

And let's not completely dismiss a short air trip with car rental, especially now that I have access to a convenient discount airline.

Some will depend on what I like to do.  I like visiting museums, historical sites, and national parks.  I like hotel aquatics.  I like having supper at brew pubs and visiting wineries or breweries or distilleries.  Amusement parks leave me indifferent.  I prefer going out for breakfast to a hotel buffet.  And I like stopping at a place or two along the route, if only for lunch and a driving break.

My wants seem few.  The travel radius large.  The need for a change of scenery, which by then will be about six months after my European trip, fairly large.

Wild Wonderful West Virginia

First day of road trip to Mammoth Cave got us to Charleston, the capital of West Virginia with a handsome Capitol dome off the right on the highway.  While I intended the trip as relaxation, which it was for the first half of the drive, problems with the GPS not adequately compensated by road signs succeeded in returning me to frazzled.  GPS, both Toyota Scout GPS and Waze, each failed for interruption of internet connection in the mountainous regions of the state.  Finding a hotel and getting there when we were already somewhat lost did not go well.

Settled, fell asleep, awake early and ready for hotel's hot tub before proceeding on, supplemented by some needed coffee and starches at the buffet.

Western Maryland seemed dotted with small but not tiny towns, some which have seen better days.  At one time they probably were anchored by factories of major industrials, now seem more dependent on the colleges and correctional facilities that generate income from outside.  West Virginia seems less town dominant with a major highway having vast stretches with only traveler rest stops for food and gas.  The state university, including its medical center, seemed off the beaten path, with other locals who we asked directions to it as we picked up snacks not being sure where it was.  

Our early December travel probably deprived us of some more flourishing mountain scenery of a month previously.  A few wild animals represented on our trip only as road kill, a skunk and a red fox standing out.

Finish coffee, ease my aching back in the warm jets of the Jacuzzi, more substantial breakfast later.

Planning a Road Trip

Time may have passed me by.  As a late teen I missed out on a few things, partly from limited finances or at lease a sense that I had to be responsible with my parents' resources, and partly being highly focused on entering a career.  I never went to a resort on spring break or took a tour of European Hostels over the summers.  While people pasted flowered decals on VW buses, then hit the road, such an investment in time was unthinkable.

About half century later, far more prosperous than in my youth and now retired, I sometimes wonder if it might be time to catch up.  I've been to many resorts, largely as a week's escape from often demanding work that needed a reset.  This past year I made it to Europe for the first time, transported to multiple places and housed by a cruise ship instead of a Eurorail pass and hostel.  Close enough.

The road trip with an unclear destination and random stops en route still eludes me.  I have taken a few long weekends within driving distance of home but always with a finite destination and a small amount of itinerary leeway.  We stay at our specified hotel as a base, visit the main attractions of where we are going, see if any other local destinations catch our fancy and see what they have for brew pubs.  Rarely the intended destination will require more than a day's drive, but the intermediary motel gets chosen shortly after twilight and resumption to our destination resumes after breakfast.  In a 600 mile route, there may be some great places  Our destination path does not tolerate much deviation. 

What I might like to do instead is pick a direction randomly on my Compass App, a distance that I am willing to drive each day for two days, and then see what I find en route.  I've never done that, and anticipate that my wife will have reasons not to want to join me, but it is something that passed me by that I would like to sample two times as my semi-annual projects.