See the USA in your Chevrolet

Coast to Coast - Border to Border

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Travelogue




The Plan: 

Leave the US/Mexico Border in California, drive up the west coast following Hwy. 101, then inland to Sacramento.

From Sacramento, follow Hwy 50, "The Loneliest Road in America," for about 3,000 miles east from California to the Atlantic Coast, stopping at Carl's birthplace in Hayden, Indiana.

Visit Paul's birthplace in Massachusetts and the US/Canada Border at Niagara Falls, New York.  Attend the Indianapolis 500 Race on May 30.  See the sights in Iowa, Missouri, Colorado and return to California via Route 66, "The Mother Road." 25 states in all, about 10,500 miles.



Hwy50
Between Reno and Fallon, NV

"How far do you think these cars could go?"


asked Paul on the CB radio as we drove our '55 and '56 Chevys back to Orange County, California, from a Chevy Show in Santa Maria, CA, in March, 2003.  It didn't take me long to respond, "You Son of a Gun, you are thinking of driving these cars back 'home!"  Home to me is Hayden, Indiana, where I left the farm for college in 1960.  Home for Paul is Fitchburg, Massachusetts.  We had both moved our families to California in the 1960s, he to Downey, and me to Anaheim.  We had driven and flown back to our hometowns through the years, first following Route 66, then later the Interstates.

We met in 1980, when we moved in across the street from him in Placentia, California.  We became car-buddies when I bought a 1956 Chevy from Roger Hunter in Huntingburg, Indiana, while our son was a senior in college at Oakland City College in Southern Indiana.  We went to car shows together, me in our '56 Chevy and he in his '60ish Ford T-Bird.  Paul eventually bought a 1955 Chevy in Poway, California, and we began going to shows in earnest thereafter.  We enjoyed driving our Chevys and chose shows farther and farther away from our homes in Placentia and Anaheim, California.  Our adventures took us to Reno, Nevada, for Hot August Nights for three years, to Laughlin, Nevada, for "The Gambler Classic" for three years, to Morro Bay, California, for their May cruises, and to Pinetop, Arizona, for the Classic Chevy International Western Nationals in 2003.

After agreeing to drive 'back home' in May, 2004, with a side trip to visit my family in Maryville, Tennessee, we began making plans to visit friends and family along the way.  In the meantime, Paul traded his '55 Chevy for a '57 Chevy convertible.   This website was an outgrowth of that planning, and a way to communicate to the world on the Internet about our Ultimate Road Trip.  As we told friends about our 40-day, 10,000 plan, we found folks had one of two reactions; either:  "You're crazy!" or "Man, I wish I could go with you!" 

Since I plan to publish my pictures and words on the Internet < MoKnowsPhotos.com/USA >, folks started becoming Sponsors.  They donated everything from gas cards, coffee cards, hotel rooms, Indy 500 race tickets, cash and attraction tickets, to a bed for a night in their homes.  Commercial sponsors will have their logo on our Sponsor page , and will receive a DVD or 8 x 10 print from this website of their favorite shot once the trip is over and the story is finished.  (If you'd like to purchase a DVD of this trip for $30, please e-mail me at CptrTchr@hotmail.com .

Being born on a farm with the front property line on Hwy. 50, and the back property line on the B & O Railroad, near Hayden, Indiana, I always had the desire to travel the full 3,000 plus miles of both the highway and railroad from coast to coast.  I had completed the cross-country railroad trip with my family in earlier years, but had not yet driven US Route 50 all the way from California to Ocean City, Maryland.  Now, my dream has come true.

How do you get enough time to take a 40-day road trip, you might ask.  Well, as one travel author once put it as a title of his book, "First, you quit your job."  Not being adventurous enough to do this, I simply waited through 40 years of work, retired from public school teaching, then decided to do the trip.

