(Words and photos by Scott Liggett) – Recently, I got home from participating in this year’s Tour Nebraska event. If you haven’t seen my blogs on the event yet, it is a tour put on by the Nebraska Rod & Custom Association every year. It has been around for 24 years now. It’s a weekend of exploring the back roads and small towns of this state.
Some of you may remember my other blogs on exploring while road tripping back and forth between Los Angeles and Northern California. I used to do the usual thing, cannonball back and forth on I-5 as fast as possible without getting tickets. It was a total bore. The destination became my only thought. Making good time. If there wasn’t traffic, I could do the 425 miles in 6 hours with two gas/bathroom stops. Before you go and brag about your speed demon exploits. My job at the time was professional driver. One good speeding ticket and I was out of work.
Since I couldn’t get my land speed fix on the I-5, also known as the Golden State Speedway, I decided to search out more interesting routes. I dug out the old Road Atlas I had gotten years before from AAA and started looking for a thinner line on the map that looked more interesting. Let’s face it, the people who decided the route of I-5, picked the most boring section of the San Joaquin Valley between Bakersfield and Redding to put the thing. The first thing I found was State Route 33 more, or less paralleled it. It had cross highways back to I-5 every ten to fifteen miles, if I wussed out. Plus I knew all those cross highways had gas stations where they intersected with the freeway. So, off I went.
After the first trip I was hooked. No more taking the freeway for me. So what if I could only do 60 miles per hour. Every mile of these roads had something cool to see and do. My trips were no longer 6-7 hours. They were 9-12 hours, but I was less fatigued at the end of the trip. I wasn’t stressed. The journey became the adventure, not just the destination. I felt like I was going back in time in my worn out old Impala every time I got behind the wheel. It became my time machine. I was no longer stopping at the mega truck stop with their gazillion gas pumps and fast food joints attached to the side. I was stopping at two pump stations that had been there before the war. I was eating at road side diners that served amazing food, not the barely edible crap in a colorful bag. And, I was seeing far more of our beautiful country as well.
If you have never done this, then you are missing out. If you have never road tripped in your old hot rod, hauling it everywhere in an enclosed trailer, you are doing it wrong. Take the plunge, take that exit with the state highway symbol on it.
This is only something that can be done in an older car for the full effect. The cars and trucks built in the last twenty years are built to be climate controlled cocoons, isolating you from the outside world with their air conditioning, leather seating surfaces, and MP3 players. You can’t even drive these cars over 40 miles per hour anymore without going deaf from wind buffeting. Only in an older car, can you experience what is like to truly roll back in time. Back when you knew what the weather was coming, because you feel it on your face and smell it in the air. When you could smell the jasmine in the south, the fresh cut alfalfa in the heartland, and the crisp cool air of the northeastern autumns.
If there is a two lane going in my direction, I will take over any freeway, any day. This article shows some of the pictures I have taken on my trips. What I have seen that is never on the side of a freeway. Leave the interstates to the rolling cocoons and phone focused brain people. Go see your country. Go find the history. And, of course find BangShifty things.
Amen.
I’ve found the best routes in Cally or anywhere are one’s that follow railroad routes. It’s like a time machine. I5 is a dirty word to me.
So true. There is so much to enjoy between A and B.
WTF are those concrete tepees?
Typical California “taking it to the limit” – If I had to spend 5 minutes with the clowns that stay in them I would have ripped their lungs out on general principles. Better still unleash a bunch of British New Age Travelers or “crusties” on them and stand back and watch the ensuing mayhem, because those mothers are seriously hard and enjoy a good dust-up!
The teepees are the famous Wigwam Motel along Route 66.
Awesome article Scott
I stayed in one of those Wig Wams once before I got married back in 1971