Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon ~ March Book Club Online

[JoanP]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome.

March Book Club Online

Blue Highways - a Journey into America
by William Least Heat-Moon

This should be FUN!  Whether you decide to read and discuss William Least Heat-Moon's classic 1978 travel account  or share your own memories of the "blue highways" of America, you will probably leave winter doldrums behind -  in your driveway. Heat-Moon coined the term to refer to small, forgotten, out-of-the-way roads connecting rural America (which were drawn in blue on the old style Rand McNally road atlas). The book chronicles the author's 13,000-mile journey and the people he meets along the way, as he steers clear of cities and interstates, avoiding fast food and exploring local American culture. His book was on the NY Times’ best seller list for 42 weeks in 1982-83, and its title became a cultural code word for a journey of introspection and discovery.     Some questions we'll explore:      *  What's left of the country stores and cafes on the old blue highways?    *  Do you have photographs?

Discussion Schedule:    Part One ~       March 3-7  (Eastward)      Part Two ~       March 8-11  (East by Southeast~The Carolinas, Georgia)      Part Three ~    March 12-13-14 (South by Southeast)    Part Four ~      March 15-16-17(South by Southwest)    Part Five ~       March 18-19-20(West by Southwest)    Part SIX ~        March 23-24-25-26(West by Northwest) ~ Oregon    Part SEVEN ~   March 27-28-29 (North by Northwest) ~ Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Michigan Relevant Links:   Least Heat Moon's route map (interactive)    Interview with Least Heat-Moon "Be a Traveller, not a Tourist"    QUOTES noted from Blue Highways

Some Topics for Discussion
 

March 23-26  Part VI  West by Northwest -  California, Oregon

1. Into Oregon on US 97 at Tule Lake, on to Fort Klamath, attracted to the glow of neon to a promising wooden café.
"His type makes me nervous." What do you think the woman with the matching mopeds mean by this? How did Least Heat Moon react to this?

2.  Crater Lake - "the only famous tourist attraction in Oregon."  At noon, "a sea change "
How did reading Black Elk's The Sacred Pipe affect Least Heat Moon?  Was it racial memory that urged him to drive 7000 miles of blue highways?

3. Does the banana slug seem to fit right in to the "blue funk" he's in?  Why those calls to the Cherokee?

4. US 101 Depoe Bay  - would you have choose the no-name beanery, over the Happy Harpooner?  What is bottomfish?  How did the local fisherman feel about overfishing here and the resulting changes?

5. Up the coast - Fort Clatsop, four volcanos, Mt. Hood...Aren't these still tourist attractions too? ("Native Oregonians could only agree which mountain was Mt. Hood.")

6.  Portland, Louie's Oyster Bar ~ Communal tables, though not many customers wanted community with strangers?  What did he hear from students to lighten his mood? Anything?

7.  Liberty Bond, Oregon, a town that no longer exists.  Why does it rate a place on his map of memorable places?

8. What was the impact of Least Heat Moon's conversation with the hang glider in Klickitat, Oregon, who describes how good it feels up there to be totally alone?  

9. "To seek the high road, a man looks not deeper within - he reaches farther out."  Is this how Heat Moon is going to overcome his loneliness and depression?

Contact:   JoanP  

[JoanP]

A note to those bringing up the rear - We REALLY do want to hear from YOU - your impressions of what you are seeing or thinking as you take your time on the route!  Also, pay attention to those signs that read "Next gas 80 miles." --- Fill up - even those signs can be misleading...

[CallieOK]

I think people who live in remote areas like the ones in Nevada he writes about can become "resigned to their fate" because they lack opportunities to interact with others as we who live in populated areas do.  Many may not be able to afford the time or expense to travel to the nearest town very often - so they only go when absolutely necessary, never casually for entertainment or social purposes.

A woman who made the Oklahoma Land Run in 1889 with her husband and homesteaded on the prairie not far from here wrote to her aunt in Missouri:  
"The nearest post office is 16 miles from here and that is Oklahoma City.  Ed has gone to the city today for mail but I don’t expect he will get back tonight and I will have to stay by myself.
I am lonesome, awful lonesome.   No church or any place to go and no one to come here.  I tell you girls, if you want to know how you feel when you are lonesome, you must move away from your friends to a new country and be by yourself nearly all day.  It seems to me sometimes as if there were no one in the whole world that cared anything for me and I just couldn’t stand it any longer.”

