American Road Trip Talk

Normally you wouldn’t associate anything make out of cardboard with the word “racing” but the paper flotillas of New Richmond, Ohio defy that notion. In our Fall 2014 issue of American Road Magazine a clever article entitled Rock, Paper, Scissor included a visit to the Cardboard Boat Museum in that little Ohio river town. Our guest is Ray Perszyk a colorful local who is the chairman of the Cardboa...

For many of us the image of North Dakota the pops to mind comes from the movie Fargo: A vast sea of white snow, bitter cold and knife like winds. Needless to say there is much more to the Peace Garden State than that and the newly expanded State Museum in Bismarck says it all. Our guest today is Kim Jondahl, Communication and Education director for the State Historical Society of North Dakota. At...

A lot of our listeners/readers are avid travelers and many use the itineraries posted on our American Road Magazine homepage. The holiday season for 2014 is just starting to get into high gear whether grandma lives in Tampa, Fl or Topiniabee, Michigan, Spokane, WA or Seabrook Island, SC. The folks at the National Motor Club have your best interests at heart and have a special winter driving checkl...

In the Friends in the Fast Lane column of our Fall 2014 magazine, we highlighted the official designation of a portion of a famous California costal highway as part of the Purple Heart Trail. In reality the famous commemorative trail is not a contiguous, physical route but rather a symbolic system of roads honoring the men and women of our armed forces over the decades. In this podcast we speak wi...

Drive in theatres have been featured in a couple of issues of our magazine because they are a unique part of the American Road heritage. The same goes for diners; we even have a regular column called Diner Days. In our summer 2014 issue we featured the Mayberry Diner and Drive In, a unique combination of these two classics. In this podcast we talk with Bob Craig the owner of this fine establishmen...

In the summer edition of American Road Magazine Erika Nelson, author of the Think Big column, found a big bottle of pop to quench her thirst: a 66 ‘ bottle to be exact outside of Pops Restaurant in Arcadia, OK. We talked extensively in another podcast with her about the enormous roadside attraction but the restaurant behind it looked just as interesting. Enter Marty Doepke, General Manager for Pop...

Erika Nelson is someone who is hard to catch up to because she is always on the road and always traveling. The big game she is hunting, literally Big Game, are the largest attractions along the American Road. Erika then turns them into the smallest replicas of the Largest Attractions on the American Road. And she has a travelling collection. She also contributes a regular column about her finds ca...

In the summer issue of American Road Magazine we took a jog through the Deep South in Tunnel Vision and explored the Grand Gulf-Raymond Scenic Byway. Signs have finally been put up that tells the story of this 50 mile stretch of southern byway beauty which traces one of the most significant marches in America’s bloody Civil War. Our guest on this podcast is Ret. General Parker Hills, a Civil War m...

Over the last few years American Road Magazine has featured stories about the Hocking Hills in southeast Ohio. This beautiful part of the state is quite different from the flat farms lands of the north and east of the Buckeye state. In the Hocking Hills the land begins to roll gently as it heads southeast into the Appalachian Mountains and the Virginias. This is a two-part conversation about a tim...

Over the last few years American Road Magazine has featured stories about the Hocking Hills in southeast Ohio. This beautiful part of the state is quite different from the flat farms lands of the north and east of the Buckeye state. In the Hocking Hills the land begins to roll gently as it heads southeast into the Appalachian Mountains and the Virginias. This is a two-part conversation about a tim...

As a reader of American Road Magazine, you know we are all about enjoying and preserving America’s Scenic Byways. They are not just great vacation destinations but are also vital economic links to a host of communities offering entertainment, opportunities to learn and appreciate our heritage and taste the wonderful variety of American cuisine; but this is a delicate ecosystem that needs support....

There is just no better treat on a hot summer day than a scoop of ice cream. Our Friends of the Fastlane column in the Summer Edition celebrated one of America’s oldest ice cream companies, Velvet Ice Cream as they celebrated their Centennial. What adds to the charm of this family owned creamery is that is located in the heart of central Ohio’s countryside in Utica, Ohio 45 minutes north of Columb...

The summer 2014 issue of American Road Magazine brought back one of our favorite family themes for the lazy, hazy days, A Night at Drive In Part 2. This podcast is part 2 of a series focused on the Melody Drive In located in rural northern Indiana near the Bass Lake campground resort. Their family owned drive in is one of the few that still sport grass infield rather than asphalt or gravel and giv...

