Blue Highways: Poplar, Montana

Unfolding the Map

Come on, Littourati.  Put on your fat pants and let's talk about junk food on car trips as William Least Heat-Moon steps int the store to buy his road food.  You know about junk food on car trips!  The food that after you eat it, you have to drive with the top button undone because you feel so bloated, and you have to bite your hand because the sugar rush has become a sugar crash and you need to make it to a motel before you fall asleep?  I'm pretty sure you've had that experience sometime in your life. To see where we're getting our calories on, drag yourself to the map!

Book Quote

"In Poplar, Montana, where Sitting Bull surrendered six years after the Battle of the Little Big Horn, I stopped for groceries.  Having resisted a chewing hunger for five days - before meals, after meals, in moments of half-sleep - I gave in to it...and bought a pound of raisins, a pound of peanuts, a pound of chocolate nibs and mixed them together.  By the time I got to North Dakota, the bag was empty, the hunger gone."

Blue Highways: Part 7, Chapter 7

Downtown Poplar, Montana. Photo at Menupix.com. Click on photo to go to host site.

Poplar, Montana

A Coke (or Coke Vanilla), some Pringles, maybe a package of Spree or SweetTarts, or maybe some Twizzlers.  That's usually my road food.

There's nothing like driving long distances to promote the eating of absolute garbage.  Why is that?  I have a theory.  First, you have to be able to get stuff that you can easily eat.  If you are planning to eat and drink while driving, then it has to be things with an easy-to-open package and that are easy to get out of the package while steering.  Mostly, those things come in easy to remove wrappers or bags that one can fit a hand into.

Though now that I think about it, Pringles are terrible for that.  It's a long, deep canister that you can only reach into about halfway unless you have a small hand and wrist.  About halfway through, you are relegated to turning the can sideways to try to get some of the chips to slide toward the opening, or you need to turn up the can over your mouth almost as if you are drinking the chips.  That hasn't stopped me from buying them, however.

Another food group that is relatively easy to eat is the fast food burger.  You pull into a drive-thru, order the food which comes in a handy paper bag, with a drink and a straw on the side, and you're good to go.  Especially if it's relatively dry hamburger.  Some places now serve juicy hamburgers with some type of sauce on them, and you are just asking for mustard and grease on your lap.  But a McDonald's hamburger is usually dry enough that you can get through it while steering without any major mishaps.

Second, and this might be a stretch, but I think that the interstate system tailored us to expect easy-to-eat fast and junk food convenience.  Before the interstates, driving was a leisure activity in itself.  There were no drive-thru's and off-ramp convenience stores.  The roads went through the center of towns and cities, and getting a meal meant stopping, getting out of the car and sitting down in a diner or a cafe.  Sure, you could purchase a soda or a candy bar for the road, but that meant going to the drug store or the small mom and pop place.  Once the interstates came into being, the main highways bypassed the downtowns.  Gas stations moved out next to the on- and off-ramps and then began to put in convenience stores.  Fast food places, catering to people on the go, moved out nearer to the interstate exits as well.  Suddenly, it became an inconvenience to drive into a town and get a meal at a restaurant.

LHM's quote comes really as the fast-food phenomenon is starting to take off in the early 1980s.  He mentions Sitting Bull, whose tribe's version of road food was probably some smoked meat in a small sack underneath the saddle blanket that had to be smoked carefully over a long period of time, after the animal was hunted, brought down, and dressed.  Now, if Sitting Bull were alive today, he could get 50 different kinds of jerky made from who knows what - perhaps an animal killed in a slaughterhouse - and run through some sort of industrial jerky-making process.  LHM seems to make something reasonably healthy for his hunger out of raisins, peanuts and chocolate bits to serve as road food.  I wonder if he were undertaking this trip in 2012 if he would eat similarly, or if he would succumb like the rest of us to the siren call of the convenience store, the beckonings of the candy, the processed food, and the colored corn syrups?

We have become all about getting places as quickly as possible.  Driving is not necessarily leisure.  It's the thing we have to do to get places, whether we are searching for leisure or not.  Therefore, I believe that driving has become a chore for most people that they accept and do because they have to.  Because of the compulsion to get places faster, we don't treat ourselves by stopping into a town and getting a meal at a local diner and take time to soak up the ambience, instead we treat ourselves to fast and junk food on the road.

Upwards of twenty-seven years ago, some friends and I tried something different.  We had noticed that when we went on trips together, we always ate junk food.  On an eight hour trip to northern Michigan,  we decided to try eating good food on the road.  We bought trail mix, fruit, and nuts.  We drank juices instead of sodas.  And we arrived at our destination fresh.  We didn't feel bloated.  We didn't feel oversugared.  We didn't feel tired.  We were really awake and alive.

And...

It didn't feel right...