[ANNIE]

We watched "Nebraska" last night and it covered a family living in a small town, Hawthorne,MT, and the main characters stop to visit with his family, who are so resigned,  I thought of the book and WLH describing Nevada.  If you have NetFlix, its probably available there. Thought provoking movie.

[Frybabe]

I'm spending a little time in Nevada. After Ely, LHM stops at Austin, a town he likes.
http://www.austinnevada.com/
Click on the video. I enlarged it by double clicking on it so I could see it better. Very nice presentation of Austin's history, events and scenery.

Now I am in Frenchman, near where the first underground atomic bomb test took place. What interesting stories the locals had to tell. LHM talked to the last owner of the place. The Chealanders deeded the property to the US Navy in 1985. The buildings were demolished in 1987. http://www.onlinenevada.org/articles/frenchmans-station-aka-bermond

[CallieOK]

Frybabe,  that's a wonderful video and I can see why LHM liked Austin.

(They must not have casinos and "cat houses" like some of the other remote towns do.  

[JoanP]

Welcome back, Annie so happy to learn how well the procedure went!  W missed you!
Will definitely sign up for Nebraska.

Callie...heart wrenching story.  That homesteader's lonely existence in the remote area broke my heart.  
Frybabe, I'm glad you bring up the Chealanders.  I'd been wondering about how (and it why) they hung on in Frenchman...with their three little daughters.  Surely those girls when grown, will not want to stay on here!  

Now we know they didn't, that the whole family left...don't you wonder where they went?
I found this in searching...but there is still a missing piece to the puzzle. -

"​​When I compare our trip with Heat-Moon’s about thirty years prior, the two most significant changes were in Frenchman, Nevada, and the route through West Virginia. When Heat-Moon stopped in Frenchman, the settlement consisted of a cafe-bar-motel-gas station-home with a population of four: Laurie Chealander and her husband, Chris; their two-year-old daughter, Callie; and Chris’ mother, Margaret. It was located on a remote section of US 50 and sat adjacent to a US Navy bombing range. In September 2007, as I followed Heat-Moon’s route in western Nevada, I found where Frenchman, Nevada, had once been. There were no buildings – only a few pipes rising from the ground. Examining the Frenchman photograph in Blue Highways confirmed I had found the right spot – a large gravel parking area, the shape of the distant mountains, the angle of US 50, and the “No-Trespassing-US-Navy-bombing-range” sign on the fence bordering the south side of the gravel lot. The pieces of the puzzle fit. But I was unable to locate any members of the Chealander family. Fallon and Reno directory assistance produced several leads, but none of them led me to the Chealanders. While I was eating lunch at the Frenchman site and pondering how to track down the Chealanders, two Navy fighters began to drop practice bombs just a mile or so away. In 1978, Heat-Moon was told about a plane that dropped a bomb on Highway 50 the year before, “and nearly killed some clown in a car.” The dummy bomb “just bounced up on the pavement and rolled dead.”  I saw the reality of that bar story graphically reinforced. The Chealanders used to sell hats and T-shirts with the engraving, “I got bombed at Frenchman.” I had just joined the club. The US Navy removed the buildings after it purchased the property in 1986. I would finally track down Laurie Chealander in 2009. It was worth the effort. She had a wonderful story to tell since Heat-Moon’s visit in 1978." By the author of Blue Highways Revisited Edgar I Ailor III.

"I would finally track down Laurie Chealander in 2009." . Can you find her?

[JoanP]

So LHM liked Austin, the "Town That Died Laughing."  Why?  Because they believed the town was going to come back.  Optimism!  

Thanks for the link, Fry - Austin didn't turn into a ghost town as so many of these towns did.  It has an historical designation.  I read the population in 2010 was 192 - wonder how many of them are young people.

