Ted Conover's Blog, page 6

Historic roads: going but not gone

For weeks (okay, months) I've been meaning to link to this thought-provoking post at BLDGBLOG, written by Geoff Manaugh. It's about ancient routes all around us – at Monticello and in Vermont, San Francisco and Australia. Great images and comments at the bottom.

Perhaps because the United States is a young country, we don't seem to think much about our old roads. But to me they're among the most evocative features of the American landscape. I started writing my first book, Rolling Nowhere, in the Colorado Rockies. A favorite afternoon hike was up the Columbine Lake Trail, east of Tabernash. Part of the route is over what guidebooks identify as an old Jeep trail – but when you get near the summit and see the remains of a couple of very old switchbacks, clearly built by hand with a lot of digging and stacking of rocks, you can see that it was a wagon trail long before Jeeps arrived on the scene.

On the Columbine Lake trail.

Now I live in New York City, where you can also find a lot of previous road infrastructure. Some of it is obvious and celebrated, such as the new High Line park which occupies a long stretch of former elevated railroad. Other structures are obscure and raise more questions than they answer, such as the sealed-off entrance and exit ramps you find near some of the older highways. I love the way Tom Wolfe chose such a ramp for the scene at the beginning of The Bonfire of the Vanities: his hero, lost in the Bronx on his home from Kennedy Airport, pilots his Mercedes up one of them and, in the glooms, hits a young man. From a forgotten stretch of road in a forgotten neighborhood, the future unfolds.

The High LIne, before it was reborn as a park.

[Thanks to Ben Popper.]

[Roman road photo via Historic UK.]

Historic roads: going, going, gone

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old Roman Road in Britain

For weeks (okay, months) I've been meaning to link to this thought-provoking post at the BLDGBLOG, written by Geoff Manaugh. It's about ancient routes all around us – at Monticello and in Vermont, San Francisco and Australia. Great images and comments at the bottom.

Perhaps because the United States is a young country, we don't seem to think much about our old roads. But to me they're among the most evocative features of the American landscape. I started writing my first book, Rolling Nowhere, in the Colorado Rockies. A favorite afternoon hike was up the Columbine Lake Trail, east of Tabernash. Part of the route is over what guidebooks identify as an old Jeep trail – but when you get near the summit and see the remains of a couple of very old switchbacks, clearly built by hand with a lot of digging and stacking of rocks, you can see that it was a wagon trail long before Jeeps arrived on the scene.

Now I live in New York City, where you can also find a lot of previous road infrastructure. Some of it is obvious and celebrated, such as the new High Line park which occupies a long stretch of former elevated railroad. Other structures are obscure and raise more questions than they answer, such as the sealed-off entrance and exit ramps you find near some of the older highways. I love the way Tom Wolfe chose such a ramp for the scene at the beginning of The Bonfire of the Vanities: his hero, lost in the Bronx on his home from Kennedy Airport, pilots his Mercedes up one of them and, in the glooms, hits a young man. From a forgotten stretch of road in a forgotten neighborhood, the future unfolds.

[Thanks to Ben Popper.]

[Roman road photo via Historic UK.]

In Memoriam: My Olympus OM-1

Though I'm always after my wife for saving too much stuff, in fact I have the same problem. One thing that's been particularly hard for me to get rid of is my first good camera, a compact SLR called an Olympus OM-1. My attachment to the Olympus, a device which has long since outlived its usefulness, has to do not just with the many events it has helped me capture over the years, but to its own adventures while not under my control.

I can date the camera by the first photos I took with it—I...

Doonesbury, on Roads

Has Garry Trudeau been reading The Routes of Man?

(Doonesbury, June 3, 2010. Thanks, Steve V.)

(image via Slate)

A Month of Reviews

TC, age 12

Since its launch on February 9 (and even before then, in pre-publication media) my new book has been reviewed in print, on the radio and online. More reviews, I'm told, are on the way. But for now, here's a roundup of some of the notables:

Mark Kramer in the Minneapolis Star-TribuneTaylor Antrim in the Los Angeles TimesJeb Brugman in Publishers WeeklyTess Taylor in the Barnes & Noble ReviewRichard B. Woodward in the New York TimesThe EconomistPeter Lewis in the San Francisco...

Eyes of deVore

One of my favorite photographs of a road is by Nicholas deVore III. Nicholas was one of those rare people of approximately my age or older who grew up in Aspen, Colorado, instead of immigrating there. That's where I met him, when I was researching my book Whiteout. Nicholas was extraordinarily smart, creative, funny, libidinous, and alarming. President of his class at Aspen High, he spent many years as a photographer for National Geographic, Fortune, Life, and Geo.

Nicholas, hat dangling from...

Top Road Books for 'The Week'

The magazine The Week asked me for a list of my top six books about travel on roads. It's in the current issue.

The Idea

A reader on my Facebook page, on hearing of my new book, asked simply, "Where did you get the idea?" I thought about trying to answer, but the space for replying is pretty small. But I give it a stab in the intro to The Routes of Man.

I'd say it started with bicycle riding, and the wish to get away from home and see the world when I was still pre-drivers license. Friends and I in Colorado started taking overnight tours into the mountains. The summer I was 15, my parents let me and a buddy do a...

Music for the Road

A lot of us work to music. I used to play music to help get me get going, to start the flow — mostly music without words, and especially guitar or piano. Once I got involved in the writing, the music would fade from consciousness (but maybe stay in subconsciousness). I'd know it worked when I stop for a break and notice I'd gotten to the end of the cassette or CD or playlist.

Lately music when I write has felt distracting. But music when I take a break, cook a meal, or drive feels essential.

Th...

Flat Tires and That "Sad Stretch of Road"

The car was feeling sluggish as I drove my son to school last Monday morning. Slow to back out of the driveway, slow to accelerate. Of course it was cold outside, and I myself am slow to accelerate on Mondays, so for a minute or two I thought maybe it was just me. But finally I pulled over and put it in PARK: "Check the tires on your side, will you?" I asked my son.

Sure enough, we had a flat.

I don't know about you, but having a flat tire makes me feel like a loser. There go all my neighbors, ...