Taken from what we’re reading in the media about road trip cars to be on the look out for. About travel trends. About destinations. About car/driver related stories. And about road trip and road story books.
ISSUE 1: UPDATED OCTOBER 31, 2021
It’s the World’s Biggest Convenience Store (For Now).
WRITTEN & PHOTOGRAPHED BY: STEVE HOLLOWAY
At 66,335 square feet, the Buc-ee’s in New Braunfels holds the record of the biggest convenience store in the world.
But, if you want to see it for yourself, you need to get in your car and drive there soon.
In June, 2021, Buc-ee’s announced plans to build a 77,000 square foot store at the popular entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains in Sevierville, Tennessee.
#travelnews #roadtrip
The TRAVEL+LEISURE Top 50 Destinations List Includes Two Slots in Texas!
WRITTEN & PHOTOGRAPHED BY: STEVE HOLLOWAY
There, right next to The Catskills you’ll find Fort Worth and, next to Los Angeles, Miami, Nantucket, Nashville and New Orleans is The Texas Hill Country.
Fort Worth for its’ Texas heritage with modern updates from the Fort Worth Stockyards capturing the legacy of the busy livestock industry with rodeos and the only twice-daily cattle drive in the world to their boutiques full of Lone Star style to the recently renovated Amon Carter Museum of American Art.
And the Texas Hill Country with more than 20 towns plus vineyards creating an unmistakable charm that visitors from outside of the state are starting to discover.
UPDATE: In a follow-up story, Travel+Leisure highlighted 4 hill country spots as Texas’ best small towns.
BANDERA as “the perfect place to learn how to be a cowboy” with it’s dude ranches and historic cattle drives. There’s also the Frontier Times Museum and the 11th Street Cowboy Bar, “the biggest little bar in Texas”.
DRIPPING SPRINGS as a “mecca for those who love spirit tastings” (the town is full of distilleries) and their boutiques, restaurants and live music venues.
JOHNSON CITY for beauty and history, focusing on former President Lyndon B. Johnson. You can visit his boyhood home, the LBJ Ranch or the LBJ State Part and Historic Site plus its’ numerous wineries.
And finally WIMBERLEY with the Jacob’s Well Natural Area, their boutiques, art galleries, restaurants, live music venues and the Devil’s Backbone scenic highway.
#travelnews #roadtrip
The iconic Highland Green, 1968 Ford Mustang used in the major scenes and hero shots of the 1968 Steve McQueen movie Bullitt sold at Mecum’s Auction in January, 2020. The price? A record $3.74 million. $3.74 million! More than any other Mustang.
WRITTEN BY: STEVE HOLLOWAY
On McQueen’s recommendation, the car had been prepared for the movie by race car driver/builder Max Balchowsky. It features improved suspension and Koni shock absorbers; badging and reverse lights were removed and chrome elements were painted black or Highland Green PLUS the classic grey American Racing Torque Thrust wheels were installed.
The family that sold the one-of-a-kind Mustang happened to come across it in a 1974 issue of Road & Track Magazine. They used it as a daily driver for 40 years. Then hid the famously unrestored Mustang away until 2018.
While the winner of the bid at Mecum’s remains anonymous, it has been disclosed by the seller that the car’s new owner will not be restoring it.
#travelnews #roadtrip #bullittmustang
The first documented transcontinental American road trip.
WRITTEN BY: STEVE HOLLOWAY
Would it surprise you to find out the first coast-to-coast road trip occurred in 1919?
That’s before Route 66. Before the Bankhead Highway. Before the Lincoln Highway. Before anything even remotely resembling what we think of as a road today existed.
American Road: The Story of an Epic Transcontinental Journey at the Dawn of the Motor Age
Written by Pete Davies American Road gives an account of what may be the greatest road trip in American History.
First the when, what and why. On July 7, 1919, 69 military vehicles started at the White House on a 3,250 mile journey to the West coast. This was part public relations event, part adventure and part war game. It was designed to prove our ability to move military assets from one coast to the other as needed.
62 days later they arrived in San Francisco. 62 days! That’s 52 miles a day driving vehicles built using the earliest (most primitive) technology over the dirt, mud, rock and sand that got called “roads” back then.
Pete Davies brings this trip to life. He shows us the men who went up against the equipment problems, bad weather and punishing landscape; who fought the daily battle relying on guts and determination to achieve this near-impossible goal.
Davies goes on to describe early coast-to-coast trips and the building the Lincoln Highway. He shows us this history, unknown by many (or most), that brought us to our love affair with the road.
#travelnews #roadtrip
The Road Less Traveled (wait, is that right?).
WRITTEN BY: STEVE HOLLOWAY
This is a look at David Orr’s book about the most popular, most well known, most misquoted poem ever written.