In researching the trip, I found there was a gentleman and his mechanic who had completed the first trans-continental car trip in 1903, before there were any roads, about 100 years before Paul and I attempted it.  His name was Horatio Nelson Jackson, and his car, called the Vermont, is in the Smithsonian, maybe we'll donate ours as well!  His story is currently being told in the Smithsonian, in a display called, America on the Move.  See the display at www.americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/exhibition/exhibition_7_1.html.

Horatio's drive.jpg

Horatio Nelson Jackson drives the "Vermont" through sage during his cross-country drive in 1903.

Credit: University of Vermont, Special Collections

Well, read on with these theme songs playing in the background:

  1. See the USA in your Chevrolet , by Dinah Shore
  2. On the Road Again, by Willy Nelson
  3. No Particular Place to Go , by Chuck Berry
  4. Route 66, by Natalie and Nat "King" Cole
  5. Sentimental Journey
Click here for a list of 50 Favorite Songs for the Highway. <http://www.berklee.edu/news/2003/05/drive50.html>  Click BACK in your browser to return to this page.


Williams, AZ

50

Map from http://www.roadtripusa.com/index.html

West to East we passed through these states and towns along Highway 50:

Click any State Name below to read the Travelogue and see Photographs of the trip, or

Click any state and click "Next State..." at the end of each state's travelogue to continue or .Click  BACK in your browser to return to this page)




California

CA

San Vicente Light, Rancho Palos Verdes, Calilfornia (right)


 
S_SanVicente

Nevada

NV

  7924

Hwy. 50 in Nevada is the "Loneliest Highway in America."



Utah 

UT





8095


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8232

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Kansas





KS
8340







Missouri




MO
8500


Illinois

IL



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Indiana

IN


320
Indy 500, Turn 1, May 30, 2004


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Kentucky

KY

8869

Anderson Ferry from KY to OH.

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Ohio

OH

 
175

Barn along I-70

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West Virginia

WV

 
8960

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Virginia

VA

Assateague Light, Chincoteague, Virginia (right).

assateague lighthouse

Maryland

MA

Ocean City was the end of our 3,073 mile journey across Hwy 50 from Coast to Coast.  It was as far as one can go on Hwy 50, before you get very wet.






Sunrise over the Atlantic, May 13, 2004, from the 32 St. Ramada Inn, Ocean City, Maryland.
 
9049




Delaware

DE
9062

Fenwick Island, DE, lighthouse on 146th St.

This finished the Highway 50 portion of our trip...my life's dream to travel the full length of Hwy. 50 in one trip.


I spent some time in Tennessee with family, then we went on north to finish our Border to Border quest, no longer confined to Hwy. 50.




Tennessee

TN



 
9317

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North Carolina



NC
 

9485




New York


NY


  

149




Massachusetts

MA

 
9755



Maine

ME

066

Cape Neddick Light, York, Maine - 1879

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New Hampshire



038

Portsmouth Harbor Light, Portsmouth, NH - 1771, 1804, and 1877
Two other lights can be seen from here.

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Ontario, Canada

 
119

Horseshoe Falls, Niagara Falls, ON, Canada

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"Go West Young Man" heading back to California.

after satisfying our Border to Border goal.  The few states we had not yet crossed:


Iowa

IA

387

Bridges of Madison County

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Route 66, The Mother Road

route 66
Map from:  http://www.roadtripusa.com/index.html

  



New Mexico

NM
 
698

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Arizona

AZ
728

Kingman


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California

CA


   7310

Near Newberry Springs, CA, east of Barstow, CA.


Click here (http://homepage.mac.com/moknowsphotos/USA/)
to see
photos uploaded periodically during this Ultimate Road Trip.  Click the section in the menu at the top of the page that you wish to view.  Click BACK in your browser to return to this page.

LINKS:

I made ALL our motel reservations through TravelHERO.com .  I first tried PriceLine.com and in small towns they have no connections, but they referred me to this "partner," who had motels in every town I tried, all with a listing of the property, client's ratings of some, and a button to click the rates and availability.  I found, by a number of clicks, I could shop for an inexpensive motel in any town, even Winterset, Iowa, which had only one listing, but it had one and it was available.

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