BS: Travel

Subject: BS: Travel
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Oct 21 - 04:28 AM

I love long driving trips in the US. In Europe, I never drive.
If any European Mudcatters might like to take a driving trip in the US, I would love to have somebody to travel with. I'll supply the car and share the lodging cost. And if you want to do a driving trip in Europe and whatever the UK considers itself to be, I'd love to ride along and pay my share of gas and lodging.

Anybody interested?

-Joe, Just back from Route 66 and ready to do it again-

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Oct 21 - 06:22 AM

Dunno whether a trip with lots of car travel would be quite as pleasurable in the UK as in the US. Our English roads at least tend to be a bit twisty, crowded and not always in good condition, and our motorways are a bit of a nightmare. Towns and cities have layouts that never had cars in mind. On the other hand, we've travelled around Andalucía in southern Spain a lot with my sister. The roads are fairly straight and in very good condition and are nearly always quiet. They connect places with fantastic history and culture (think Granada, Córdoba and Seville, to name but a few) and there are hundreds of characterful little towns and villages, and there's some great high mountain scenery too in the Sierra Nevada and elsewhere. Oh, and the Costas...

I'm afraid my back doesn't travel well on long journeys any more, so I tend to regard driving as a means of getting somewhere as quickly as possible then dumping the wheels...

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Oct 21 - 08:46 AM

When you are next in the UK, Joe, one of the trips I would recommend is our very own East to West highway, the A66 :-) Trouble is, it only takes a few hours. Make sure you do lots of diversions. Start at Whitby then head to Middlesbrough for the A66. I would also head down to Ravenglass instead of finishing at Workington. Have a ride on L'il Ratty when you get there. I'll happily be chauffer for that :-D

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Oct 21 - 10:34 AM

But not when it's snowing, Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Oct 21 - 01:12 PM

Yea, we have beautifully quaint villages and small towns. The driving is just to get us there. Horsepower for courses.

You wouldn't like my driving. I would stop every mile to photograph milestones. Then there are boundary stones, fingerposts and benchmarks ................ and, and.........

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Oct 21 - 02:11 PM

Dear Mr. Red,

You should travel around here! Mountains, craters, lava flows, waterfalls, ghost towns, a mining dredge, abandoned mine shafts, EBR 1, and up north REALLY odd people who you really don't want to get to know.

But there are ancient beehive huts built by hermit monks of the Shoshone and later used as charcoal kilns, and even a nuclear submarine which made some ENORMOUS navigational errors and had its conning tower cemented into the city park where it finally surfaced. (The Captain was cashiered.)

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Oct 21 - 02:16 PM

Here's that submarine I mentioned, the USNS Hawkbill.

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Oct 21 - 02:40 PM

I've had only the one trip to England, a week before and a week after Whitby Folk Week. I took the train from London to Doncaster, so I didn't really experience British motorways. I've been on three Jim Malcolm Scotland tours, with the same intrepid bus driver each time.
I find the Interstate highways in the US to be boring, so I stay on the US Highway network as much as I can. Before the Interstates, the US Highways had terrible traffic. Now they move along nicely, and go through scenic territory. So I've been having a wonderful time driving US Highways over the last thirty years or so. I've been to all fifty states, and I don't know how many National Parks.
It was fun to drive Route 66, but it's not the sort of highway I usually drive - too much of 66 has been replaced by Interstate.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Oct 21 - 08:00 AM

If you can pick a nice day at the right time of year when the roads are quieter (not an easy call: maybe a Tuesday in November or a Thursday in March...), you can make a bit of a theme (as with Dave's A66) out of adopting just one road. The A303 is grand, going through central southern England in all its diversity (with the huge bonus of going by Stonehenge) from the bottom of the M3 south of London to join the A30 near Honiton in Devon, after passing through the Blackdown Hills. Another good one would be the A39, which starts at Bath (fantastic!) and goes via Wells, Glastonbury, Minehead, Lynton and Lynmouth (fantastic coastal scenery) Barnstaple, Bude and on through more pleasant places in Cornwall, ending up climactically at Truro and Falmouth. How's about that! It goes right past my house, by the way. The kettle will be on!

Massive caveat: both roads are extremely popular tourist routes in summer...

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Oct 21 - 09:06 AM

I love long car trips in the US where things are far apart.

I would rather train around Europe. But I would totz do a mudcat road trip, post-pandemic!

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Oct 21 - 09:18 AM

We called the smaller scenic highways 'takin the blue roads'.
Those are the roads that actually go somewhere people wanted to go.
You can travel around here for; history, geology, fossilized history, food, archectecture or social destinations which is best. Sports travel is too commercial and mundane. If you want to commune with driving and impossible sights the Blue Ridge Parkway built by FDR's CCC crews are breathtaking.

