Trip Peek #50
Trip #28
Wigwams and Dixie

This picture is from my 2007 Wiqwams and Dixie trip. The trip was the result of a discussion in the then quite active American Road Magazine e-group and included folks from Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Using Cave City’s Wigwam Village #2 as home base, we traveled sections of both the Dixie Highway and the Jackson Highway in Kentucky. The picture shows the shiny nose of Pat Bremer’s Corvair coupe peeking from behind a not so shiny sign.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Trip Peek #41
Trip #5
T2Tampa

pv3This picture is from my 2001 T2Tampa trip. The trip was an attempt to retrace a trip that my great-grandparents made in a Ford Model T in 1920. The picture is of the remains of a Florida sugar mill, established in 1830, that my grand-parents visited in 1920 and which were still an attraction in 2001 and even on my most recent visit in 2012. It was a great trip and unquestionably one of my most memorable but it is almost embarrassing to look back and realize just how little I knew about old roads. The route, pieced together from my great-grandmother’s letters and my shallow knowledge of 1920s highways, ran from Ohio, to Tampa and Miami in Florida, then back home through Washington, DC. As enjoyable as it was, it tops the list of trips I’d like to do again because I think I could plot a more accurate route and I know I would look at things with a more appreciative eye.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Trip Peek #37
Trip #109
Christmas Escape Repeat

pv87This picture is from my 2012 Christmas Escape Repeat trip. The repeat in the title is due to my spending Christmas where I had in 2010 aboard the Delta Queen in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The picture is from the New Year’s Eve celebration in Raleigh, North Carolina. I’d thought of ending a year in Raleigh ever since I’d learned that a giant acorn was “dropped” from a crane to mark the occasion. The two holidays anchored the trip with the Chickamauga battlefield, the city of Atlanta, and a little Dixie Highway filling some of the spaces in between.


Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Book Review
History of the Dixie Highway in Allen County, Ohio
Michael G. Buettner

hdhac_cvrI could have called this a pamphlet review. That’s technically what it is. Or, since one definition of pamphlet is “a small book”, I could have called this a small book review. I decided to leave the title be but, in line with the publication’s size, I’ll try to be brief and do a small small book review.

Michael Buettner is a past president of the Ohio Lincoln Highway League. He has written several articles on the Lincoln Highway and other historic roads. This pamphlet, which he wrote for the Allen County Historical Society, draws from his 2006 article In Search of…The Dixie Highway in Ohio but only slightly. In contains details, plus maps and photos, that do not appear in the earlier article. An increased level of detail comes rather natural when the focus is on a county rather than a state.

The first several pages provide some early Dixie Highway history as it relates to the full ten state system, to the state of Ohio, and to the route in Allen County. Instructions for two driving tours follow. Both originate in the county seat of Lima. The first goes north to the county line and the other goes south. Descriptions and photos of points of interest accompany the turn-by-turn instructions.

When the U.S. Numbered Highways came into being in 1926, Allen County’s share of the Dixie Highway was essentially absorbed by US 25. I-75 subsequently absorbed much of US 25 and replaced all of it. A series of maps helps describe this sequence.

History of the Dixie Highway in Allen County, Ohio, Michael G Buettner, Allen County Historical Society, November 2015, 8.5×5.5 inches, 40 pages, available for $6 at the Allen County Museum

Book Review
A Decade Driving the Dixie Highway
Denny Gibson

addtdh_cvrI did it again. I wrote another book. It’s a lot like the other one. It’s an illustrated travelogue and, although there is no old car involved, there is an old man and an old road. That other book, By Mopar to the Golden Gate, told of a single excursion lasting a few weeks. A Decade Driving the Dixie Highway draws on roughly thirty road trips spread over eleven years. Multiple trips were pretty much required since the Dixie Highway was not a straight forward point to point road but a system that connected ten states with nearly 6,000 miles of roadway.

Road scholars Brian Butko and Russell S. Rein both contributed glowing modesty-challenging blurbs that appear on the back cover.

addtdh_int

A Decade Driving the Dixie Highway is available as a Kindle download (with color photos) as well as a paperback. Either may be purchased through Amazon and the purchase of a paperback there includes the ability to acquire the Kindle edition for a couple bucks. I’ve also set up an eBay listing in an attempt to make providing signed copies easier. I can’t offer access to the Kindle download or the potentially free shipping of Amazon but they can’t ship books with my scribbling in them.