[JoanP]

More on Laurie Chealander and those three daughters..in Reno!
" Fallon and Reno directory assistance produced several leads, but none of them got me to the Chealanders. Internet searches provided eight possible addresses but no current phone number. I wrote a letter and explained I was mailing the same letter to all eight addresses. About a week later Laurie called me and I would fly to Reno to interview Laurie and meet her three daughters and one grandson." Edgar I Aillor III

[salan]

I am in Oregon.  I've stopped for a while, while I look up my travel Journals and read up on our trip to Oregon & California.  We travelled some of the same spots the author is talking about.
Sally

[Frybabe]

Oh, I have some catching up to do. I am still in California.

Another Frenchman/Laurie article: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1915&dat=19861030&id=hSwrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HnIFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1422,7145280

[JoanP]

Thanks, Fry!  I can't seem to get enough of the Chealanders.  They represent the dying towns we've seen as we travelled the blue roads through Nevada.  I like the fact that they aren't still out there in Frenchman - that there is life after living in a ghost town.  (Does anyone know why Least Heat Moon named his van, Ghost Dancing?  Apropo, don't you think?...He seems to be living in a lonely little moveable ghost down, population of 1.)

Two more photos - you get an idea of how and where the Chealanders were living - in Frenchman.  The photographer, Ed Ailor, drove the family back for photographs years later - of course the cafe/filling station were gone by then when he took the bottom photo - but this was the spot where it used to be.

[JoanP]

WE do need to get moving...but I must add a memory of beautiful Lake Tahoe in Nevada...can't forget that!

Love hearing where everyone is today - Salan, stopped in Oregon looking at travel journals in California and Oregon. Fry, am looking forward to hearing what you see today in California.  When I took my notes over Part VI, I seem to have skipped California completely.  I plan to reread the CA route - can't imagine why I skipped the whole state!  

Later!

[Frybabe]

I thought he had surprisingly little to say about the Mt. Lassen scenery. Travelliing along the routes he took, I was unable to find several of the places he mentioned (not that I looked hard), but I did see Hat Creek and surrounds. What a delight to discover the Hat Creek Radio Observatory. It speaks to my early interest in Radio Astronomy. I had never heard of it before. While LHM talked about the birds and the lower section, I took myself off to the observatory.  http://www.sri.com/research-development/specialized-facilities/hat-creek-radio-observatory

I moved on to Oregon and the banana slug this morning. I can almost feel him cringing through his mixed thoughts and remembrances, bringing back his depression for a while and an unsuccessful call to "the Cherokee".

[Frybabe]

Has anyone got to State Route 14 in Washington yet?

Among other interesting sites, he mentions Beacon Rock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beacon_rock.jpg  and Mt. Adams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mt_Adams.jpg  He seems to be enjoying his drive on SR14, following some of the Lewis and Clark Expedition's trail.

LHM is about to head for Liberty Bond, another town on the map whose name intrigues him.

[JoanP]

Just pulling into Oregon, Fry - Breathtaking mountains, aren't they?  I thought it was funny to read that even the locals weren't sure which was which...except everyone knew Mt. Hood.

Least Heat Moon, seems happy enough after his icy plunge into Hat Creek, CA...though his mood began to change after meeting Bill Watkins, wife and dog, didn't it?

 He became angry when there was nothing open in Manton where he hoped to get some directions after a road closure...and when he reached Viola, not a gas station or cafe to be found.  Why were they even on a map, he asked?

Hungry, he's ready for Oregon....CA 299.  (He writes he's been here 15 years ago - did you see that?)
So, angry and hungry, he arrives in Fort Klamath. A neon sign, looks promising. No calendars, though.

"His type makes me nervous." What do you think that woman with the matching mopeds means by this? How did Least Heat Moon react to her comment?

[PatH]

Aaak--we're on Oregon already.  I'd better catch up, because I've actually been to some of the Oregon spots.

[ginny]

Another non sequitur from me, but this is a philosophical book, isn't it? Or is it?

At any rate, I can't find this quote on the internet (which is nothing new for me) and had not heard it (but I don't read a lot of LeCarre) :  "Nothing ever bridged the gulf between the man who went and the man who stayed behind."

But  I wonder how, in what context,  it was first used? Do you remember which book it was, Joan K? It certainly could apply to many things, including this book's quest. And death,  as Joan K says.

The first thing I thought upon seeing it was WWII,  considering the age of LeCarre, the:  "What did you do in the War, Daddy?" This was a big theme of WWII, between those who "went," and those who did not.

