Mudlizard's Virtual Swamp

Three years ago i had to move from NY to SF. I did it in my car, over the course of several weeks, just to enjoy the wonderful landscape in between. Recent talk of cars here brought back some memories which I have decided to share here. It’s basically just a stream-of-consciousness account of a cross-country drive, from primarily a (built/natural) geographical perspective. Have some coffee or you won’t make it past Baltimore.

It was dead-on summer when i left NY, but no fear because an AC compressor does little to slow a Lincoln V8. Hazy mess in the city when I set out. Anybody ever try to get out of manhattan on the holland tunnel? Doesn’t matter the time of day, you squeeze demand between two places with over 5 million residents (the island and NJ) into 3 passages – 2 of which (the tunnels) are 2 lanes, and you’ll get delayed. Popping up in jersey city after that drive through what i swear is a leaking tunnel (how ELSE do you explain the water everywhere???) and i felt obligated to look backwards at the manhattan skyline one more time. But couldn’t. route 1/9 in NJ is positively unforgiving, especially the Pulaski Skyway – a 1930’s era rickety steel bridge that is LONG past its shelf life and supports vehicles many times the weight of those old ones. So there’s newark shining in the 95-degree late morning haze. It has a cute little skyline – of a size that would place it 2^nd in the south behind atlanta. 1/9 takes you past the newark airport, which has more desintations than any in the US (probably for all the commuter routes). But it has its share of exotic airlines – syrian, air india, finnair, singapore, etc. another great chance to crash while looking, but i keep focused. The ugliness of jersey, of which most people only see the part closest to manhattan, gives way surprisingly quickly to greenery, and the NJ turnpike – with its dedicated car lanes – is a nice way to see it.

You glide into central new jersey, home to more retirement villages (especially in monroe township) than most of PB county it seems, but then it starts to really flatten out and get boring. A turnoff for trenton here, cherry hill there, all hidden among pine trees – i may as well be on i-10 near lake city. you can pretty easily avoid philadelphia on this route – the tp shoots you down to the end of NJ, whereupon you go over a very impressive bridge over the delaware river and into...delaware. sadly enough. But i opt for scenic. I scoot over early and take the walt whitman bridge, which goes over the delaware river into south philly. Well, it is one of america’s most spectacular urban vantage points, from the apex of that bridge. They’ve just finished a gigazmic tower in center city that eclipses everything around it. Strangely, this makes the city look smaller, but still quite a sight. Sadly though, when you come down the bridged you’re raped at the tollbooth for about $8 and unceremoniously dumped into philly’s gritty industrial core. The double-decked skyway over the port area is an infrastructure nerd’s wet dream and it climaxes at the airport.

Beyond that, meaningless suburb and meangless delaware (which exists, i’m convinced, solely to tax passerby on I-95.) you can’t escape that extortionate state for under $20 in tolls!!! And there’s NOTHING interesting about it, probably because it’s passed in about 20 minutes. Then you’re in maryland – you can at least START envisioning yourself getting somewhere close to anyplace “southern.” Havre de grace and a mega-sized highway service center (with crowds to equal) are the only thing for about 120 miles, till you get to baltimore.

Well, you know it when you get to baltimore. The city is announced, as so many are, by the massive interchange of a suburban bypass freeway. And they’re ALL under construction – i don’t care what city you’re from. So you pass through that – because who EVER takes a “bypass” anyway, besides hazardous chemicals trucks? Sadly, baltimore doesn’t have that fantastic feeling of “arrival” you get in philly. The highway winds around the eastern inner city, scary looking places, and then under a tunnel and out on the south bank. Turn your head quickly after the toll booth (!!!) and get a glimpse of the skyline. I actually like it – for it’s historic value. But not a lot of new architecture. You can bet you’re seeing essentially the same sight as your forefathers did. But you do see M&T Bank Stadium (ravens), although i cringe to type out the name of a company that bought stadium naming rights. Whatever. So you’re on your way out of baltimore not a moment too soon, and you have several choices to get down to DC – 95, or a couple of parallel freeways. I opt for the one that goes closest to the baltimore airport, of course. I forget the name, but it cuts near columbia and all the office parks there, and then becomes this lively landscaped little greenway with cute stone-arched overpasses (and signs for some big mean government agency with suburban office space). Well, you’re contentedly rolling through and then BAM – you hit the BETE NOIR of US automobile frustration – the BELTWAY.

