June 15, 2008

Highways of Memory




Hoppy father's day. G hopping in Grumpy. 2008.



G: He too reacted to something and was ferociously grumpy and upset all day.
A shower, allergy pills, and Tylenol did immediately repair him when we got home. Brought the truly recumbent Schwinn upstairs. Rocker to downstairs/ He’s my hero even if he has dissolved into disaster.

G’ette: Very hyperactive, up most of night, and still dramatically reacting to the shot until almost exactly 24 hours. Slowly the first layer began to wear off about mid afternoon. I’m still 50% improved, and 75% on the front tendone. Now by Monday, 2 days, the second level steroid should kick in and begin working. I must admit that it was frightening to have this reaction a second time in my life, (the first with a BP pill), but it was more than delightful to be pain free most all Saturday.
Last night, I found my self curled up on my computer following the highways I remembered from my childhood. Mother and Gunny would load me into the old hand painted, maroon DeSoto and drive me to camp for two weeks every summer. Chula Vista to Fallbrook on old US 395.

It would take all morning to drive from #20 in Chula Vista to Escondido. We would stop there at an old, adobe roadside restaurant with a patio deeply shaded by pepper trees. After lunch, we would go from Escondido to the East Mission Road exit in Fallbrook, turn left into the deep tree shaded roadbed, and be almost there. Mrs. Duffy’s Ranch Camp for Girls waited just turn left and go down the driveway into freedom.

I’m sure the Ranch Camp was a failure. The buildings were beyond old, the horses tired and slow, the yard pig even tireder, but I flat out loved it. There were some summers I could talk mother into more than two week. Only now I wonder who she borrowed the money from so I could stay that extra week in paradise.

As I let my fingers wander my memories, I found not just US 395, I found links to everyone’s highway memories. There from modern US 80, you can see today pieces of the original cement highway that my Gimpa took to drive across the deserts and mountains into San Diego every year.

These pages are labors of love. Many are not complete created in spare time that we know isn’t really spare. What memories will you find following the links I discovered? Do let me know.



Links:

Historic US Highways

California Bridge Styles

History Hunters: Abandoned Railroads and Wagon Roads

UnTraveled Road

Explore Route 66

Ridge Route

The Lost Highway

Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike Links

Abandoned Road Links

Explore Byways: Good memories here

Colonial Parkway: Jamestown, Yorktown, Williamsburg, and Ft. Eustis Virginia the transportation capital of the US Army….did I say that.

Historic Highways of Southern California

Lincoln Highway Association: News blog too

Lincoln Highway

Famous US Highways

Abandoned Southern Highways

autobahn-online: The English pages are not updated

Autobahns of Poland

AARoads: See the roads before you go

On The Road Blog

Abandoned Tube Stations: Not roads but still abandoned means of travel

1 comment:

  1. Don't forget to post the Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition -- www.drivelincolnhighway.com -- as a link. We are the only part of the nationwide highway that has received a National Scenic Byway designation. Check us out!

    Diane Rossiter, Associate Director
    Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition

    ReplyDelete

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