I’ll be honest and tell you I would have bet almost anything that David Frost’s famous poem was called “The Road Less Traveled”. That’s the title that was fixed in my memory along with the mental picture it painted of a lone traveler venturing out where others dare not go.
Since a search for Frost’s poem as “The Road Less Traveled” produces over 200,000 results, I’m apparently not the only one.
So what is the correct title? The Road Not Taken.
The Road Not Taken. Such a slight and yet such a huge difference. In fact, the poem talks about two roads and describes both roads as worn “about the same”.
Orr’s book, The Road Not Taken, Finding America in the Poem Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong looks at the real meaning of this popular poem. The poem is a metaphor for the choices we make in life and how, whenever we make a decision about our lives, whenever we “choose a path”, it becomes impossible to go back later and take the other path.
This thoughtful look at how we make decisions as we move through life speaks to me as a lens that looks backwards at past decisions, forward at future decisions and at decisions we’re making in the moment.
To be honest again, I kind of like the idea that we “remember” both “versions” this iconic poem. The lone traveler venturing where others won’t go and the metaphor for the realization that once we choose a path in life we won’t ever know what choosing differently would have been like.
And that a mere 20 lines of poetry written over 100 years ago still has us thinking about and talking about the ideas it contain
#travelnews #roadtrip #theroadnottaken
So what is the number two R+T driving shoe?
WRITTEN & PHOTOGRAPHED BY: STEVE HOLLOWAY
Coming in at about $50, Vans hold Road+Track’s number 2 slot. Anything Vans but especially slip-ons (they make it faster to get out the door and on the road).
I was surprised at first. But, when I thought about it, it made perfect sense. I remembered a BMX race my oldest son entered when we were traveling years ago. We came across a track in the Hill Country. He entered his age group and won. After the race, we came across a store/trailer at the track selling shoes. They were all Vans!
Vans were made for skateboarding and BMX racing. Their ability to let you feel for the edge of the board or bike petal through the soles translates perfectly to feeling for the petals in a car, an important feature to look for in any driving shoe.
Of course, to celebrate my son’s win, we got him a new pair of Vans.
What are the other driving shoes?
Number 1 is Puma’s Sala soccer shoe “For the Regular Joe” at $90.
Number 3 is the Piloti Campione “Effortless Style” at $475.
Number 4 is the Allen Edmonds Eldorado at $275.
Number 5 is the Tory Burch Marion “For the wheel-woman” at $228.
Number 6 is Vans (anything Vans) again “Also great for ladies” at $50.
Number 7 is Alpinstars Supermono as the “Racers only” entry at $250- $420.
For the last few years, I’ve worn Nike SB slipons. Like Vans, the SB is made for (you guessed it) skateboarding. No, I don’t skateboard but, my son does and still wears Vans when he skateboards with his son, my grandson, also in Vans.
I did head out for a drive one day wearing my cross trainers and noticed I couldn’t subtly sense the pedals and their position like I could with the SB, an important ability when you’re feathering speed off going into a corner.
Now I’m curious so will be picking up a pair of Vans slip-ons soon.
UPDATE: Couldn’t wait.
Went out and got a pair of checkered Vans. Not to take anything away from the Nike SB, but I think Vans are a little more “tactile” giving you a subtle amount of control when you’re feeling for the petal to take off just a little speed coming into a corner.
Of course it also brings to mind a saying I heard when I used to do cycling time trials that goes: “If you think something will make you go faster IT WILL”. So I’m not discounting the psychological aspect that could be at work here.
#travelnews #roadtrip #vans
The Story of Automobility (Autonomy and Mobility).
WRITTEN BY: STEVE HOLLOWAY
The Road Story and the Rebel takes an an intellectual look at road stories throughout the history of road trips.
I have to admit, I was genuinely impressed to find an academic look at stories from something as instinctual and basic as a road trip. I had never considered the context of how road trips and road stories personify an entire state of mind.
Written by Associate Professor, Katie Mills Ph. D., The Road Story and the Rebel: Moving Through Film, Fiction and Television takes a scholarly look at road stories and how this literary genre has offered declarations of independence to generation after generation of rebellious Americans.
She starts with her Mother, a sales rep who traveled in a blue convertible Galaxie to make sales calls (a convertible she drove until she wore it out then replaced it again and again) then works her way through contemporary television and film.
From Jack Kerouac’s beat generation of the 1950s through the 60s idealizations of a lifestyle on the road to today’s postmodern movies, her book examines the thrill of “automobility” (autonomy and mobility) giving audiences a means to consider radically altered notions of independence.
The idea of a book that intellectually deconstructs the origins of the road trip in American culture is a challenging undertaking considering that a road trip is such at highly personal exercise.
#travelnews #travelandleisure #roadtrip #route66 #caranddriver #roadstory #crazygoodfood #foodie #authenticstay #roadtripstory #roadtripimages #carculture
