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What’s the Best Stop You’ve Ever Made on a Road Trip?
Be it for business or pleasure, we often find ourselves seeking a destination far away from home. The road trip happens for many reasons, some are more fun than others. But any excursion can be made enjoyable in its own right, and stops (of the planned or unexpected variety) are essential to the experience.
We should all be so lucky to have a Buc-ee’s travel center en route to our destination, but that’s just the bias of an automotive journalist who was born and raised in Texas. As gas stations/conveninece stores go, I openly admit to also liking both Sheetz and Wawa on road trips (don’t roast me in the comments one way or the other, East Coast readers) but sometimes the best stops are further away from the interstate. Here’s my contribution to this question for you loyal Hagerty Media readers.
Will Rogers’ Birthplace, Oologah, Oklahoma
Many years ago, I was a corporate suit. And as a loyal business drove, I rented cars across this great nation. Thanks to the handy Google Maps app on my trusty iPhone 4, I learned that the birthplace of Oklahoma’s Favorite Son was a worthwhile stop on my road trip from Tulsa to Kansas City. The historical building did not disappoint, and the experience even made me enjoy my rental car (a Ford Fusion Hybrid) even more. This diversion was beautiful and enlightening; it did a fantastic job keeping my mind off the fact I’d been on the road for 10 days and I was getting a bit homesick.
The road trip was so enjoyable that I was inspired to write an early Vellum Venom column about a rental car that kinda looked like an Aston Martin from the front. That was back in 2013, but the fact that I still vividly remember it proves the juice was worth the squeeze. Side excursions on road trips are worth the effort, provided you have the time for them. And if not, maybe you should make the time.
Now the question comes back you, dear Hagerty Media reader:
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The best stop we’ve made had to be a couple of years ago on the big island of Hawaii. Driving around the island not sure where we might stop we came across a state park along the highway that faced the water. We decided to see if this was type of place the locals would go and sure enough it was, it turned out to be one of the finest beaches to spend an afternoon on. We throughly enjoy the day there with the best sand, fantastic water and great people. When we return we will definitely visit this beach again!
The Indy museum at the track is a favorite memory. The Museum of Speed in Lincoln, Nebraska. A couple others that were amusing were the discovery of a bison museum while ripping through Oklahoma, and a Hardee’s, of all places, for a quick meal: a buddy & I watched a young man endlessly loop through the drive-thru like caution laps on a NASCAR oval – presumably visiting a girlfriend or flirting with the possibility – and to this day, we still laugh about “road-race-Hardee’s”. Another trip through Nebraska revealed a town along the 2-lane that still had brick streets in the ’90s. Plenty of others, but I’m only on my 1st cup of coffee…
February 3rd, 1959. For those of us of a certain age, that’s an etched-in-memory date: The Day the Music Died. Kinda somber, but on our first (of many) cross-country drives, we spent the night in Clear Lake, Iowa, visited the Surf Ballroom, and the following day, visited the soybean field where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and JP Richardson (the Big Bopper) were killed in a plane crash. There’s a well-trod path out to the edge of the field, and lots of mementos, ranging from pennies and pebbles to records, flowers and heavy, black framed glasses (a Holly trademark for you younger folks). For those of us who were teenagers then (I was in 9th grade), they were the first–but certainly not the last–of our pop music heroes that died unexpectedly. I still remember the date.
On a brighter note, on the same trip, the following day we discovered and visited–totally by accident–The Little Brown Church in the Wildwood, of the eponymous song. It really does exist.
On a motorcycle trip in the early 90’s my firends bike had an electrical issue (yamaha radian) in Sweetwater tennesse on a Sat evening, nothing open till next day and people were so nice, one family let us camp on their property and their mom fed as long as we went to church with them the next day which was I think I recall a southern baptist one, no totally sure but it was an expirence to be sure. Got on our way late the next day after another neighbour mcgivored a starte by pass. Have alwasy said i woudl try to go back and find that house people were all so helpful, said WE talked funny 🙂
On a motorcycle trip while still in the Navy, a buddy & I rode out to Bonneville to watch the speed trials. Around 1976, we both rode CB750 Hondas. What a surreal landscape!