Looking harder at the quote you can ascribe all sorts of meanings to it. I am intrigued by it.

  Thank you for bringing it here, Joan K.

Super discussion.

[JoanP]

Where is JoanK? - last we saw her she was in Phoenix, I think.  Where are you, Ginny?   Pat, we need you!

I've an appointment, but am leaving this just for you, Fry.   Last we heard, LHM still has yet to find the Banana slug, hiding somewhere in the back of his van...



Banana slug in a rush Click this link if you want to wach a slug move!

Does the banana slug seem to fit right in to the "blue funk" he's in?  Why those calls to the Cherokee?  Did his loneliness get the better of him?  He tried five times to call her - and when he did...?  This is the first time he's mentioned trying to contact her...  though I remember his disappointment that there wasn't a letter from her at his cousin's in Shreveport, LA.

[JoanP]

"...this is a philosophical book, isn't it? Or is it?"

An interesting question, Ginny!  I  think so, but some people read it as a travel journal, reliving pleasant memories.  As I move around the web,  I see so many people making plans to follow Least Heat Moon's route - just to see what he saw.  They aren't motivated by the issues that caused the author to want to get out of town, leaving all his disappointments behind.  They are just interested in the travel experience, seeing new sights.  I like hearing from people who live in or have visited the areas the author visits.  

Depending on where you are in the book, you can't miss his moods, his changing mindset as he experiences loneliness, solitude, or as he converses with people who are living their lives in remote places, no matter how difficult.  Least Heat Moon's is experiencing a philosophical journey.  

  

"Nothing ever bridged the gulf between the man who went and the man who stayed behind."John Le Carre  

-
This is from his novel, The Looking Glass War.  I can't say I've read it, so don't know the context there - Least Heat Moon sees names of places on his Oregon map - Lookingglass and Riddle... He asked

"What need for a man to make a trip to Lookingglass, Oregon, when he'd been seeing his own image across the length of the country?  My skewed vision was that of a man looking at himself by looking at what he looks at. "

So, what are YOU looking at now?  Are you in Nevada?  Oregon?  Or?

Are you surprised that he even drives to Portland?  I thought he was avoiding cities.  Have you ever been?

[CallieOK]

On the very first page of Chapter 1, he writes "...A man who couldn't make things go right could at least go. He could quit trying to get out of the way of life. Chuck routine. Live the real jeopardy of circumstance.  It was a question of dignity."

Right after the unsuccessful call to The Cherokee from Corvallis OR, he writes,   "I began fighting the fear that I was about to lose heart utterly and head back.  Oh god, I could feel it coming.  The old Navajos, praying for renewal of mental strength, chant "In the ways of the past may I walk." - but my chant went the other way."

After going half-way through his "circle" around the country, here he is - wishing he could go back to the way things used to be.

I know several people who have had major life changes not of their choosing - and simply cannot (or will not) emotionally let go and get on with a different way of life.

I've wondered if LHM is this way and has been seeking out people who mirror this feeling - while rejecting those who remind him of "the way it used to be". Have also wondered if he found something lacking in the people who had chosen to move to remote areas.

Re:  going through Portland:    He went to Ft. Clatsop at the mouth of the Columbia River.  It appears he wanted to follow the river and, according to my atlas map the best way to do that was to follow State Highway 30 through Portland and then cross to Vancouver W.A.

[JoanP]

Excellent points,  Callie...and you've explained what brings LHM to Portland.  Besides looking for oysters now that he's here.   Louie's Oyster Bar.  He writes that though there were communal tables, not many wanted to speak to strangers.
And the conversation with the grabby teenagers didn't lift his spirits either.  "Goodbye Portland!"

He can't return - retrace his route, go back to things the way they used to be.  He's come too far, been through too much. This wasn't the first time he thought of forgetting the whole thing...remember when he came so close to taking the turn for home in the very beginning of the trip?  Do you remember where he was then?  I thought it was on one of those rainy days during the first week on the road.

[JoanP]

What keeps him going when he is losing heart?  He writes of undergoing a "sea change" - and then he writes that he has started reading Black Elk's " the Sacred Pipe," in which he writes of the blue road route and the man who lives for himself, and not his people!
I 'll bet this was on his mind when he listened to those teens in Louie's, for whom "anything less than more than enough, is not enough."