We had become so used to getting out of the car trashed from abusing ourselves with candy and chips, sodas, burgers, fries, milkshakes and such that it actually felt as if something were wrong to be so fresh after such a long trip.  On the way back home, we reverted to our old ways.  I don't know if it says something about how Americans have become addicted to garbage food, or if it says something about us as twenty-somethings who usually don't care what they eat, or both.  I still haven't learned my lesson, though.  I eat better and pay more attention to what I eat when I'm home, but when I'm on the road, give me my car and a Coke (and Spree and Twizzlers and a burger and some Pringles) to steer her by.

Musical Interlude

Don't hate me, Littourati.  I found this song, the Fast Food Song, by some group called the Fast Food Rockers.  It's wretched, it's horrid, but it fits.  Sorry.

If you want to know more about Poplar

Fort Peck Agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Fort Peck Community College
Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes
Poplar Chamber of Commerce
Wikipedia: Poplar

Next up: Culbertson, Montana

Blue Highways: Ofahoma, Mississippi

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapWe travel with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) onto the Natchez Trace at Ofahoma, and once again lament America's obsession with getting there fast on the interstate.  To see where we pick up the Trace, click on the thumbnail of the map at right.  Leave a comment if you have been on the Trace.  I haven't, and want to drive it someday.

Book Quote

"Now new road, opening the woods again, went in among redbuds and white blossoms of dogwood, curving about under a cool evergreen cover.  For miles no powerlines or billboards.  Just tree, rock, water, bush and road.  The new Trace, like a river, followed natural contours and gave focus to the land; it so brought out the beauty that every road commissioner in the nation should drive the Trace to see that highway does not have to outrage landscape."

Blue Highways: Part 3, Chapter 6

Somewhere on the Natchez Trace. Click on image to go to host site.

Ofahoma, Mississippi

One of the reasons I really enjoy Blue Highways is because of William Least Heat-Moon's identification of the two-lane road as an underappreciated treasure on the American landscape.  I grew up having to traverse two-lane highways to get out of my hometown to anywhere of consequence, and while there were, and still remain, some difficulties with two-laners that one does not have to worry about with interstate highways, overall I love taking the back roads when I get a chance.

What were some of the problems, you may ask?  Well, for one, I grew up in a remote area of the Northern California coast.  The only way to get anywhere was to take State Route 20 east 35 miles until we hit the higher speed "freeway" of U.S. 101.  One could also take State Route 1 to State Route 128, but that was 75 miles of two lane roads.  State Route 20 was over twisty roads through the Coast Range, and as a child I was subject to car sickness.  It took me awhile to get over that.

Another drawback to living in a place only accessible by two lane roads was that when weather struck in the winter, the roads were susceptible to flooding and to landslides, and being narrower, that could strand everyone in town until the flooding subsided or the road was cleared.

But positives of two lane roads, our Blue Highways, surely outweighed the negatives.  Traveling on two lane roads meant that we could stop wherever we wanted.  If we spied something that we wanted to explore, we could simply pull off onto the side of the road and explore to our hearts' content.  Travel was slower, by necessity, and therefore encouraged that kind of exploration.

William Least Heat-Moon, later in this chapter, takes advantage of this aspect of two lane roads:

"Northeast of Tougaloo, I stopped to hike a trail into a black-water swamp of tupelo and bald cypress.  The sun couldn't cut through the canopy of buds and branches, and the slow water moved darkly.  In the muck pollywogs were starting to squirm.  It was spring here, and juices were getting up in the stalks; leaves, terribly folded in husks, had begun to let loose and open to the light; stuff was stirring in the rot, water bubbled with the froth of sperm and ova, and the whole bog lay rank and eggy, vaporous and thick with the scent of procreation.  Things once squeezed close, pinched shut, things waiting to become something else, something greater, were about ready."

This kind of exploration would not be possible on an interstate, and I loved this about our two lane roads at home.  Of course, with my dad driving, we didn't explore as much as I would have liked since he usually wanted to get where he was going as fast as possible, but as an adult, I remember my childhood wishes to stop and see things and I indulge that wish now.

The other great thing about two-lane non-interstate roads is that they don't bypass towns, they unashamedly and without fear head right through them.  The cost is in time, because you often have to stop at stoplights.  The advantage is seeing towns as they are meant to be seen, their good and bad sides, and being forced to slow down and look.  I believe that with the growth of interstates, Americans have truly lost touch with America.  We bypass towns on the interstates with nary a glance.  But when you take a two lane highway, you have to notice them and they must register on your conscience in some way.  In doing so, the uniqueness of places throughout America becomes more noticeable - the small cafes and stores, the feel of the town and the people within it, and the unique natural attractions in the area.

I've lamented the growth of interstates before, simply because you can't do these things.  If you see a sight along the side of the road, you can't necessarily stop on an interstate and indulge your curiosity.  Interstates are about speed and getting where you are going in the fastest time possible.  There is a shoulder on an interstate, but with cars going by at 50-85 miles per hour, it is not necessarily a safe place to be.  Exits on the interstate are few and far between, so if you pass a sight that you want to see, it might be a couple of miles before you can get off the interstate and make your way back to it, and by that time you might give up on your quest altogether.  On a two lane road, you make your own exits and you stop where you want.

