Trip Report
Exploring Eastern North America
From Texas to Newfoundland
Summer, 1996
by Dale Barnard
After about 9500 miles on the road over a period of seven weeks, I made it back to Austin last night. It was a very worthwhile experience, although sometimes rather difficult. I was especially delighted that I was able to enjoy my own company for that long. It was very much an internal journey with little resemblance to a sight-seeing type of trip, although this trip report will focus on the sights because they are easier to report than a hundred little personal discoveries. In hindsight, this trip was fairly easy to divide into segments so I’ll report them that way.
Segment 1: Austin to Mountville, Virginia
The afternoon before I left on the trip, I removed everything that was in my car and set it on the front lawn and then drove around the side of the house to vacuum the interior. When I drove back around, I reached for my large toolbox and it was gone. Piece-by-piece, I discovered that someone had stolen my large toolbox, my sturdy air pump, my maglight, my camera flash, a gas can, and a duffel of caving gear. This was enormously frustrating because I had been overly trusting of people and then reminded of my poor judgment by losing about $700 worth of stuff. It could have been worse: I had just moved my bicycle into the house a few minutes before. During the trip, I bought tools here and there to replace the most important ones that were stolen.
I spent six days working my way to Virginia via Georgia. I stayed on small roads, avoiding the interstate highways like addictive drugs. I took three great mountain bike rides, one in Louisiana, one in Georgia, and one in North Carolina. I had never been in this part of the East so it was all new to me. These six days were the most productive songwriting time that I have ever had. Each morning when I awoke, I set a timer for 60 minutes to work on songs. Invariably, the timer would go off and I would feel like continuing for another 30 minutes or more. I frequently had to pull over on the side of the road to write down new ideas. Two or three hours of each day was spent writing in my journal and songwriting.
I slept each night in my car to avoid paying for campgrounds. It worked out okay, but it was difficult to find places where I felt safe. I developed a rating scale of sleeping places based on my level of paranoia: A Level 1 sleeping spot was like an untraveled logging road cut back in a national forest where no one would find me. I always tried to find a Level 1, but ended up only finding them about a fourth of the time. A Level 2 sleeping spot could be a rest area or a parking area at a trail head. These dominated the trip. It was usually difficult to sleep because I was paranoid about being disturbed by people. Several times, someone disturbed me by looking in the window or lurking outside and I had to move on to another place for safety’s sake. A Level 3 is the worst, by far. These could be a parking lot, a remote rest area, or a boat dock. A couple of times I reclined the driver’s seat, key in the ignition, doors locked, and was ready to move at a moment’s notice rather than spreading out in the back of the car where it was comfortable. Level 3 sleeping places were no fun. By avoiding campgrounds, I saved about $250 on the trip. I’m not sure if it is worth traveling this way in states that have little public land.
In Mississippi, I traveled along the Natchez Trace, a historical trail dating back several hundred years, now accessible by a road that criss-crosses it. The road is a National Scenic Parkway so the road surface and at least five feet on either side of it is National Park Service land. Most of the rest is private land. The history of the trail fascinated me. It started out as various footpaths made by the native folks and was later connected and made into a high-foot traffic road by the European settlers. It became the “road” home for Nashville folks who built wood boats, floated their products down the Mississippi, sold their boats for the lumber, and then walked home. I did not follow the trail all the way to Nashville because I got tired of mile after mile of the carefully manicured green grass and thin lines of trees (idiot line) along the highway that are meant to distract you from the clear-cuts. I felt like I was driving through someone’s front yard that was several hundred miles long, not a forest.