I've lost the source of this...will hunt it up, because I think it clarifies what's happening with Least Heat Moon.  He 'll go on, blue as he is right now-

"The reader can see in the early part of Blue Highways, Walt Whitman predominates where there’s some bitterness and certainly a great sense of loss in the narrator. But as the book goes on, and the narrator moves more into a re-emergence, a reawakening of his red background, Black Elk becomes the predominant outside spokesman.  … in his Sacred Pipe,   Black Elk speaks of the blue roads of a person’s life. The blue roads are those roads that are destructive to human understanding and human cooperation. They are roads that are largely travelled by people preoccupied with themselves."

[Frybabe]

I've decided, through reading the passages in the book, that I am not real fond of Walt Whitman.

I guess you could say that choosing the title BLUE Highways was appropriate in more than one way.

Meeting up with the hang gliders and the cute chick was interesting. LHM was a bit forward with the girl; she didn't much care for it.

[ginny]

I'm in Oregon and have actually driven through Oregon to almost all the places that he mentions. We drove up the coast of Oregon twice, once with my children, I've been to Portland three times, (my one continuing memory of Portland is the overpasses, after driving thru such pristine country up the coast, and then inland never expecting them: they terrified me. To this day all I remember was a city of over and underpasses, everybody driving too fast).

Oregon seems wildly beautiful and very strange. It's quite like going into another time, (I kept reciting "this is the forest primeval," drove the kids nuts,  when you go up the coast road, is it #1? All the way to Seattle?  I've come by train, that great train from Chicago to Seattle, around the Columbia River into Washington State, it seemed to go on forever.

 I never will forget the seals (I assume they were seals), and the surfers along the coast and the strange rock formations.

There's a wonderful restaurant hanging out over the Oregon Coast where we used to like to stop, it's breathtaking scenery (I think it's some kind of motel, doesn't look like much) and they had finger bowls and sherbet to cleanse the palate  between courses, the kids were mesmerized.

Interesting about Fort Stevens, the last place in the US fired on by a foreign power.

Good heavens, what a statement:   in his Sacred Pipe,   Black Elk speaks of the blue roads of a person’s life. The blue roads are those roads that are destructive to human understanding and human cooperation. They are roads that are largely travelled by people preoccupied with themselves."

I am not sure what kind of human understanding and cooperation you get on an interstate?

That seems different, more negative, from:

The Lakota concept that HM wrote about, " The good red road," as opposed to the "blue road," the path of one "who lives for himself rather than for his people."

The Revisited says "This is the key idea in Blue Highways and the original significance of that title, a description that has now entered the American lexicon as a term for 'back roads.'"

So here is the burden, I didn't know existed and which I don't feel, personally, of living for your "people," which apparently is expected?

So symbolically he's taking the more negative self centered road, paradoxically trying to find himself by taking what the people he meets say as...omens? Meaningful?

Looking for signs on his pilgrimage?

[CallieOK]

Ginny, I think you're right about his taking the negative self-centered road and, frankly, I'm getting a bit tired of his self-pity!

How marvelous to have driven up the coast in Oregon.  I have always wanted to drive..go by car  ...along the Pacific coastal highway. The one chance I had was interrupted by 9/11 - which happened as we were sitting on the concourse ready to fly out of OKC to join a group in California.  Obviously, we didn't - and I've never had another chance.

[JoanP]

Getting dizzy trying to follow Ghost Dancing after he left Portland.  Did he ever go further north to Fort Clatsop, to Astoria?  I remember they were mentioned, but don't remember a visit...Fond memories both, but will try to stick to LHM's blue route.

I know what you're saying about getting tired of LHM's complaints of loneliness, Callie
Fry says it all..."the title Blue Highways, appropriate in more ways than one."

Black Elk is teaching something else...counseling against such self-preoccupation.  Do you see any signs that he is taking Black Elk's teaching to heart?  
Do you see him making such a change on this pilgrimage, Ginny?

"I am not sure what kind of human understanding and cooperation you get on an interstate? "

I agree, this will have to occur from what he learns Off the Interstate...

[PatH]

LHM seems to be at a real low point here in Oregon, or at least I hope it's a low point.