It makes my blood boil to even type the name. think i opt to go on it? Haylz no! i give it a quick glimpse as i drive over the top – 16 lanes of high blood pressure. No thanks. And you can’t even see FedEx field anyway. So i continue – on the anacostia freeway – a little known freeway into DC that goes through some positively 3^rd-world areas but affords a view of old RFK and ultimately a nicer view of the new baseball park and an interestingly angle on the capital building. You loop around along the potomac river (if you choose not to get off and fend for yourself in the alphabet soup of the skewed washington street grid system.) but where do you find yourself if you want to stay on 95??? BELTWAY. You get on at a beautiful new bridge where there’s probably still construction to this day. Into virginia – THE SOUTH!!! – and off to what may be the most impressive interchange in the world – 395 and 95, right around springfield va. To go southward, you’re on the top overpass, which has one lane and you feel like it will tip any minute. As thrilling as it is terrifying – especially when you look ahead and see traffic stopped all the way to richmond.

DC to richmond is a couple-hour drive – at midnight on Christmas eve. It’s 3 lanes in each direction, and suffice it to say, there’s enough traffic to fill those lanes! You never really feel like you left washington. It’s bumper-grinding all the way down, with only some lazy hills and the occasional exit mall to break the murderous piney monotony. So what is your reward after sitting through all this??? RICHMOND. How sad. The best thing about the city, besides the opportunity to avoid it on another bypass – one i actually DO use – is that is has a really backazzwards baseball stadium that’s worth seeing – looks like the one at univ of texas – stands are only 1^st to 3^rd base but waaaaaay up high with no balcony. And very steep. Also reminds me a little of the old louisville baseball park (where the FB team used to play). Cool old stadium.

Anyway, richmond reminds me of a baby baltimore – a city whose skyline is frozen in time, whose streets are untended, and one that falls out of memory quickly. Only thing of note is this amazingly high bridge south of town, going over the ?? river and then you know that’s your last look at urban infrastructure on 95 until you hit jacksonville.

But i won’t make it that far. Stopping to stay with family in coastal north carolina. It’s a pleasant place, but very flat, full of sickly looking pine trees, and people are burning stuff everywhere, summer and winter. Lots of trailers, so i feel right at home – BADA BING! They’ve thrown a little money into highways in eastern NC, which gets me out to the coast pretty quickly. You can go through greenville, home to ECU and a pleasant enough little town, but i opt for the rural route through goldsboro, kinston and new bern. New bern is a very nice little place, capital to NC when NC also included TN. Great location on the water, etc. it’s a wonder why it didn’t grow more. My only theory is 1) 95 by-passed it, 2) too many mosquitos and 3) like charleston, a landed elite that isn’t interested in growth or commercial competition stifled all growth and wants things to stay the way they are.

Heading out the next day, westward on i-40 across the long state of NC which is thankfully broken up into several decent sized cities – opportunities for food and interesting radio. You come to raleigh but wouldn’t know it except for---all together now --- the BYPASS road! 440 – just like nashville. For such an “important” city, raleigh has the least imposing skyline imaginable. In fact, there’s basically one street, which they’ve done up with benches and streetlights and planters. But it isn’t done up with...people. just the usual leisured indigent and blathering derelicts.