In Georgia, a new theme for my trip emerged. I had heard of the Appalachian Trail before, a 2000+ mile foot path from Georgia to Maine, but it was not until I began criss-crossing it that I felt its intrigue. The trail was made in the 30s and 40s to act as an escape from the city life. It has grown into something the originators never expected: A singular challenge for hikers who want to complete the trail in one year (known as thru-hikers). At a pace of about 15 miles per day, an ambitious backpacker can complete the trail in about six months. Hikers tend to consume between 6,000 and 10,000 calories each day just to “break even,” and most lose more than 15 pounds during the hike. Along the trail, there are occasional shelters, such as lean-tos and cabins, that hikers can sleep in, especially during the inevitable snow and rain storms. I learned about the strong sense of community that the develops among the thru-hikers and I have become determined to thru-hike this trail one of these years.
I drove for a day on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a road owned by the National Park Service like the Natchez Trace. This road travels over the tops of the Appalachian Mountains and is just as “parked out” as the Natchez Trace. There were so many overlooks at which to pull over that the road seemed more like a Disneyland attraction than a forest road. Tourists lined the pull-outs and snapped pictures of the views, some even video-taping the landscape. I became frustrated and decided to find another route through the mountains. I left the parkway and took about a hundred different roads as I worked my way toward Virginia via Tennessee and West Virginia. I enjoyed these small mountain roads much more than the National Parkway because they went through lots of little towns and allowed me to choose my route based on my mood.
Segment II: The Mountville Folk Festival in Mountville, Virginia
I arrived at Andrew and Karin McKnight’s house the night before their annual folk festival. This is the third year that they have organized this by-invite festival in their yard. I met the McKnights at the Kerrville Folk Festival about a year ago when I was attending the songwriting class. This year at Kerrville, Andrew invited me to play a four-song set at his folk festival. The timing of the festival fit nicely into my trip.
With the help of volunteers, the back porch of the house became a stage with cables, lights, and microphones strung everywhere. It was quite a transformation. I was scheduled in the second slot of the day, during which time there were 40-50 people there, mostly volunteers and other musicians. I felt less nervous than I expected and I had a great time on stage. It was the first time I had done anything like it. Afterwards, many people offered a great deal of support for my music. I felt quite inspired. Later that evening, over 100 people had showed up and there were some really enjoyable musicians playing five- or six-song sets.
The next day, I helped clean up after the festival and then a few of us went canoeing on a very pretty river. The day after that, I went for one of the best hikes of my life in the Shenendoa National Park. I started at the bottom of the mountains and hiked up the steep Whiteoak trail along a series of waterfalls to the tops of the mountains. Then, I joined the Appalachian Trail for a few miles before taking a side trail up to the highest point in the park at an impressive overlook that was about 2700 feet above where I started. Then, I hiked back down on the Cedar Run Trail. Near the end of the Cedar Run Trail, I came across a natural sloping waterfall that worked well as a water slide. It took me a while to work up the nerve, but finally, I zipped down the 30-foot mossy rock slope and splashed into the cold pool at the bottom. After playing on the slide for a while, I finished the trail, about 16 miles after I started. I was sore for days and my sneakers did not survive the trail. I stayed one more night at the McKnight’s before heading toward New York City.
Segment III: New York City
After leaving Virginia, I spent three uneventful days getting to Newark Airport in New Jersey where I left my car. It cost only $7/day to leave the car in long-term parking and an $8 shuttle took me to Grand Central Station in Manhattan. It was much easier than trying to drive my car into Manhattan. I spent one night at the apartment of a former Austinite, Ben Wright. He showed me Central Park and the Natural History Museum.
Then, I took a train to Long Island for a few nights in the “country” with another former Austinite, Robert Wexler, and his girlfriend Charlotte. Robert and Charlotte were staying at house in Speonk for a few days where they could get some peace and quiet to work on their writing since they normally reside in noisy Chinatown. We met up with some other friends of theirs for a day on the beach. We ended up on a gay beach with mostly wealthy artists and actors. The water was very cold, but I endured it for about 20 minutes because the waves were great fun. I asked someone why most of the gay men walking along the beach looked like they were born and raised in a weight room. I was told that they are “Boy Toys,” gay men who hang out with rich people, probably in exchange for gifts and a rich lifestyle. It was an educational day for me.