My favourite trip was in 2000, driving for five days of heavy rain across Canada, working in New Brunswick, and touring around Nova Scotia, including the fabulous road trip around the Cabot Trail which is around the coast of Cape Breton Island. Drive it counterclockwise if your passenger doesn’t mind looking over cliffs. In the centre of the island is Baddeck, where Alexander Graham Bell built his Bell Laboratories in the early 1900’s after making his fortune on the patent for the telephone. Then he went to work inventing the first real airplane, the Silver Dart,
which was able to really turn a corner efficiently since Graham Bell invented ailerons to tip the plane on its side as Bell observed birds cornering. The Wright Brothers flyer used cables to warp the wings but could barely turn. Bell first experimented with multiple box kites, coupled together with multi angled couplers and strapped to some poor assistant’s back and talked into jumping off the roof of a barn. You’ve probably seen the black and white film records showing the rows of kites collapsing and the fellow landing on the hay stack. Bell then used multi-angled couplers to build several geodesic dome buildings fifty years before Buckminster Fuller was credited with inventing them. Bell took a flying boat from WW1, chopped off most of each wing, just leaving the mounts for twin V12 , four bladed prop aircraft engines for forward thrust and the secret was the hydrofoils underneath the flying boat hull which used Bernoulli’s Principal to lift the hull up out of the water to achieve the water speed record. His idea was to use its 120 mph speed to chase down enemy subs before they had time to submerge. That record holder is on display at the museum in Baddeck along with the Silver Dart. Bell was Canada’s DaVinci, inventing more things than you can shake a stick at. As a teacher for the deaf in Boston, he introduced Annie Sullivan ( the Miracle Worker story) to Hellen Keller’s parents and both Annie and Hele spent every summer for the rest of their lives as guests of Alexander and his wife, who had been a deaf student that AGB married. The biggest surprise was realizing Bell actually created the National Geographic Society as a wedding present for his son in law, Gilbert Grosvenor , and for our lifetime inside the monthly magazine, the society directors over the years all those Grosvenor names had names that included Alexander, or Graham, or Melville ( after Bell’s father who also was a teacher for the deaf in Scotland) . That most memorable trip continued down the Blue Ridge Parkway to North Carolina where I stopped for a late meal in a roadside diner. I asked if they had a newspaper to read while waiting for my meal and she handed me a copy of the Mayberry Gazette, with a cover story of George ” Goober Pyle ” Lindsay, back again for that year’s Andy Griffith Show Reunion ! Mayberry didn’t exist but the show always mentioned the next town down the turnpike was Mount Airy. I was at a diner in Mount Airy where they had those reunions for many years. Didn’t put the top up on my 1959 Austin Healey for the entire five months of my trip across Canada around our Maritime provinces , down the US eastern seaboard and back home to Alberta. That was my most favourite trip !
Great story, we have seen many of those places too. Really loved seeing the Wright Brothers plane in sunny California, then a week later saw Bell’s Silver Dart replica take flight (not very high or very far) on the ice covered lake in Baddeck Nova Scotia Canada during a snow storm.
Glacier National Park was my best and I hope my Father’s too. We were on a road trip through the west together and Glacier was out goal. There were quite a few memorable stops like Wright-Patterson AF museum, head waters of the Mississippi, crossing the Missouri river, the bad lands, Wounded Knee, Dead Wood and Black Hills in South Dakota. Devils Tower in Wyoming and of course the BIG SKY of Montana. Still nothing topped the wonderment of Glacier and the time spent with Dad acting like John Wayne again. Sadly we lost him 10 months later.