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Oct 21 - 09:34 AM

If you ever find youself in Mont. MD 'Glenstone' is remarkable yet free center of all the reasons for travel. Sound forests, art sculpture, architecture and surprise. natural yet extraordinary

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: DaveRo
Date: 17 Oct 21 - 11:51 AM

Joe Offer wrote: Before the Interstates, the US Highways had terrible traffic. Now they move along nicely, and go through scenic territory.

I still remember a phrase from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I must have read 50 years ago. "The best roads go from nowhere to nowhere, and have an alternative that gets you there quicker."

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Oct 21 - 01:21 PM

The A303 starts nowhere, ends nowhere and the M4 will get you there quicker. But not as nicely.

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Oct 21 - 02:36 PM

”We called the smaller scenic highways 'takin the blue roads'.
Those are the roads that actually go somewhere people wanted to go.”

One of my band-mates has written a great song called ‘Blue Highways’. His song was inspired by William Least Heat-Moon’s superb book of the same name, in which he chronicles his road trip around the US driving the small back-country roads only. It’s a fantastic read, I can heartily recommend it…

William Least Heat-Moon - ‘Blue Highways: an American journey’

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 21 - 04:37 AM

When I said the M4 gets you there quicker, I should have added that only if you join the M5 at Bristol will that be achieve£!

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: G-Force
Date: 18 Oct 21 - 05:20 AM

The A303 has been a regular part of my life ever since I started driving - my old grandma lived in north Devon.

As for the A39, I once towed a caravan up Porlock Hill - once was enough.

Another long distance road is the A361. There's no logical reason why it should all have the same number. But it's been re-routed a bit in the Devon stretch from where it used to go.

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 21 - 08:11 AM

The North Devon Link Road bit of the A361 (between Tiverton and Barnstaple) is a bit of a nightmare. We could use it when we travel up north from Cornwall, but the A30/M5 via Exeter is far more reliable. The A361 has long stretches of single carriageway, long hills with slow traffic and overtaking lanes which are a bit too well-spaced...

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: RTim
Date: 20 Oct 21 - 10:14 PM

I always take the A303, eventually, from Heathrow to my daughters in Devon.....Except for the road over the Blackdown Hills - it is the best way of getting to Honiton and Exeter from London...

Tim Radford - a road much travelled!

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 21 - 06:28 AM

The Blackdown bit is quite picturesque though. When we come that way we've come from Richmond (the London one...duh...) where our son and family live. So it's fighting the traffic in Kew to the Chiswick bridge, a bit of M4, then M3, then the 303, then the A30 round Exeter...Then we still have a good hour to go to Bude, half of that on country roads... It's all a bit knackering, and it's easier in some ways to stay on the M4/M5 so I can stay in moronic-zombie mode and get home a bit quicker. We did the 303 route the other week (the M4 was closed), but as it was in the dark the charms were lost on us...

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 21 - 06:36 AM

You can cut out the slow Blackdown Hills bit by taking the A358 up to the M5 near Taunton. We have relatives in the churchyard at Ashill, so we do that sometimes. Probably isn't much quicker...

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Greenie
Date: 21 Oct 21 - 06:47 AM

Currently, the A66 is a little problematic at weekends. West of Keswick, around Cockermouth, it's closed for repairs, so check before travelling.

The goods vehicle diversion to get from Keswick to Cockermouth (about 13 miles) takes you via Penrith and Carlisle, almost 65 miles.

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Oct 21 - 07:10 AM

You still have goods vehicles up there then? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: gillymor
Date: 21 Oct 21 - 07:20 AM

If you get up into N.W. U.S. you don't want to miss the Beartooth Highway which runs between Cooke City MT and Red Lodge MT and snakes into Wyoming. It's mountain vistas and views of the Sunlit Basin are breathtaking.

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Greenie
Date: 22 Oct 21 - 04:59 AM

Steve,

We did still have a few but the road closure, clearly designed to cull the stragglers, has worked a treat.

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 Oct 21 - 05:29 AM

I'm pleased to announce that a little by-road near our village leading through Whitwell to Reepham is now re-opened after having been closed for several days for re-surfacing. Husband is pleased, as it meant rather a long detour.
The road is called Nowhere Lane (honestly, it really is!)

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Oct 21 - 07:37 AM

There are some odd road and place names near us. I walk up and down Shutt Lane at least twice a week. May be more if it was open :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 Oct 21 - 04:27 AM

Haha Dave, love it! We used to clean a holiday barn on a Saturday morning (until my husband got the school cleaner's job) in a village near the coast called Bale, just past Little Snoring and Great Snoring.
Husband said I ought to live in one of those Snorings. Can't think why :)

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Oct 21 - 10:17 AM

Here's that submarine I mentioned, the USNS Hawkbill.

More conning, than tower?

Subject: RE: BS: Travel
From: JennieG
Date: 25 Oct 21 - 06:07 PM

Come to Oz, Joe. You would love it here, and we would love to have you.