Back in Manhattan, I spent about four more days wandering around, getting a feel for what a real city feels like. I really enjoyed being able to get wherever I needed to go without needing a car. I ate good Ethiopian food, saw the Metropolitan Museum of Art, played softball in Central Park, took a 50-cent ferry to Staten Island, and walked block-to-block for miles and miles. After seven days of the city, though, I was glad to be back in my car on the open road.
Segment IV: The Canada Loop
Ben Wright and I traveled together for about 16 days after leaving the City. We spent several rainy nights at campgrounds in my wet tent. We were experiencing the remnants of a hurricane, I guess. It rained steadily for more than three days.
We stopped at an island along the Maine coastline at Frank Gotwals’ house, a musician who I met at the Mountville Folk Festival. He fishes for lobster half time and performs his music the other half. We shared some songs that evening and then the next morning, he and his son invited us to tag along for a day of lobster fishing. It was so foggy that you couldn’t see more than about 150 feet and the humid chill in the air was eye-opening. We were on the water by 6am and stayed out for about nine hours, a typical day’s work for them. Ben and I watched them pulling up lobster traps, throwing back the nuisance crabs, measuring the lobsters to see if they were keepers, rebaiting the traps, and then resinking them. They pulled up about 250 traps that day, following the same routine for each one. The lobster season had begun to pick up and they pulled in about 200 pounds of lobsters, each lobster being about 1½ to two pounds. Ben and I were pretty weary after such a long day since we just stood still most of the day while we listened to the roar of the diesel engine, but Frank cooked up lobsters for dinner and they were fantastic.
Ben and I then continued through Maine and into New Brunswick. We went for a nice 12-mile hike in Fundy National Park where the tides change as much as 30-40 feet, the largest tides in the world, I think.
We then traveled in Nova Scotia for a couple of days, noticing how devastated the forest is from logging, until we arrived at Cape Breten National Park in the northern island part of the province. The coastline and forests on Cape Breten were spectacular, bounded by steep, rocky drops from the plateau to the ocean 1000 feet below. As usual, it was raining when we woke up the next morning, but by now we were prepared. We put on the rain gear we had purchased and hiked a couple of miles up to a nice overlook. The fog occasionally broke for a few minutes, revealing an ocean view. We knew we were alone because the miserable wind and rain kept unprepared travelers away so we stood on some rocks, wobbling in the strong wind gusts, our arms stretched out beside us like wings, and sang into the fog bank at the top of our lungs. The fog didn’t seem to care, but we enjoyed it nevertheless.
We then drove to North Sidney, Nova Scotia, to catch the ferry to Newfoundland. It was the largest ship I had been on and it took about six hours to reach Port de Basque, Newfoundland. The ship had a movie theater, TV lounge, cafeteria, gift shop, and a lounge with live music. We arrived in Newfoundland just after dark and quickly found a campground. The next morning, in the daylight, we were very impressed with the unique landscape of the province. The trees were short or non-existent due mostly to the harsh winter climate. It was a 400 mile drive to the northern tip of the island, the northern half of which is along a beautiful road that hugs the coast line of the Gulf of St. Lawrence called the Viking Trail. The island has many small mountains which we learned were remnants of the Appalachian Mountains, far away from the rest of the mountain range. Newfoundland is very little developed with few people, which I found to be very refreshing.
We stopped at Gros Morne National Park and did a nine-mile hike over the top of a bald mountain that gave us a taste of the Arctic tundra that lies farther to the north. At the summit, we could see dozens of natural lakes, an impressive fjord, and a distant view of the gulf.
