ROAD TRIPPING:
TAKING THE LONG WAY
By Valerie Emerick

My fiancé, John, and I love to take road trips. Every time we go out of town, we make it a point to only drive on two lane, often forgotten rural highways. Sure, it takes longer to get places, forget about having cell phone coverage, and most likely there’s no option to pull off at the nearest McDonald's or Cracker Barrel for a nosh and a potty break, but I wouldn't want to travel any other way. Traveling on rural highways, rather than the interstate, can be an unforgettable adventure.

What I love most about traveling on rural highways is not always knowing exactly what’s around the bend, and therein lies the adventure. Occasionally, when we travel the back roads we'll get a glimpse of some big rusty skeleton of something that once was, perhaps a roadside attraction abandoned due to revenues lost when the interstate came through, or maybe a dead neon sign for some novelty themed motel that was once a destination for throngs of road weary travelers who, themselves packed into the family sedan or station wagon, to look for a roadside oasis. If we're really lucky, we'll stumble across some local mom-and-pop diner that serves the best peach cobbler and fried chicken we ever ate, or we could get to see the "World's Largest Cedar Bucket," which we actually got to see when it was in Murfreesboro, TN. I use the past tense “was” because unfortunately, in 2005, vandals burned it down. Indeed, there’s no telling what we’ll find when we travel the back roads.

One year, over Halloween weekend, John and I decided that we wanted to avoid the masses of trick-or-treaters, so we packed a couple of overnight bags and hopped in the car. We had no destination in mind, just a general direction, a simple road map (who needs GPS?), and a goal to avoid the interstate at all costs. That turned out to be a fantastic expedition. Our route took us through NW Georgia, NE Alabama and up into Tennessee. We ate dinner in Tullahoma, TN (where I was born) and ended up getting a room for the night in Murfreesboro, TN. Although, Murfreesboro is far from being a cultural Mecca, it is home to a few antique stores, and the Cannonsburgh Village, which in addition to being a replica pioneer township, it is also where one can find the now charred remains of the “World's Largest Cedar Bucket.”

The trip back home was just as interesting. By the time we reached Shelbyville, TN – which we later learned is the “Walking Horse Capital of the World” – we were ready for a bite to eat. Totally by accident, we made the most amazing discovery. Off in the distance, on a somewhat remote side street, I spied a giant, red, neon boomerang. Like moths, we were entranced by the light’s warm glow and had to move in closer to get a better view. This is when we discovered Richard's Cafeteria. It was just a buffet style, greasy spoon, but wow! The food was just like my grandma's. (My grandma was Southern and made “creamed” potatoes instead of “mashed” and served banana pudding warm out of the oven like nature intended.) The barbequed ribs and black-eyed peas were “melt in your mouth” delicious, as was the peach cobbler, and everything else we ate – including the banana pudding. And the best part? It was "all you can eat" for $5.95 and sweet tea was just 80 cents with unlimited refills. Although, we were actually just going to investigate the neon sign, I'm so glad we ate there. After years of taking the long way, we’ve discovered that any road trip where you find good local food, get to shop, and see "The World's Largest” anything is just about perfect.

A few years ago, on another expedition, we ended up in Cave City, KY. We were traveling up to Indianapolis to visit friends and to attend an annual music festival. Being the road-exploring adventurers that we are, we allowed ourselves two whole days to complete the journey that would take the average person only nine and a half hours traveling by interstate. However, it was well worth the delay. Cave City is a time capsule of a forgotten era. One only has to travel US Highway 31W or Highway 70 to get an idea of what road travel was like in the “glory days” before the interstate system. On Highway 31W we got to see The Wigwam Village, which is an old motel where guest rooms consist of individual concrete units that have been constructed in the shape of teepees, as well as many other roadside lodgings that were impressively emblazoned in a spectrum of brightly colored neon.

Driving down Highway 70 we saw such amazing sights as Guntown Mountain, a frontier themed amusement park, which has thrill rides, a gunfighter museum, and live entertainment in the form of saloon shows, and gunfight reenactments, and Dinosaur World, an outdoor museum of life size dinosaurs. We also explored the ruins of the now defunct, Golgotha Fun Park, a Bible themed mini-golf course, which also featured a go-cart track, and a paint-ball skirmish area. The first hole of the course began in Genesis with the Creation of Adam and Eve, and ended at hole eighteen, with the Crucifixion of Jesus at Golgotha. Each hole was flanked by a Bible passage relevant to whatever Bible story, disguised as a golf hazard, was highlighted. (I still haven’t decided if this good clean family fun is the optimal way to pay homage to the figurehead of a major world religion. In fact, Golgotha Fun Park made me wonder if in India somewhere there’s a mini-golf course where putters face such hazards as a multi-armed Ganesh windmill-like structure or a “pinwheeling” Vishnu.) Once again, “the road less traveled” had shown us many extraordinary things, that had we been on the interstate, we would have driven right past. However, now we have stories to tell for years to come.