Americans like to talk about freedom.  But we are remarkably hypocritical about freedom in our practice.  We allow a small group of corporations to shape our consuming habits, which certainly limits our freedom.  And in our need for speed, to get to the next destination as fast as possible, we limit our experiences and ultimately that freedom which we claim to love so much.  That is why, like William Least Heat-Moon, we should indulge our freedom on Blue Highways.

If you want to know more about Ofahoma

Sorry, Ofahoma is just a small place on the map, with little on the web.  But it is an entrance to the Natchez Trace, and the Trace is an important landmark that unfortunately, I have never been on.  Here's some information on that, and hopefully you'll go:

Explore the Natchez Trace
National Scenic Byways Program:  Natchez Trace
National Park Service:  Natchez Trace Parkway
National Park Service:  Natchez Trace Scenic Trail
Natchez Trace State Park (Tennessee)
Wikipedia: Natchez Trace

Next up: Jackson, Mississippi

On the Road: Indianapolis, Indiana

Click on Thumbnail for MapUnfolding the Map

Back across the heartland goes Sal, making out as he makes his way to Indianapolis.  Click on the map to travel with him.

Book Quote

"The bus roared through Indiana cornfields that night; the moon illuminated the ghostly gathered husks; it was almost Halloween. I made the acquaintance of a girl and we necked all the way to Indianapolis. She was nearsighted. When we got off to eat I had to lead her by the hand to the lunch counter. She bought my meals; my sandwiches were all gone. In exchange I told her long stories."

LS Ayres Department Store lunch crowd in 1940s Indianapolis

Indianapolis, Indiana

I've never been one to take the straightest and quickest route to where I'm going unless I absolutely have to be someplace and I only have a certain amount of time to get there.  Nor do I like taking routes around cities, the loops that allow motorists to avoid the downtowns and their traffic just like one might take a circular path around a person one doesn't really wish to see at a party or gathering.  So, while on a road trip one day approaching Indianapolis from the east and faced with the choice of taking I-465, the loop around to the north of the city that eventually joins with I-65 on the northwest, and shaving a few minutes off my trip back to Milwaukee, or heading into downtown Indianapolis, I aimed my bumper straight toward the downtown and didn't look back.  After all, I'd never seen Indianapolis.

I find the interstates to be another manifestation of our "Bowling Alone" syndrome in the United States.  Where once motorists, pre-interstate system, had no choice but to brave the unknowns of a city or town because the road would take them right through the center of it, now we have interstates looping us around towns and cities and even when we go through, we zip past at 55-65 miles per hour and barely register what we see.  We miss all the businesses flashing their products and services and are unhindered by stoplights making us take a moment to see place and surroundings.  We might get into a traffic jam that slows us down, but then our glimpse of where we are is spoiled by our anger and frustration at not being able to get up to speed and get the hell out.  We never get the tenor of a place because we don't have to stop and eat at a local establishment or converse with local people.  If we do stop to dine, it is at fast food chains that look the same wherever we are along the highway.

Personally, as I'm driving toward a city, especially an unknown one, I have a thrill as I see the buildings rise higher on the horizon.  I think it might remind me of a favorite movie when I was a child, The Wizard of Oz, where in later scenes the Emerald City shone in the background, full of mystery, adventure and hope for Dorothy.  As I enter a city, it feels like I'm privy to something special, and the way I enter a city makes a big difference.  Entering by the interstate, I see the city in all of its finery.  The glittering buildings proudly stand with erect postures almost as if they have been coached in charm school.  If I look carefully, sometimes I can see that all the glitz is really makeup caked over blemishes, or false elegance on a faded beauty.  Entering by a back road, I often see a more intimate portrait of the city, sometimes one that perhaps the city doesn't really want me to see - the tattered hem or the ragged holes concealed behind the glittery curtain.  Either way, it is more interesting to me to see these aspects of a place than to avoid them altogether.

I sometimes wonder whether, in our country's increasing polarization, our avoidance of place and of each other degrades our sense of community and country.  I wonder if the interstates were torn down and the fast food chains went belly up, and we went back to a simpler age where once again our travels made us wander into the hearts of strange towns and cities, and we had to interact, however briefly with local people, if we might once again find our sense of national community and solidarity?  Whenever I approach Indianapolis, or any other city for that matter, I will always try my best to take the road through, not around, and I will even try to stop awhile, just as Sal gets off the bus and heads with his female acquaintance to the local lunch counter.  After writing all this, I almost feel like I owe it to my country.

If you want to know more about Indianapolis

Indianapolis Bloggers Ring
Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association
Indianapolis Star (Newspaper)
Indy Social Media
Nuvo Newsweekly
Star Neighbors
Wikipedia: Indianapolis

Next up:  Columbus, Ohio