At the northernmost tip of the island, we visited the site where the Vikings landed 500 years before Columbus. They had island hopped in small wooden ships all the way from northern Europe, never leaving site of land for more than a couple of days. To survive the harsh winters, they built sod houses and fished. After a few decades, due to pressures from the native folks that lived in Newfoundland, the Vikings returned to Greenland, not to return until long after Columbus. Learning about the Vikings made me feel like it was quite a bummer that Columbus was familiar enough with fighting for territory that conquering the Native Americans was just an inevitable stepping stone for the European invasion. The Vikings gave up when they no longer felt safe. Columbus went back for more soldiers.
Before returning to the south, we drove around the northern tip of Newfoundland to the end of the road in St. Anthony’s. We ate at a cute little café by a lighthouse and paid lots of money for crummy food and bad service. The only redeeming value to the café was that it had two pairs of binoculars that we used to view an iceberg that had floated down from the arctic.
We drove back down south to Connecticut over a period of about four days, at which time Ben took a train to the City and I was back on my own. Ben and I both felt the difficulties of traveling with another person, especially when we each had a different reason for traveling, but in the end, I felt optimistic that with enough open communication about feelings, I could travel with someone again.
Segment V: Chicago
I then spent a long two days traveling to Chicago via Niagara Falls and another visit to Canada. I felt relieved to leave the overly-developed East Coast. In Evanston, a suburb of Chicago, I visited my friend Jacqui, who I have known since I went to college in Boulder, Colorado, and her girlfriend Catherine, who is from England and France. I thoroughly enjoyed the four-day visit, during which I worked on songwriting a lot, spent some time doing some personal research in the library at NWU, walking along the shore of Lake Michigan, and spending $77 at REI.
Segment VI: The drive home
After leaving Chicago, I drove north to Richmond, Illinois to do a little research of my family history. After two hours in the library, I found directions to the old Barnard Mill and Barnard Mill Bridge. The mill was run by my great grandfather, who I never knew. It has become the Old Mill Inn, a restaurant and bar. It changed ownership a couple of years ago and the current owner seemed almost completely uninterested that a Barnard had arrived at Barnard’s Mill. However, she did bring out an old photo album that the previous owners had given her that had newspaper clippings and photos for most of the history of the place. I didn’t know who was in any of the photos, but I suspect some of them were related to me. She charged me for my soda and I went on my way.
I spent a very enjoyable few days traveling through Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, and into Arkansas. In Arkansas, I visited the Ozark Folk Center, of which I had only vague memories from my childhood. It was enjoyable, but I decided that I needed to find another way to really see the Ozark Mountains. Caves teased me from every direction because they knew I didn’t brink my caving gear nor a caving companion. I was limited to the surface so I hiked to the Ozark Highland Trail from Redding Campground. I turned around at the top of Hare Mountain after hiking about 9 miles away from the start. It became painfully obvious to me that one liter of water does not suffice for hiking more than 17 miles of mountainous terrain on a humid 90+ degree day. With five miles remaining, I had become quite dehydrated. My muscles started cramping up and my energy level dropped. I made it back okay, but I had trouble walking for several days, mostly due to a problem with one knee. The other souvenir that I took home with me is chiggers and poison ivy. I’ve had worse, but this has been quite a distraction. Still, it was a worthwhile hike and I learned something about my limits.
I then drove to Denton, Texas, to visit my sister and niece for three days. On the third day, we drove to Arlington to visit my 90-year-old Grandmother who was there visiting my uncle. We had a nice lunch talking about family history and Barnard’s Mill. Then, I made the final drive back to Austin.
I may be home, but it has not hit home that I am home. I don’t know if I’ll take any more road trips for that long because they are mostly to meet a need for internal discovery, which more and more does not require traveling around in my car. After my last big trip, I dreaded returning home. This time, I looked forward to it, although I have had some nervousness about jumping right into my student-teaching semester. I ended up completing one new song on this trip and making a good start on three or four more. The best part of returning home is that I do not have to return to a corporate job or start a job search. I’m intentionally unemployed and can focus on teaching. I suspect that this will be the start of my next journey.
Home