Tuesday, June 14, 2011

On The Horizon

2011 update from Dan:

IT IS GETTING CLOSE, ONLY 6 WEEKS FROM TODAY.

WE WILL LEAVE FROM 4554 EASTLAND CT AT 08:30, 25 JULY 2011

DESTINATION, AMERICINN, 3300 E. MAIN ST MERRILL, WI.

CALL 715 536-7979 OR 800 634-3444 FOR ROOM RESERVATIONS.
RATE IS ; 49.50 PLUS TAX. BE SURE TO MENTION DOUGHTY 500.

NEED VOLUNTEERS TO COVER HAPPY HOUR FOR TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY EVENING. IF YOU CAN COVER IT PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

NEXT UP DATE IN ABOUT 3 WEEKS.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Loaded for Bear

A couple of nuggets from a Wall Street Journal review of the book "The Big Roads" brought to mind the Doughty 500.

As the Lincoln developed, so too did other regions of the country begin building their own versions, like the Jefferson Davis Highway (intended to reach from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco by way of New Orleans but never completed), the Lakes to Gulf Highway (Duluth, Minn., to Galveston, Texas) and the coast-to-coast Old Trails Road. An automobile network began to emerge of mainly dirt and gravel byways, but road trips weren't for sissies. Mr. Swift notes that one engineer recommended that travelers carry, among many other things, "an ax, shovel, and four-foot hardwood planks, fifty feet of rope and sixteen of cable . . . a pile of cooking and camping gear and 'possibly a small pistol of some sort.'"

This is very similar to the list of necessities recommended for those who undertake the Doughty 500. I'd probably add a bottle of whiskey as well.

Another of the author's visionaries is engineer Thomas MacDonald, the brilliant and methodical, but utterly humorless, head of he National Highway Commission. It fell to MacDonald in 1919 to make passable this tangled continental grid that included every kind of obstacle, from snowbound mountains and raging rivers to "gumbo" mud in Iowa and briny tar beneath the salt flats of Utah. Seemingly by a combination of ingenuity and dearth of personality, MacDonald succeeded in bringing about the Federal Highway Act of 1921, the first, coherent plan for the nation's future roads.

The plan also eventually brought trucks and tourists by the millions, many of whom set up shop along the new roadsides. Filling stations, hot-dog stands, campgrounds and "mo-tels" by the hundreds flourished. Which, naturally, attracted more traffic. "By late 1920s," Mr. Swift writes, "you measured your progress by obscenities more than miles."


I think we can all recall a stretch or two of one of the Doughty 500s where that particular metric would have been an appropriate one.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Photo Follies

This edition brought to your courtesy of Jay (so blame him):


"And here Chad and Jay* believed Bernie when he said Model T’s don’t shrink when they get wet."


*No, that's not really us.