The book was produced through Amazon’s CreateSpace and there is a CreateSpace eStore although I can’t think of any reason for someone to buy there. I do get a slightly bigger cut on eStore sales but there is no Kindle access, free shipping, or autograph. The book may eventually be available through some other channels but for now the two sources I’m suggesting are Amazon and my eBay listing.

A Decade Driving the Dixie Highway, Denny Gibson, Trip Mouse Publishing, 2015, paperback, 9 x 6 inches, 152 pages, ISBN 978-0692516966.

Signed copies available through eBay. Unsigned copies available through Amazon

Reader reviews at Amazon are appreciated and helpful and can be submitted even if you didn’t purchase the book there.

Almost Dixie ‘Burgers

adb01I attended a Dixie Highway presentation on Thursday. It was in Cridersville, Ohio, about a hundred miles north of my home. Another fan of old roads, Russell S. Rein, lives about the same distance north of Cridersville as I live south of it and he would also be attending the event. In fact, it was Russell who had made me aware of it. Since Criderville is very near Lima, Ohio, Russell suggested we meet at the downtown Kewpee Restaurant there for dinner. I’d actually been thinking of that myself so needed no convincing. We had a plan.

adb02It was a fine looking day so, with ample time for the drive, I set off to follow the Dixie Highway, more or less, to Lima. In Troy, I slipped about a block off of the route to visit K’s Hamburger Shop. The Dixie Highway Association disbanded a few years before K’s 1935 birth and, although there are sources that describe its route as running right in front of K’s on what is now OH 41, it’s more likely that the highway turned south on Market Street just a little west of the shop. Unbeknownst to me, K’s celebrated their 80th anniversary on July 31. I’m sure sorry I missed that but I did have a hamburger and a piece of pie today for a belated one man party.

adb03Kewpee Hamburgers began in 1923. This location opened the same year that the Dixie Highway closed, 1928. The highway ran a few blocks west of the restaurant so, while it was closer in time to the Dixie than K’s, it was a tiny bit farther away in distance. The Kewpee also has wonderful pies but I opted for some soft-serve frozen yogurt to go with my ‘burger.

adb04adb05Russell arrived shortly after I did and we had plenty of time to eat and chat. Of course, we chatted just a little longer than we had time for and arrived at the presentation as the speaker was being introduced. Fortunately, the common aversion to front row seats meant we didn’t have to climb over anyone to reach the empties. The speaker being introduced was retired educator LaRee D. Little who we later learned is the father of Ohio Lincoln Highway League president Scott Little.

Little opened with a nice overview of what the Dixie Highway was and how it came to be. He fleshed things out with stories of his own journeys on the Dixie, which began as a youngster traveling with his parents, and and a series of slides that included some photos from those journeys. There is an announcement for the Auglaize County Historical Society event here and a video report on it here. I don’t believe either Russell or I learned anything new about the Dixie Highway but the presentation was quite entertaining and I’m betting that some of the others did learn a thing or two. Regardless, it sure was nice to see a whole room full of people showing interest in the Dixie Highway.

Clinching the Dixie

Dixie Highway MarkerAlthough the impetus for this trip is a Greater Cincinnati Miata Club visit to Indianapolis, the more exciting thing for me personally is completing a drive of the full Dixie Highway. On Saturday and Sunday, members of the Cincinnati club will hook up with members of the Indianapolis club for a couple meals, a couple driving tours, and a couple museum visits. On Monday, I’ll depart Indianapolis to follow the Dixie Highway to Chicago.

The journal for the trip is here. This entry is to let blog subscribers know of the trip and to provide a place for comments.

Trip Peek #30
Trip #71
Thanksgiving 2008

pvd10This picture is from my 2008 Thanksgiving trip. It was my fourth and last (so far) Thanksgiving Escape Run. I believe it was the first trip on which I got serious about traveling the Dixie Highway and I followed it all the way from the Ohio River to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. The estate was decorated for Christmas and that’s what is in the picture.


Trip Pic Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the trip journal it is from.

Alternate Dixie

pic05cI took advantage of a not-snowing above-freezing day (It’s all relative.) to take a day trip on part of the Dixie Highway to Berea, Kentucky. Rain washed away any thoughts of making it a multi-day outing but the drive down was very pleasant and the stay in Berea both pleasant and worthwhile.

The journal for the trip is here. This entry is to let blog subscribers know of the trip and to hold any and all comments