One Easter Weekend we had hotel reservations and tickets to an event in Las Vegas, but the open road was calling, so we flew to Vegas five days ahead of schedule and rented a car. For five glorious days, we trekked around the Southwest. We had no predetermined plans, no set itinerary, and five days to get there. Naturally, we took the scenic route. Our journey took us down Highway 93, into Boulder City and across the Hoover Dam. From there we traveled to Kingman, AZ, where we were able to pick up historical Route 66 for the next portion of the trip. Traveling Route 66 was in and of itself quite exciting just for the sheer novelty of it, and because it is such an integral piece of Americana, but we saw so many more sights over the next five days, that Route 66 is just a tiny blip on the map.

The first night of our five-day-odyssey, we settled down in Flagstaff, AZ. We stayed in a quaint, but very clean old roadside motel. After unloading a few necessities and cleaning up a bit, we decided to head out on the town for a bite, a pint, and the local flavor. After a quick glance through the “yellow pages,” we decided to try out the “Flagstaff Brewing Company,” a local place that made its own micro-brews onsite, as well as offering an impressive food menu. We were not disappointed. Flagstaff Brewing Company is located in downtown Flagstaff on Route 66, and attracts every walk of life. College students, “deadheads,” local mountain folk, and even humble tourists like ourselves, were made to feel welcome and at home by the friendly and knowledgeable wait staff. We enjoyed a meal consisting of fresh made garlic potato chips and a flame grilled barbeque chicken pizza, which of course was all washed down with a pint of micro-brewed goodness. With our bellies full, and our bodies road weary, we headed back to the motel after dinner to get a good nights rest before tackling day two of our journey.

The great part of traveling with no itinerary is that we can go anywhere we want, anytime we want. Day two of our trip, we hoped would eventually take us to the Grand Canyon, but as always, we were also open to taking advantage of any detours that we might encounter along the way. After stopping off at a local diner and eating possibly the biggest “one egg” breakfast I’ve ever seen in my life, we took off in the direction of the Grand Canyon. Twelve or so miles north of Flagstaff we spotted a sign that read, “Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monument,” so of course, we had to go and see what that was all about. We spent half the day exploring Sunset Crater, a volcanic formation created during a series of eruptions sometime between 1040 and 1100, and the Wupatki National Monument, a pueblo Indian ruin. While we thoroughly enjoyed our side excursion, and had no regrets about stopping to see the sights, I was anxious to see the Grand Canyon, so we continued onward.

The second half of day two and all of day three were spent hiking around the South Rim of The Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is amazing; however, words do it no justice. It can’t be described with words alone. The Canyon must be seen live in person to fully grasp how awesome and breathtaking it really is.

After leaving the Grand Canyon, we decided to head north and bed down for the night in Page, AZ, a small town that borders Utah and the Navajo Nation. It was late when we got to town and the only place still open and serving food was the local Denny’s. Normally, we try to avoid chain restaurants at all costs, but since we had no other options, we did what we had to do. We reluctantly headed to Denny’s. The food was unremarkable, to say the least, but the dining experience itself was a bit surreal. Apparently in Page, AZ, Denny’s is the local hangout for teens and young twenty-somethings who have nothing better to do. Consequently, we had to share the dining room with a small horde of wayward youths who appeared to be waiting for a buddy to get off of work, or waiting for a take-out order, or just loitering about, drinking coffee, and bothering the waitress. Most likely, it was a not-so-subtle combination of all the above. Either way, they were obnoxious and distracting. Elsewhere in the dining room, we were inadvertently “entertained” by one of the kitchen staff who had chosen to spend his break in the dining area practicing guitar for his mariachi band. Had we not been in a Denny’s, I would have sworn we were in a David Lynch film.

The rest of our five-day-Southwestern-adventure was a blur of road travel and national parks. From Page, AZ we saw the Navajo National Monument, which is another pueblo Indian ruin, and then we went up into Utah and saw Monument Valley, Valley of the Gods, and Zion National Park. It was a truly amazing trip. Had we just flown to Las Vegas, and spent our entire trip there, rather than embarking out on the open road we would have missed out on a lot.

Even when John and I travel to set destinations, we still prefer rural highways because not only are they more interesting than the interstate, but sometimes we discover oddities purely by accident, such as the huge “Bear Lax,” liquid laxative ad in Monticello, GA, for example, we discovered when we missed a turn and had to backtrack. The ad appears to be a relic left over from a time when ads were painted on the broadside of brick buildings and when liquid laxatives were the norm, and the more powerful the better. (I like to pretend that the company slogan for Bear Lax was: “Bear Lax. Because sometimes even a bear needs help to poop in the woods!”) Other “happy accidents” include the Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton, GA and countless pieces of roadside folk art seen in yards and cow pastures nationwide. We definitely would not have seen those things from the interstate.

The famous poet Robert Frost wrote in his poem, “The Road Not Taken,” that “[t]wo roads diverged in a wood,” and he “took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” When it comes to road travel, I could not agree more. If I’ve learned anything from my years of road tripping, it’s that the old adage “getting there is half the fun,” is only half right. Many times, for John and me all the fun is in how we got there, and for us, there’s just no better way to travel than taking the long way.