BajaNomad

Baja's Blue Highways

Osprey - 3-20-2013 at 09:53 AM

Blue Highways

My Rand McNally road guide to the U.S. is vintage 1994 and all the major interstates and other highways are in blue. I guess older ones showed all the back roads as blue. That inspired a man by the name of William Least Heat-Moon, a part Osage Indian, to write an engaging book about his 13,000 mile journey around the states keeping to the Blue Highways.

I enjoyed the book because it brought back sweet memories of me crossing the country from Nevada to Florida a time or two on some of those roads. Most of the drive was along old Route 66 and since I was only 16 years old, just got my driver’s license, the whole Americana thing choked me up at times as I tried to take it all in from the driver’s seat of a new 1952 Studebaker Commander V8.

I was bent on making good time while Heat-Moon was loafing along the remote byways avoiding freeways and big cities. As an adult I would get the chance to do my own Blue Highways thing in and around the Great Basin. As an avid trout fisherman I knew every backroad in and around every little town – can’t find the best and fattest nightcrawler on Main Street, one needs to seek out the enterprising schoolkids who make a market in them with just a small, crude sign on the front lawn.

While Heat-Moon was painting a marvelous word picture of small-town America, living in an old van, taking in all the local color, I was sightseeing, looking for good fishing spots, campsites and places to find the best local food.

My love for fishing and the outdoors finally brought me to Baja California where I got off and stayed off the highways when I could in search of deserted beaches and mountains streams. Baja doesn’t yet have many secondary paved roads – Highway One runs the length of two Mexican states and almost all of the side roads are dirt or gravel. Uncountable daring motor adventurers search endlessly for the Great Nowhere following cow traces or anything resembling a path from where you are to someplace you’ve never been.

One day the peninsula will have paved roads criss-crossing the desert from the Pacific to the Gulf of California, from Highway one to places of interest, commerce and population all up and down the long desert finger of land. Hard to imagine Baja with hundreds of unique and quirky little hamlets each with its own special attraction calling to adventurers, writers, all the curious vagabonds and wanderers.

Hope the day never comes when travelers will have their own Baja Route 66 (Highway One) complete with huge neon signs that beckon you to visit IN AND OUT BURGERS and STOP! SEE THE MONSTER.

vandenberg - 3-20-2013 at 01:45 PM

What we all wish for, but "old Baja" is rapidly disappearing.

bufeo - 3-20-2013 at 01:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Osprey
Blue Highways...
Hope the day never comes when travelers will have their own Baja Route 66 (Highway One) complete with huge neon signs that beckon you to visit IN AND OUT BURGERS and STOP! SEE THE MONSTER.


Hear! Hear!

I'm a big fan of Trogdon (aka Least-Heat Moon). I'm reading his latest, Here, There, Elsewhere, a collection of some of his articles over the years with updated notes. Often as we sit in some local cafe we look at the walls to count calendars. That is straight from Quoz.

My father used to point out "old" roads to me and I remember his propensity for the blue (or they may have been grey or even dashed lines) roads from point A to point B.

Our attraction to Baja in the early '60s was for the same, and we (my wife and I) have kept track of dirt roads throughout the U.S. west that are now paved.

One of our reasons for not refusing an offer we had for our house at Punta Bufeo (It wasn't for sale at the time.) was that we thought the pavement might change the area—if not in reality, at least in our perceived feeling of being in the back of beyond.

Although since selling we have not made any trips south of the border, opting instead to see some of the backroads of southern Africa the northern provinces of Canada, we'll return to Baja. Probably sooner than later.

Allen R

DENNIS - 3-20-2013 at 01:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by bufeo
Hear! Hear!

I'm a big fan of Trogdon (aka Least-Heat Moon).


Me too.....right from the git-go. I think I'll dig out "Blue Highways' and go for another ride. It's been a while.

Cisco - 3-20-2013 at 02:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by bufeo
Quote:
Originally posted by Osprey
Blue Highways...
Hope the day never comes when travelers will have their own Baja Route 66 (Highway One) complete with huge neon signs that beckon you to visit IN AND OUT BURGERS and STOP! SEE THE MONSTER.


Hear! Hear!

I'm a big fan of Trogdon (aka Least-Heat Moon). I'm reading his latest, Here, There, Elsewhere, a collection of some of his articles over the years with updated notes. Often as we sit in some local cafe we look at the walls to count calendars. That is straight from Quoz.

My father used to point out "old" roads to me and I remember his propensity for the blue (or they may have been grey or even dashed lines) roads from point A to point B.

Our attraction to Baja in the early '60s was for the same, and we (my wife and I) have kept track of dirt roads throughout the U.S. west that are now paved.

One of our reasons for not refusing an offer we had for our house at Punta Bufeo (It wasn't for sale at the time.) was that we thought the pavement might change the area—if not in reality, at least in our perceived feeling of being in the back of beyond.

Although since selling we have not made any trips south of the border, opting instead to see some of the backroads of southern Africa the northern provinces of Canada, we'll return to Baja. Probably sooner than later.

Allen R


I imagine this will sound really boring to many by his book "Prarie Erth" which is 600 and some pages as I recall about Chase County, Kansas.

One book, one county,...boring..., particularly set in Kansas. What's in Kansas since Dorothy left???

I was fascinated. It's a can't put it down read for me.

He was an English teacher before his divorce and his writing is exquisite.

If you like 'Moon" you may also enjoy Barry Lopez, although he is a short story writer. Try "Crossing Open Ground" and a particular selection (you in here Tony???) about a Colorado River drift with Jazzman Paul Winter and a group of musicians looking for the perfect place to record. WOW!!!

All of Lopez's stuff is good though if you are into THAT place.

DENNIS - 3-20-2013 at 02:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cisco

He was an English teacher before his divorce and his writing is exquisite.



That was the attraction for me. I doubt I would have stuck with him if not for his writing talent. I mean.....what could I have carred for his self-pity at the loss of his soul mate....the rejection that prompted his quest to rejuvinate his pathetic crushed spirit?
At least he didn't opt for a "Yaqui way Of Knowledge." That fantasy had already been milked.