You go to the suburbs for your fun in raleigh, except for their nice concert hall. Moving on through, you’re on the road to tobacco road, pass by the airport (HALF of which is nice – the newer half) and then start thinking “now, which school will they list first on the sign, duke or unc?” i bet duke. Actually, it’s dick vitale. And you pass by 15/501 thinking how many times he has shrieked about his beloved in these parts. But it’s very nondescript, for all the attention it gets. I was expecting a gold interchange with flags and christian laettner statues and a dean smith godzilla balloon. Nothing. I give half a thought to driving in a seeing the schools, which i’ve done before, but my done-that meter sounds the alarm and onto greensboro i go. But not without going through burlington first – i ask myself if i need a coat. It’s 100 degrees. I’ll wait. Greensboro is a city that has been built for one thing: to host DOOK in the NCAA regionals.

The airport is big, the highway is wide leading to several exits with all kinds of hotels, and of course they have that big azz coliseum that – remember – actually hosted the NHL for one season back in the day and averaged 4,000 fans. 4,000 is a lot of something, but not fans. It, like raleigh, has essentially one lonely skyscraper and the rest looks like marietta. Keep on driving. Will ONE of these cities be worth stopping in? well, there’s winston-salem, a city so big it couldn’t be contained in one name. You have two options – the by-pass (which is 40 anyway) and the business spur/loop, which takes you straight in so that you can see THEIR 1 building. I keep looking for wake forest signs but even the university’s own city seems to have forgotten them. W-S is more interesting than the others because...it has a hill. Couple of them. A thrilling ride for the barcalounger suspension of the lincoln. I pass through and get a “welcome to moe’s” fajita platter on the other side. It looks like a “nice place to raise a family,” code for “boring as hell.” Then, quickly nothing.

It’s the long stretch to asheville. And the best thing about this part of i-40 isn’t the scenery, let’s be honest. it’s the KFC buffet!!!! they seem to exist only in NC, probably because they’re outlawed everywhere else. I can smell it 3 exits away and the road gets a little slippery with grease as you approach. So i plan to load up on food for about the next 6 days. Doesn’t matter that i just ate. It’s KFC. BUFFET. Come strong or ... well, come as you are. You’re a COMMIE if you don’t stop! 4 pounds of heart disease later i’m back on the road, hoping for asheville but it never comes soon enough. It’s like driving in upstate south carolina – the road is straight, but it’s up the hill, down the hill. Feels like driving across the north atlantic – just bobbing up and down. Sickening. And this isn’t good for radio reception either (no satellite radio). But you get to asheville and you feel like you’re louis and clark reaching oregon. So what’s your option? By-pass road. But i avoid it, to see downtown. People who’ve been there speak highly of asheville, and correctly so. It hits far above its weight in culture, food, vitality. Never have a bad time there. Grove park inn recommended for a traveler’s night stay. And there’s a fantastic old baseball stadium there. Back on the road again and guess where to – TENNESSEE – home to that football team i used to cheer for until their AD sold us down the river and gave me no option but to defect. you don’t get there without a racecourse of hairpin curves that is i-40 through the smoky mountains. Much of it runs along a creek, other parts drilled through the mountains, but all of it demands your attention at every second. Skid marks and broken guard rails are a constant harbinger of impending doom.

But when you come out the other side, to see the rolling foothills of sevier county, it’s a grand old feeling! You get the k-town radio stations and start seeing the mileage signs count down. Oh how i get excited!!! You’re soon on i-81, which is deceptive because it’s 3 lanes each way, making you think you’re getting close. You’re not. You’re just going through the sevierville area, including the “new” baseball stadium for the old knoxville smokies – rest their souls – and now the renamed “tennessee” smokies. Nothing too thrilling until you hit asheville highway and the BY-PASS (640) and you KNOW you’re home! You round the bend after cherry street and the skyline is set against the mountains, and all that sits under it. Knoxville is a wonderful city, so much weird and interesting going on downtown, for people who recognize it and appreciate it. The state’s largest highway project – the 75 interchange downtown and now completed – was still under construction and you had the detour along james white parkway. This cute little cut of highway takes you past downtown, the old city, and ultimately the WBB HOF (with the basketball on top) and a really dated-looking hotel that i think used to be the hyatt. Then you round the corner, see calhoun’s and the imposing monolith of neyland stadium, truly a goosebump-inducing moment. Swelling with pride, i gape in awe and just have to park and in the middle of the sweltering heat to try and see if i can get in. i have never not gotten into neyland stadium in the middle of the summer, and it’s so fun to stand there at the north endzone, in complete silence, with a patch of unlined football grass and a bunch of abandoned seatbacks making random patterns in the stands, along with a smattering of service workers tinkering with the sprinklers or washing the skybox windows. i think of all the great moments. Like when jabar gaffney dropped the touchdown and UT pulled off a stunning 23-20 victory over the gators in 2000.

