Route 11, New York (dougtone/Flickr)
Everyone knows that mother of all roads, Route 66.
It's little wonder that a 2,300-mile slice of Americana from Chicago to Santa Monica would become the stuff of jukebox tunes and silver-screen dreams.
There are other mothers, however.
For me, that road is Route 11.
For nearly half a century, Route 11 has connected my family's past to its future.
U.S. Route 11 begins at the border between Quebec and New York state and ends at the bayou in New Orleans, linking Lake Champlain with Lake Pontchartrain.
It might lack the cinematic quality of Route 66, the coastal charms of Routes 1 and 101, or the historical legacies of the National Road and the Lincoln Highway.
It connected not the biggest cities but some of the brawniest: Birmingham, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Roanoke, Harrisburg, Scranton, Binghamton and Syracuse, all hardworking places that made useful things, from bread to steel.
My mother road threaded its way through the scenic "Great Valley" between the majestic Blue Ridge and the rugged Appalachians. It gave Eastern travelers and tradesmen an interior passage from north to south -- and it still does.
When my dad and his parents drove from Mississippi to Washington, D.C., to visit relatives in the summer of 1960, they followed Route 11, then an alternately two- and four-lane affair.
It resembled other mid-century American thoroughfares, dotted with diners, full-service stations and motor court motels cheerfully boasting of "Color TV" and air conditioning.
My mom came to America from Vietnam in 1967. Four years later, she met my dad because they both took Route 11 to graduate school at the University of Tennessee.
Mom took dad to Maryland to meet her parents on a Greyhound bus from Knoxville. It rolled north on Route 11. When dad took mom to Mississippi to meet his parents, it rolled south.
When my parents married in my maternal grandparents' suburban Maryland backyard, almost the entire family (and most of the bridesmaids and groomsmen) traveled some part of Route 11 at some point.
For a "honeymoon," the newlyweds rode back to Knoxville with my paternal grandparents -- in my grandmother's hideously green 1969 Chevrolet Impala.
By the time my parents settled in Kentucky, Interstate 81 had bypassed much of Route 11. However, the old road still begged to be traveled.
For my younger sister and me, it was the big family road trip. Other kids went to Disney World or Dollywood. We went to see grandma.
We rode, ate, slept and cried "Are we there yet?" and "I can't hold it any longer!" on Route 11 every year, often twice. The personal cassette player helped smooth the bumps. When the tape stopped, we flipped it over to hear more Elvis, the Beatles, Mozart or the Muppets.
We became well acquainted with Route 11's roughly 300 bucolic Virginia miles, with dad's steady hand on the wheel most times. My sister and I both learned to drive on long stretches of Route 11 and its feeder roads, in daylight and darkness, in perfect weather and in downpours and blizzards.
We'd often break up the trip into two days, and we spent the night in almost every place between Abingdon's elegant Martha Washington Inn and Lexington's humble Howard Johnson.
There were plenty of landmarks: Natural Bridge. Dixie Caverns. Luray Caverns. New Market Battlefield. Shenandoah National Park. Skyline Drive. Barter Theatre.
And plenty of colleges: Emory & Henry, Radford, Virginia Tech, Hollins, Washington & Lee, Mary Baldwin, James Madison.
And lyrical locales: Glade Spring, Max Meadows, Rural Retreat, Cloverdale, Troutville, Vesuvius, Steele's Tavern, Stuarts Draft, Tom's Brook, Weyers Cave.
The road of my dad's upbringing and of my parents' scholarship and courtship became the road to my future as well.
A simple country highway, yet so much more.
It's my mother road.
------
(c) 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Visit the McClatchy Washington Bureau on the World Wide Web at www.mcclatchydc.com.
It's little wonder that a 2,300-mile slice of Americana from Chicago to Santa Monica would become the stuff of jukebox tunes and silver-screen dreams.
There are other mothers, however.
For me, that road is Route 11.
For nearly half a century, Route 11 has connected my family's past to its future.
U.S. Route 11 begins at the border between Quebec and New York state and ends at the bayou in New Orleans, linking Lake Champlain with Lake Pontchartrain.
It might lack the cinematic quality of Route 66, the coastal charms of Routes 1 and 101, or the historical legacies of the National Road and the Lincoln Highway.
It connected not the biggest cities but some of the brawniest: Birmingham, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Roanoke, Harrisburg, Scranton, Binghamton and Syracuse, all hardworking places that made useful things, from bread to steel.
My mother road threaded its way through the scenic "Great Valley" between the majestic Blue Ridge and the rugged Appalachians. It gave Eastern travelers and tradesmen an interior passage from north to south -- and it still does.
When my dad and his parents drove from Mississippi to Washington, D.C., to visit relatives in the summer of 1960, they followed Route 11, then an alternately two- and four-lane affair.
It resembled other mid-century American thoroughfares, dotted with diners, full-service stations and motor court motels cheerfully boasting of "Color TV" and air conditioning.
My mom came to America from Vietnam in 1967. Four years later, she met my dad because they both took Route 11 to graduate school at the University of Tennessee.
Mom took dad to Maryland to meet her parents on a Greyhound bus from Knoxville. It rolled north on Route 11. When dad took mom to Mississippi to meet his parents, it rolled south.
When my parents married in my maternal grandparents' suburban Maryland backyard, almost the entire family (and most of the bridesmaids and groomsmen) traveled some part of Route 11 at some point.
For a "honeymoon," the newlyweds rode back to Knoxville with my paternal grandparents -- in my grandmother's hideously green 1969 Chevrolet Impala.
By the time my parents settled in Kentucky, Interstate 81 had bypassed much of Route 11. However, the old road still begged to be traveled.
For my younger sister and me, it was the big family road trip. Other kids went to Disney World or Dollywood. We went to see grandma.
We rode, ate, slept and cried "Are we there yet?" and "I can't hold it any longer!" on Route 11 every year, often twice. The personal cassette player helped smooth the bumps. When the tape stopped, we flipped it over to hear more Elvis, the Beatles, Mozart or the Muppets.
We became well acquainted with Route 11's roughly 300 bucolic Virginia miles, with dad's steady hand on the wheel most times. My sister and I both learned to drive on long stretches of Route 11 and its feeder roads, in daylight and darkness, in perfect weather and in downpours and blizzards.
We'd often break up the trip into two days, and we spent the night in almost every place between Abingdon's elegant Martha Washington Inn and Lexington's humble Howard Johnson.
There were plenty of landmarks: Natural Bridge. Dixie Caverns. Luray Caverns. New Market Battlefield. Shenandoah National Park. Skyline Drive. Barter Theatre.
And plenty of colleges: Emory & Henry, Radford, Virginia Tech, Hollins, Washington & Lee, Mary Baldwin, James Madison.
And lyrical locales: Glade Spring, Max Meadows, Rural Retreat, Cloverdale, Troutville, Vesuvius, Steele's Tavern, Stuarts Draft, Tom's Brook, Weyers Cave.
The road of my dad's upbringing and of my parents' scholarship and courtship became the road to my future as well.
A simple country highway, yet so much more.
It's my mother road.
------
(c) 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Visit the McClatchy Washington Bureau on the World Wide Web at www.mcclatchydc.com.