Yes, the Oregon coast is beautiful.  I've been to all the places he mentions too.  There are lots of seals, and my daughter, SIL, and I once saw a harbor seal giving birth.  It was very quick--all over in a minute or so, and there was this cute little baby seal.

[JoanP]

Fry brings up the hang glider...Alba Barthol, from Klickitat, who tells Least Heat Moon, how good it feels to be totally alone up there. Alone and FREE!

Do you think this will have any effect  on LHM's loneliness, Pat? I'm hoping his outlook will improve after Oregon.  It's time!  No more calls to the Cherokee!

Lucky you...to be watching that particular mama seal at just the right moment!

Let's tack another day on this section as it just may be a turning point!

[PatH]

Do you think this will have any effect  on LHM's loneliness, Pat?

Nothing seems to make him feel better for long.  He'll have a moment of insight or see the poetry in something, then next paragraph he's back in his depressed fog.

Incidentally, the highway he didn't take, on the Oregon side, that goes past all the wonderful waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge, and that he looked across at on the level of The Dalles, remarking it had covered the Oregon Trail, is now US 84, not 80N.  It turns southeast, and hits 80 at Salt Lake City.  I wonder when the number was changed, and why they bothered.

[JoanP]

Well, I'm hoping the cumulative result of these encounters along the way, will result in lasting change by the end of his travels.

Wait a minute...I just remembered something he wrote in a previous section.  maybe it's important enough to collect in the list of his memorable quotes...
"A true journey, no longer how long the travel takes, has no end."

Does this help?  "I-80N was generally built along the corridor of U.S. Route 30 and U.S. Route 30S, which themselves largely followed the Oregon Trail; the U.S. Route 30S designation was decommissioned in the 1970s after the freeway replacement was mostly complete. The highway was signed with the I-84 designation in 1980, when a 1977 change in guidelines took effect that discouraged highway numbers with directional suffixes."

[ANNIE]

Well, when I noticed on my map that LHM was in Truckee and looked at the photos that are in my BH Revisited, I remembered that I had been to the Truckee for lunch back in the '90's with my DH and also went up to see the Donner memorials and then a pleasant drive around Lake Tahoe to our hotel which was on the water's edge. We were at a business meeting but were able to meet with my cousins who have a cottage on the lake. Beautiful country.  And then when LHM crossed over into California, he was really seeing the gorgeous side of the U.S.

How interesting, Frybabe, that you were interested in radio telescopes.  Have you see the site up in northeast WV?  Green Bank, WV?  We took a brief tour of the grounds.  Its been there for quite a long time.  
A link for you, Frybabe:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Radio_Astronomy_Observatory

I am reading "Revisited" plus reading LMH's story of the road.  I am up in Oregon, just over the line and driving out to where we started our trip up that most luscious road US 101. I have been up from the bottom to the top of Oregon along that highway.  Its where Ralph and I spent two nights in that
the Books B&B,  we visited the Laughing Frog shop in a tiny town that my cousin from Corvalis told us not to miss. We stayed in a hotel/B&B on Cannon Beach(pictured in Revisited).  I might have some pictures(about 300) of Oregon.  I gave Pedl'n directions to a wonderful old hotel with dining room over looking the Columbia River, not too far from Multnoma Falls.  

I don't find LHM depressing but mildly disappointed that he hasn't found anyone as interesting as the Chealanders.  It was fun to read about Frenchman and the bar, grocery, filling station and restaurant.  
In this book are the picture that LHM took and one taken in 2007 taken by author of BH Revisited.  

I will be back tomorrow.    

[salan]

My husband & I (along with my sil & bil) flew into Salem, OR, rented a car & drove to the Colombia River Gorge & then up to Astoria, ORE, and down the coast to San Francisco.  We were on the road for 2 weeks and really saw some breathtaking scenery as well as sea lions, & a pod of whales!  It was truly a memorable trip & I would love to do it again.

I am now ready to enter North by northwest.   Where is everyone else???
Sally

[Frybabe]

Me too, Sally. I took two days off before traveling on.

