Date:         Fri, 9 Feb 2007 15:38:27 -0600
Reply-To:     joel walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
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From:         joel walker <jwalker17@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Frydaye Phollies:  road trips -  part B
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Driver's roads ...continued ...


  -----   U.S. 89,  The Wild West  -----

This ring-tailed whizzer high-tails it from Mexico to Canada, 2000
miles nigh
perfect except for a few disruptions pocked by urban blight.  The rest
of 89
traverses the True West, clean and pure and strung with parks and
forests
that still set the tone for the region.

The differences between America's east and the American West have
never been
bigger.  The gap is simple:  the East is a mishmash of cultures and
confusion
that can't tell what to make of itself;  the West knows exactly what
it is
and loves it, embracing its own simplicity with boundless affection.
Love
of the West propelled us the length of U.S. 89, from the
Alberta-Montana
border to Nogales, Arizona, on the Mexican line.  We wanted it never
to end.
The road strides across the expanses and the heights and depths of the
giant ripples and the plush textures and colors of the ranges like an
overinked illustration from an 1890 dime novel.  U.S. 89 reaches
across
eras and spaces to form a living link.  The western light suggests
your
eye should be able to absorb the immensity in a blink.  Watch western
light and you see it lingers, mixing the palette of pastels loosed by
the deserts and the pot of primaries trapped by the mountains.
Consider the traffic, from rustic to high tech, and it seems the road
must be always teeming.  But divide the miles by the traffic and you'll
see that cars, pickups, and cattle haulers come few and far between.
U.S. 89 rolls out the welcome wagon, but covers ground in a peculiar
mode of reverse, all the way from Now to Yesteryear.

<from the Mexican border north to Tucson, Phoenix, Prescott,
Flagstaff,
Page, between Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park,
to Salt Lake City, just cutting into the southeast corner of Idaho,
wiggling up through Grand Teton National Park and into Yellowstone
National Park, to Livingston, Montana, and on to Great Falls, and
further north to the Canadian border>


  -----  U.S. 93,  The Wilder West  -----

U.S. 93 and 89 meet in Wickenburg, Arizona, only to go separate ways.
Still, when you're out there taming either . or trying to . the other
should never be far from your mind for the trip back, and surely
closer
than the two hundred miles that separates the roads' companionable
climb
up the map of the West.  They may be separate, but they are equal
beyond
doubt, unbeatable as a pair to draw to.  Route 89 represents the milk
run,
stopping in at every possible national attraction and state sideshow.
Highway 93 is the cut-and-run road.  It deals with long distances in
short order.  Its hash marks stipple the Arizona desert, the flats and
mountains of Nevada, the high-country wilds of Idaho's Sawtooth Range
and Salmon River run, and Montana's western gateway to Glacier Park.
Like 89, Route 93 sports two great seasons:  late spring and early
fall.
You should be able to soak up sunshine and see nature's gaudiest
colors
spackled across your windshield as if by Leroy Neiman.  We found
shirtsleeves
weather at every altitude save the highest.  If you try to take on 93
during
summer or let your tour slide into winter, you'll find the heat and
snow defy
those who call at inopportune times.

U.S. 93 cuts a swath up through Las Vegas and Ely and Twin Falls and
Missoula
and Kalispell.  If your car is fast enough to throw off the effects of
altitude
in the mountains that rise at the northern latitudes, you can leave a
trailing
scar in the air that would do a supersonic bowie knife proud.  Wield
it well
and you won't regret having sharpened your resolve to ride the Wild
West.

<north from Wickenburg, Arizona, to Kingman, across the Hoover Dam
into
Las Vegas, north to Ely and into Twin Falls, Idaho, then to Missoula,
Montana and Kalispell, and into Canada at the British Columbia border>


  -----  Utah 12  -----

We owe the lady at the Salina Best Western who bent our ear about the
road
past Bryce Canyon.  Weighing the likelihood of her claims about Utah
12,
we filed them for comparison with reality.  We scanned the canyon .
rows of rocky, oversized Wurlitzers . and tried Route 12.
Specifically
hoping to find a Ten Best road.  The shadows were long for us to be
fiddle-faddling around on coarse, broad pavement, but we'd give it
five more miles .

Bing-GO!! We're talking one of maybe THE ten greatest American roads.
Understand about Utah:  it may be our most spectacular state.  Scenic
glitter abounds in the remaining forty-nine states, some of it
marvelous,
but nowhere in our recollection is a state packed with more stellar
sights and oh-wows than Utah.  Stirring is as stirring does, and Utah
12
churned us like an atomic blender.  It stands almost unequaled as a
road
with something for everyone.  The early giant slalom fed, in no order
we'd be able to verify in our later daze, into a canyon rip;
a Virginia reel; a coastering slew through outsize range cattle
and garishly golden aspens; a sensuous slither through an erogenous
zone of rocks that loomed suggestively in the softening light; and .
gad, don't breathe . a set of esses floating atop the teetery spine
of a mountain that falls away without a prayer or shoulders or
guardrails.
Hang a wheel or trip over your tires and you may well mate with the
rocks
far, FAR below.  Take the plunge and you're guaranteed to be spread
around
like hot peanut butter and jelly over hard rolls.

Hey, makes us hungry for more.

<from Panguitch on U.S. 89, through Bryce Canyon National Park,
Kodachrome Flats, Dixie National Forest, to Torrey near the northern
end of Capitol Reef National Park>


  -----  West Virginia 16  -----

Here's another doozy that's no place for high society but a great
place
for good handling and better reflexes.  And, now and again, shock
absorbers
with scads of travel and innards that won't drip gruel during
unmerciful
bludgeonings.

But we make West Virginia 16 sound like yet another sparring partner .
like the tough Ohio 26 lying in wait directly across the Ohio River.
It's not;  16 is more like an alley fight using bare blades and no
gloves.  Those who want to cut up on Route 16 can feel free.  It will
slice and dice like few others.  Throw in a little liquid liveliness
in the form of rain, stir lightly with an underlying grease of mud
first applied as clay-based dirt by farmers' pickups, and the whole
place winds up a panlike skidpad that can squirt cars off the road
as if they were errant watermelon seeds.  Take the advice of clergy
ordained in the Church of Driving:  If it's raining on Route 16 as
you skim south out of Saint Marys, you'll want to say sixteen
Hail Marys right off.

Your INTENDED path beavers off toward Big Otter.  Around U.S. 60,
the signs for 16 get as coy as West Virginia's corner-warnings.
Those fail to put in appearances at about one corner out of three.
Rarely does the third time come up a charmer.  Then again, that's
where driving skill, sustained attention, and the ability to read
the road pay off.  Many roads have been safety-sanitized beyond the
point of boredom.  On 16, constant demand for mental and physical
exertion at the wheel creates a satisfying way to keep your talent
honed for making the right moves.  There's no better way to have a
great time.  Your move.

<from St. Marys, on the Ohio River, south to Mt. Zion, Big Otter,
Gauley Bridge, Beckley, Sophia, Amigo, to Yukon on the Virginia
border>