In 1993 my wife and I rented a new Buick Regal for a quick trip to the Grand Canyon. Leaving there, we side-roaded on Route 66 to lots of little wide spots on the road, including the fantastic Grand Canyon Caverns, Ash Fork, where some guy named “Bill” owned everything we saw. We then drifted slightly east to Meteor Crater. Amazing sight. But the standout was just before we got to Flagstaff. A natural wonder calld Walnut Canyon, which was the home of very long ago cave dwellers, and the scenery was beyond beautiful. Sheer rock walls, a sunlit verdant green semi-jungle at the very bottom of the canyon, while puffy clouds touched the tops of the walls. Very few visitors on that day and the park Rangers were extremely informative and pointed things out that were and are still mind boggling. Nature is incredible!
Always went to the home of the street races in the area. Woodward Ave, the Connects were a couple of our favorites. Either was a long drive from our Canadian home but the money was better.
Can’t remember any location except Sunoco stations.
I used to take my family from Texas to Ohio to visit my parents. I never met my Grandparents and I wanted my kids to know theirs. Always straight through drives, 19 hours, in the full sized conversion van. Great road trip vehicle. My older son and I would do all of the driving. In 2013 I had done a little homework and we made a little detour to Metropolis, Illinois. My youngest son is a big Superman fan. He still looks like Superman or Clark Kent. DC comics named Metropolis the hometown of Superman. The place is great. Superman statue in the middle of town. Only my older son and I knew where we were going. It was a great surprise for the whole family. Great photo op and great memory.
Just a note, Superman was created in Cleveland, Ohio
It’s just an interstate rest area, but the I-24 one on an island in the Nickajack lake just west of Chattanooga is one of the prettiest placs around. Stopped there many times on hockey trips when my son was younger. The stop was closed for a while, but appears to be open again, looking at Google Maps.
Yeah, that rest stop was closed for quite some time. Like you said, great location. My son & I used to go to Big Daddy’s Fireworks (before it closed) on Hwy 156 – just past the other rest stop on the South side of Nickajack Lake. We’d then take Hwy 156 to South Pittsburg, TN, and get lunch at Dixie Freeze, est. 1949. Yup, more great trips.
We loved Pioneer Village in Minden Nebraska, (just south of Kearney NE & Interstate 80). It has so many things to see that we named it the Smithsonian of the West! We planned to stay for an hour or two and ended up staying 5 HOURS! It is a collection of Americana that includes cars, trucks, tractors, airplanes, home furnishings and so much more. It is all displayed in multiple buildings in a cute mini-town setting. Worth the trip!
We left MI for a trip out to Yellowstone. Hit all the hotspots like the Corn Palace, Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Devils Tower. We left Devils Tower and planned to go north up to the north entrance of Yellowstone, but ended up going through Big Horn National Forest. This is one of those places you didn’t plan to see, but then you get there and you’re blown away. Absolutely beautiful and there was almost no one there. We found a parking lot high up a long grade, pulled in and had lunch. Not a soul around. There was a map that showed the mountains we were viewing from that spot. The wife and I will be going back for more of that place in the future.
Too many favorite road trips/excursions to write about…but how ’bout an odd one?
My family was moving from So Cal to middle TN mid-2006. My wife & son flew while my brother & I drove his van (I had lots of ‘automotive chemicals’ – not too suitable for the moving co. to handle). On the 2nd of 3 days, we physically ‘ran outta gas’ and decided to get a room. It was 1-2 am, and we picked the 1st place we saw. The place was somewhere near Little Rock, AR, off of I-40. After ringing the bell on the counter, a lady that must’ve been in her late 80s came out from a back room. Don’t think I’ll ever meet as nice a person at that time of day (night?) or any other time. The place was old – some would call it a fleabag motel – but it didn’t matter. The room furniture was rather old & tattered, but the beds were fairly new, the sheets clean along with the bathroom. Got a great night’s sleep. I seem to remember it was fairly cheap, all things considered – about $40. The same sweet lady checked us out in the morning (I don’t think she ever slept!). I’ve driven on I-40 many times since, and I still can’t find this place. Maybe it’s been razed since, but all it took was that one night to make it one of my best stops.
About 15 years ago on a family trip across the U.S. we stopped at the Kansas State capitol building in Topeka. We climbed the stairs all the way to the cat walk at the very top. What a rush. Not for the faint hearted. Definitely unforgettable.