Back on the road again, and the trip west of knoxville is much different than the one east – it’s more atlanta than anything, especially with the newly completed expansion. the city looks to exist solely for UT football – so many restaurants, hotels, and churches for the sobering morning after. Far enough out, after you pass the oak ridge exit, there’s turkey creek on the left, knoxville’s answer to Cool Springs. It’s massive and has all the usual eatery suspects, so it’s hard not to stop for a bite. I think there’s even a calhouns west there – with a considerably diminished atmosphere compared to the location of the original. Past farragut and you’re on your own again for 3 hours until you hit nashville. I think i know every bump in that road, could at one time recite every exit and road name – buttermilk pike, airport road in crossville, baxter road, etc. it’s a pretty harrowing drive at any time of year, because you change altitude lots. This leads to some extraordinary views. It can be bleak in winter, when there’s nothing green for 100s of miles, but in the summer it’s a suffocatingly lush forest shrouded in some kind of mysterious haze that you wonder who’s responsible for – nature or man. No big cities – just cookeville and a NON-BUFFET KFC, sadly. And you get to change your clock back – wow, gained an hour and what will i do with it? Kfc. But then you start getting little hints you’re approaching nashville – first lebanon and then i-840 – which was commissioned as a fed highway but fell back to state funding, so it doesn’t get the cool red and blue shield to mark its number, only a bland 840 outline in the shape of the state. Then you’re past the dell assembly plant and into mt juliet, satin bowling jacket capital of america. The highway expands with an HOV lane – thank you Al Gore! – and it starts to feel urban. One of the more interesting landmarks is the percy priest lake dam, on the left. Quite a marvel. I used to throw styrofoam airplanes around in that park. Then you lass the airport and realize that nashville USED to be an American Airlines Hub – with even a flight to london, although only on a 767. now it’s just comair flights to cincinnati and continental to houston and lots of southwest flights to places warmer and far away like phoenix and oakland and lubbock. You come into downtown at a weird angle along i-40, which essentially obscures many of the skyscrapers. Not until you start to go around do you realize that it’s the most impressive skyline you’ve seen since – possibly? – philadelphia. And there’s so much going on – cranes, etc. makes the recession seem far away in someplace cold like michigan. That would never happen HERE – a recession, or cold weather – would it?

Nashville (+ fake tower and baseball stadium pipedream)

Well, i could have taken 440 because i’m headed to franklin, but opt for the downtown route instead, which rewards me with a rush-hour commute out of the city. That’s ok, not really that bad anyway. Head south, past 100 oaks mall which used to be ALL the rage in nashville in the 70’s but now is mostly owned by vanderbilt for administration, etc. you go through brentwood, my hometown, and have this great view across the county to the hills in the distance. It’s all dotted with church steeples and some of the higher office buildings from maryland farms. Past the huge radio tower at concord road - near my old house – and onto franklin. Cool springs is a traffic vortex and there’s just nothing your sorry a$$ can do about it. All 3 exits are choked with people who moved there because it’s so nice, but it is a little less nice because of the traffic. Franklin is an interesting little city that fancies itself independent of nashville but in fact is supported by a tax base that wouldn’t be there without nashville. As such, it has lots of money for streetscapes and services and all that, making it a very pleasant place. Lots of very huge homes around, and from my vantage point on mack hatcher parkway i can see the sun descending through the haze, rooftops and trees punctuating the vista. It’s all so comfortable and homey.

Franklin. country roads take me home


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"Come Drive with Me: A Travelogue (Part 1 of 3)"