Touring the USA

[Gravity Aided]

Try Route 66 from west to east. Illinois is slowly making a trail of, and along, elements of old Route 66, at least in McLean County. But I wouldn't limit myself, as there are a lot of trails in the Midwest, including the KATY Trail in Missouri (Missouri loves company, BTW) and Illinois and Wisconsin. Lots of rural roads and friendly people. And a bit of otherwise as well, in any state.
https://www.adventurecycling.org
Try these guys, they'll be a lot of help.

 

[Blue Hills]

Then you get to the seriously flat stuff, Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle, I ground across this into 25-35 mph headwinds all day, every day. It was debilitating, I ended up doing 5 mph on the flat. There's nothing to see and the 'museums' on the way are rubbish, desperately trying to wring a few bucks out of the Grapes of Wrath thing. Oddly one museum that is worth visiting is the Devil's Rope Museum in McLean Texas; a museum of barbed wire. It makes you realize how big a deal barbed wire was in making the West what it is today.

Thanks for the caution - I well remember a seemingly endless ride into the wind in the English fens - this sounds like that multiplied.

Barbed wire - my old great liberal American history teacher was fond of setting what might seem like odd essay projects for us - I well remember his one on barbed wire.

 

[Gravity Aided]

Barbed wire, I could go on about it. My father made the wire for barbed wire. Around our home, the depression of the 30's really ended on September 3, 1939. My Dad got called back to his wire mill/steel/barbed wire plant, and it was a place transformed. Guard towers, armed boats in the canals, machine guns on hastily erected guard towers, and badges and photo i.d.s. Due to orders from Britain and France. Not like I remember any of this, just heard him tell it. Not long after, he got drafted.

 

[Blue Hills]

Why all that extreme security deep within the states for barbed wire?
Surely nazi spies weren't going to run off with a few rolls and the enemy surely knew how to make the stuff?

 

[Gravity Aided]

Sabotage was considered a real threat from August of 1939 onwards. Which is odd, because the factory also employed many German Americans and Italian Americans, some of whom had fascist sympathies, and family in the old country. A lot of people changed their tune, right about then. Maybe a life lesson for todays' citizens.

 

[Blue Hills]

. A lot of people changed their tune, right about then. Maybe a life lesson for todays' citizens.

At the risk of thread drift, can you explain/elaborate - who changed tune? Americans towards folks with partial foreign blood or the Italian-Americans, German-Americans changed their tone?

Italians - in the UK many were interned. It's true that Mussolini was keen to leverage those of Italian blood abroad for propaganda purposes and that fascist agents were very active in UK foreign communities for sure.

In London the Casa Del Fascio on Charing Cross Road in central London, just up from Trafalgar Square, is now a local library. And a centre for the London chinese community. I know some Italians with very dodgy views on chinese folk - must point this historical quirk out to them.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/alandenney/21276224088

 

[PJ520]

Thanks for the caution - I well remember a seemingly endless ride into the wind in the English fens - this sounds like that multiplied.

It is indeed. In fact the fens are far more interesting as it's not so far between towns (I once rode from Harwich to Lincoln.). I was lured by the magic of Route 66 as have been many people. At the Chain of Rocks bridge just outside St Louis you can even push a button and hear Bobby Troup's original song! BTW the traffic in St Louis is horrendous. Mind you I found a neat pub there with Irish folk music not far from one of the seediest hostels I've ever stayed in. The pic on the left is me at the Route 66 half way point where I'd rode 20 miles to get breakfast only to find they didn't do breakfasts, I had to wait until 11 and get a hamburger for breakfast as I had a lot of miles ahead of me. When I mentioned the weirdness of hamburger and fries for breakfast to the waitress she said "It's the Texas way!".

 

[Gravity Aided]

Fascist supporters changed their tune quite abruptly. The joke in our end of town was
Duce?
Ill say she do!
The German American Bund, with Fritz Kuhn, had a lot of adherents. Not as many as believed, but a few. Most German American people in our area left Germany with the collapse of the Revolution of 1848, and we're too liberal for that rot.

 

[Gravity Aided]

Along Route 66 nearBloomington, Illinois, is the Funk Museum of Lapidary. Worth a visit. It rocks! If you get to Dixie Truckers Home, youve gone too far. Going South.

 

[Gravity Aided]

It is indeed. In fact the fens are far more interesting as it's not so far between towns (I once rode from Harwich to Lincoln.). I was lured by the magic of Route 66 as have been many people. At the Chain of Rocks bridge just outside St Louis you can even push a button and hear Bobby Troup's original song! BTW the traffic in St Louis is horrendous. Mind you I found a neat pub there with Irish folk music not far from one of the seediest hostels I've ever stayed in. The pic on the left is me at the Route 66 half way point where I'd rode 20 miles to get breakfast only to find they didn't do breakfasts, I had to wait until 11 and get a hamburger for breakfast as I had a lot of miles ahead of me. When I mentioned the weirdness of hamburger and fries for breakfast to the waitress she said "It's the Texas way!".

We have an old filling station with a little historical marker out front that plays Route 66.