The summer 2014 issue of American Road Magazine brought back one of our favorite family themes for the lazy, hazy days, A Night at Drive In Part 2. The best part about the more than 30 outdoor movie palaces reviewed is that the majority of them are still going strong. Being a family business seems to be one of the big factors in their survival. Families work cheap! Just ask Fred Heiss and his son...

The summer 2014 issue of American Road Magazine brought back one of our favorite family themes for the lazy, hazy days, A Night at Drive In Part 2. The best part about the more than 30 outdoor movie palaces reviewed is that the majority of them are still going strong. According to Steve Bloomer, second-generation owner of the Skyview Drive In of Belleville, Illinois, things have never been better....

Summertime and the living is easy or so the so went in the famous operetta Porgy and Bess. We certainly hope the arrival of our summer edition of American Road Magazine is adding to your summertime relaxation. Our Friends in the Fast Lane column made a stop at a unique exhibition at the Lincoln Highway Experience Museum in Latrobe, PA. There we met executive director, Olga Herbert, who described t...

This is part 2 of our Odessa, Texas interview. Our Spring 2014 issue of American Road Magazine featured an article entitled Hopping the Hippety Highway by Jillian Gurney. The author followed rabbit trails all over the country tracking down big bunnies. One of the stops was Odessa, Texas, home of the largest jackrabbit in the world. In this two-part interview with Linda Sweat of the Odessa Conventi...

Our Spring 2014 issue of American Road Magazine featured an article entitled Hopping the Hippety Highway by Jillian Gurney. The author followed rabbit trails all over the country tracking down big bunnies. One of the stops was Odessa, Texas, home of the largest jackrabbit in the world. In this two-part interview with Linda Sweat of the Odessa Convention and Visitors Bureau we will find out about t...

In the Spring 2014 issue of the magazine Tunnel Vision highlighted the birth of a new scenic roadway, the Nanticoke Heritage Byway which will eventually traverse parts of southern and western Delaware. In this podcast Dan Parsons, a historic preservationist for the Delaware, tells us about the importance of this unique byway and its link to the beginnings of our nation. To keep up with the Nantico...

The Tunnel Vision Column of our Spring 2014 issue of American Road Magazine featured a bizarre piece of art called the “Paulverizer” in front of an auto recycler on Highway 501 in Buena Vista, VA. It is just one of dozens of huge, humorous and highly visible works of art created by Mark Cline. In our interview, I hope you will catch some of his passion for creating these merry roadside monsters th...

In our Spring 2014 issue of American Road Magazine, you’ll find a story about a three wheeled, bullet shaped orange car called the Urbee 2 in our Friends in the Fast Lane column. The strange little car represents the vision of Jim Kor and Bruce Stewart to build an aerodynamically perfect and absolutely energy efficient vehicle. In Part 1 of the Urbee 2 story, Jim and Bruce share the journey that i...

In our Spring 2014 issue of American Road Magazine we presented the story of a three wheeled, bullet-shaped orange car called the Urbee 2 in our Friends in the Fast Lane column. The strange little car represents the vision of Jim Kor and Bruce Stewart to build an aerodynamically perfect and absolutely energy efficient vehicle. In Part 2 of the Urbee 2 story, Jim and Bruce describe how 3D Printing...

2016 will mark the official 100th anniversary of our number highway system. Up to 1926 the process of naming, building and publicizing a stretch of roadway was very much a local affair. The results were often confusing if pleasantly familiar to the folks who drove them. The named trails served a valuable purpose in their day, but they began to pass into history when the American Association of Sta...

The Think Big Column in our magazine is a regular platform for some of the most remarkable sights along the American Road. Erika Nelson is the peripatetic folk artist who chronicles kings and queens of the highway like the largest ketchup bottle or biggest baseball bat in the World’s Largest Collection of the Smallest Replicas of the World’s Largest Things. In this conversation Erika shares her mo...

In the Spring 2014 issue in the Friendd in the Fast Lane department, we show a Kansas artist, Dave DeArmond, who was so moved by the 1916 Midland Trail Tour guide that he began painting scenes mentioned in the book. Now people like our guest, Joan Nothern, of the Solomon Valley Hwy 24 Heritage Alliance are making that nearly century old driving guide come alive. Joan is the president of that assoc...