Life Is A Highway

In Tennessee, the summers can be brutal! This is why we prefer spring and fall.

When the white flowers have fallen off the Bradford Pears in our yard, we start finding ways to be outside. We may set on our small deck in the back and talk or perhaps read. Very likely, we’ll plant some flowers and vegetables that we will soon neglect once the summer heat makes being outdoors uncomfortable. We will also begin to think about road trips.

Every so often Gerrie and I will take Saturday drives. It doesn’t matter what the price of gas is, we simply say we’re getting out and we go. We call these drives, “Two-Lane Tennessee”. We pull out a map of the state and think of which direction we want to go and then we set out. Our only real rule of the road is that entire journey must begin and end using on two and four lane roads; no interstates. William Least Heat-Moon’s called these, blue highways. In his book titled Blue Highways, he relates his journey through America using only backroads. He writes,

“On the old highway maps of America, the main routes were red and the back roads blue. Now even the colors are changing. But in those brevities just before dawn and a little after dusk - times neither day nor night - the old roads return to the sky some of its color. Then, in truth, they carry a mysterious cast of blue, and it’s that time when the pull of the blue highway is strongest, when the open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself.”

While our day drives can't compare to Heat-Moon’s epic journey, they do allow us to experience the personality of the highway. The countryside is more immediate and the character of the towns is there for discovery. There is no fast food on these roads. You search for a local diner or corner market to find your meal.

Our journey’s are usually not about the destination. Traveling east we discovered that many of the storefronts on the town square in Lebanon now trade in antiques and curios. I very nearly started collecting old suitcase during that drive. A turn towards the south will take us to Bell Buckle. There we found a wonderful variety of shops along the front street and a great lunch at the Bell Buckle Cafe. We never know what we’ll find, but we know we wouldn’t find it staying on an interstate.

Though most of our outings are in-state, we are not limited by this. One weekend we set our sites on Louisville, Kentucky. It was Gerrie’s birthday. As a surprise, I booked us into the Brown Hotel and arranged a dinner reservation at the English Grill Restaurant. That morning we drove north along U.S. Highway 31 W, known as the “Dixie Highway.” Our only goal was to arrive early enough in the afternoon to enjoy the surrounding of a grand hotel. This meant we could take our time.

Along the way we stopped at Cave City to walk around the Sleep in a Wigwam Motor Lodge. We found a used book store on Water Street in Horse Cave and spent time browsing through the shelves. In Elizabethtown we found a bench on the square and sat for while. We then saw the cannonball lodged in a building on the town square; a reminder of General John Hunt Morgan’s 1862 attack on the town. I also discovered the State Theater and took a photograph to add to my small collection of old movie house photographs.

Yes, spring weather makes us want to get out on the road. Soon we will pack up some snacks, put the cameras in the truck and queue up the music. We’ll unfold the map and one of us will close our eyes and point to a spot. That will be our destination. For a few hours we’ll leave behind the busyness of life and embrace the peace of an open road.  

I don’t know, perhaps I have a romanticized vision of what life was like when these roads were the Main Streets of America. I do know that taking a trip along these “blue highways” is one way that we break from the pace of this age. They are our portals to what we imagine was a simpler, less complicated time. It is a way for us to slow down and experience things that have all but been forgotten. We give ourselves the opportunity to see a marvelous countryside and have wonderful conversations. For these hours, we can forget ourselves and simply enjoy breathing in and breathing out together on the highway.

“And if I were a painter I do not which I’d paint.

The calling of the ancient stars or assembling of the saints.

And there’s so much beauty around us, for just two eyes to see.

But everywhere I go, I’m looking.”

                                        ~ Rich Mullins

                                           Here In America

Greg