I finally looked up The Dalles, which I took to be the designatior for an entire area. It is, in fact, a city on the Columbia River. http://www.historicthedalles.org/

[JoanP]

Thanks for the link to the Dalles, Fry!  I clicked  HISTORY in that link -

"It also served as the end of the overland Oregon Trail beginning in 1843. Lewis & Clark camped at The Dalles twice, in 1805 and 1806. The site of the city was a major trade center for Native Americans for at least 10,000 years."  They didn't let go of that land easily.

You and Sally are right - we are about to move on to North by Northwest.  Tacked another day on to the schedule to give others a chance to catch up.
 Since you are ready to go, why not get a start - take notes and we'll catch up with you tomorrow. Wait for us in Browning, Mont, okay?  The old SeniorNet had ties with the reservation there, does anyone remember that?   Least Heat Moon seems to have done lot of research on the area when he got home.  While interesting, and important, I find myself eager to move through it sometimes.  Do you feel that way too?  I'm afraid to miss something that I'm not skipping, maybe scanning is a better word for it...

Part 7 covers a lot of territory - So does US2!  LHM write, "People who equate travel with getting miles behind them love US2."

Discussion Schedule:    Part One ~       March 3-7  (Eastward)      Part Two ~       March 8-11  (East by Southeast~The Carolinas, Georgia)      Part Three ~    March 12-13-14 (South by Southeast)    Part Four ~      March 15-16-17(South by Southwest)    Part Five ~       March 18-19-20(West by Southwest)    Part SIX ~        March 23-24-25-26(West by Northwest) ~ Oregon    Part SEVEN ~   March 27-28-29 (North by Northwest) ~ Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin,  Michigan

[JoanP]

Annie - funny to see that you are following the blue route with the photos in BHRevisited.  Why? Because the last we heard before your recent hospital procedure, you were looking for a used copy.  Seriously considered sending you a copy...thinking you'd enjoy it while recovering.  BUT you were back the next day...ready to roll, with Blue Highways Revisited in hand!  The thought was there!  You just move too fast!

If you scroll back through the posts, you'll see those same photos of the Chealanders when they went back to Frenchman years later...Had their picture taken where their " town" used to be.  Nothing there!  That's why I was surprised to look at recent RM Road Atlas and saw Frenchman still on the map!  I guess that's because the Navy still has a base there?  But there is no town as you'd think from looking at the Atlas.

I think he's finding conversation in Oregon...just doesn't like what he's hearing.  Wait till you catch up with the hang glider.

[ANNIE]

I think I've already been there, JoanP, but I've slept since then so will have to look it up again in "Revisited".  

In using my Atlas, I found so many towns that he mentions.  But, up to Oregon, where so many of us have been.  Like Ft Clapsop, Astoria, the Columbia River, the Coast Guard Museum in Astoria plus we went out to see where the Columbia meets the Pacific.  Wild site.  It almost impossible to get the boats in and out and thru that pass.  Scary!  MDH took a picture of the public outhouse, out there, when I was using it.  Funny funny!    Never pass a facility where one can get more comfortable on a trip!

Am now going to look up the Dalles.  We went up to Mt Hood and took a long drive up the south side of the Columbia.  That's where we stopped at that old hotel that I directed Pedl'n to. Stupendous scenery.  Watched the Kite Riders on the Columbia.  

I have the library copy of BHRevisited.  Its a HB and so is my copy of BH. 

[JoanP]

Bruce and I in the snow on Mount Hood - Behind the Timberline Lodge.  It was July! 1999

So when we read of cold and wind on the northern route, believe it!  I've lost track of the month LHM is in now.  I know he likes to dive into mountain lakes to bathe...if you started across the northern route, he is coming down with a cold and a fever.  Does anyone keep track of the time of year is?

[JoanP]

Funny about Liberty Bond, isn't it?  It is one of the few places he includes on his map...and there's nothing there!


 Interesting that he included his meeting with the pretty lady on horseback.  I guess he writes about her to emphasize how lonely he is.

"The loneliness of the long distance traveler."

Annie - are you counting the number of times you see the word, "lonely" in the Oregon chapters?

The hang glider guy has a different perspective..."how good it feels to be totally alone up there where everything depends on yourself."

[nlhome]

There's a difference between lonely and alone. I read this book before, back when first published, and now. I got the alone part, and I could see at times he was a little lonely, but to me it was not so desolate.

Now we're getting into the part of the country I am more familiar with.