Growing up, the road trip was a quintessential part of my childhood landscape. My parents met in the Air Force and subsequently divorced, leading to many hours spent traveling back and forth in between. Back in those days, kids sat up front and there you would find me with an oversized atlas balanced in my lap. I was fascinated with maps, especially the zoomed-in features of the big cities. I would beg my dad (an engineer) again and again to explain to me how they built the roads through the mountains, as we would drive through the Appalachians between Ohio and Florida.
Later, my first car ended up being the same manual transmission ’87 Honda Accord I spent quite a few of those trips in, driven cross country from California to my home in Indiana by that same road-trip loving dad. I would occasionally skip classes to listen to music and put that car through its paces on those endless country roads through the cornfields. Driving a manual only deepened my love of the automobile and its capabilities.
As an adult, I have always been the driver. My husband, while possessing many gifts, unfortunately has zero sense of navigation, while I can drive somewhere one time and make it there again without directions. My husband is also an accomplished musician, and his art takes us all over the place for gigs. About 8 years ago, his gigging led us to the town of Hanover in eastern Pennsylvania, just outside of Gettysburg. Not being native to this area, I started to look at maps on how to get there. The obvious choice was the Pennsylvania turnpike, for its speed and straightforward trajectory. However, I couldn’t help but notice that US 30, the main highway through our part of the world, undulated towards Gettysburg in an irresistible snake-like ribbon, through mountains & valleys, and cost about $50 less!
I will never forget that first trip down what I would come to discover was the Lincoln Highway. Almost immediately, I could tell there was something special about this road. From the remnants of mountain top lodges to vintage neon signs, to programmatic architecture like the Bedford Coffee Pot or the old Kings & Queens restaurant in Stoystown shaped like a castle, I drove in wonder for 3.5 hours, fighting the urge to stop every other mile to take a new photo.
My passion only deepened when I discovered the ways in which the Highway had been accompanying me my whole life. I started researching the roadway after that initial trip towards Gettysburg and soon learned of the Lincoln Highway’s storied history and claim to fame of being the first coast to coast roadway across America. Since I grew up bouncing all around this beautiful country of ours, I was fascinated to find the Lincoln cruising through my childhood haunts of Citrus Heights, just between Roseville and the edge of Sacramento, California. Or in the valley below my first home in Pittsburgh, traffic sounds echoing off the surrounding hills while I would rock my babies back to sleep. No way! The first overnight trip away from my boys to a bed & breakfast in Indiana? It was on the Lincoln too. What a privilege it’s been to travel the country and have so many memories of these places!
My husband has his own fascinating Lincoln Highway connections (such as finding himself on old, familiar Route 30 in Wyoming while touring the country as a musician or the innumerable gigs he has played at establishments located ON the highway) which I will invite him to explore as a guest blogger in the future. For the present, I invite you to journey with me along America’s first Main Street as we explore the past and look towards the future.
