The Lost Road Notes #1

(Originally published in July 2003)
From the dark caverns of Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave to the salty shores of North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
The Road is a poem.
Usually, vacations are just about the final destination. In our quest to escape the civilized tedium of everyday life, we oftentimes forget that the journey is as good, or as bad, as the final stop.
In the past two weeks, we racked up almost 3,500 miles on our 2003 Dodge Grand Caravan rental. Most of those miles were uneventful, but there were some worth noting.
Highlights included a stay at Wig Wam Village #2, a circa-1937 classically restored tourist attraction/motel in Cave City, Kentucky. Built by early 1900’s entrepreneur Frank Redford, he borrowed the “tee pee” concept from Sioux reservations in South Dakota, and the idea caught on quicker than chicken pox at a daycare. At one time, there were seven of these “lodging facilities” across the U.S. from New Orleans to Route 66 to Florida, all stemming from the original, which was built at Horse Cave, just down the road from Village #2. The original Wig Wam Village #1 is long gone, replaced with something - I just know it ain’t a Wig Wam. Sadly, only three of the original tee pee villages survived into the 21st Century: Our Cave City example and another in Holbrook, Arizona as the last two still in business. Another California village sits decrepit and is probably not long for this world.
The 18 “tee pees” at Village #2 are each made of over 20 tons of concrete and steel, with pre-World War II porcelain fixtures, hickory and cane details and turn-the-clock-back “kitsch” feel.
The beds were also pre-WW II, as we found the next morning.
But there is a real charm to the place, and I was happy to see 12 of the 15 tee pees rented on a Thursday in June.
It was also pretty cheap to sleep in a Wig Wam.
Like much of off-the-beaten-path Americana, Cave City suffers from “Route 66-itis,” meaning the Eisenhower Interstate system (in this case, I-65) came through somewhere else. That new road left the Mammoth Cave-based tourist areas and tiny towns along the old Highway 31W route with a bad case of “we’ll do anything for your business-itis.” It makes everything cheaper, but also spells sad times for locals.
Or to use a government term, it leads to a “depressed business climate.”
But as cool as the tee pees were, it only got better.
Our timing could never have been more perfect for a car nut like myself. That weekend was the 50th anniversary of the first Corvette – all of which were built just a half-hour down the road in Bowling Green.

On our way south to the tee pees, we were passed by literally hundreds of the fiberglass sports cars, most of them sporting grinning owners and an attractive passenger. People stood by the side of the road and on overpasses with cameras and camcorders, shooting the parade of an estimated 16,000 shiny bullet Chevy’s.
Apparently, the Kentucky State Patrol was also holding some sort of a convention nearby - and an exciting one at that, judging from the drool that seemed to drip from the Troopers’ chins as they paced the ‘Vettes.

Luckily, our deep blue minivan with the black windows escaped detection, which was just the plan. Or so it seemed.
While pulling into a legendary local restaurant, I did my best to hide the diesel-smelling van from the 40 or so Corvettes parked side by side in the parking lot, just in case someone other than me was taking pictures.

By the way, nothing shines your bald spot or swells your beer gut like driving the only minivan in a parking lot full of classic sports cars.

I felt like a flounder in a school of Makos. Or, more appropriately, a whale in a school of Stingrays.
Sure, their cars may be able to go 175-mph and pull a “G” in a corner, but can they haul several 4-by-8-foot sheets of plywood or seven sunburned Midwesterners for 28 hours?
So our journey continued east to the Bluegrass Parkway, where we (almost) ran into a new Ford pickup laying on its side after a sudden introduction to a bridge piling.
No one was hurt, but there were also no other cars around for miles. I’m assuming the driver fell asleep at 7 in the evening, or maybe he was just re-creating one of those “real world” insurance crash tests.

The road is a poem, baby.

Did I mention the semi truck that spilled large quantities of stinky diesel fuel onto our van on I-64? I called 911 and needed everything repeated, due to the dispatcher’s Southern drawl.
“What sarta feeyool is spillin’, sir, and what sarta tanker unit is it pullin’? Gots the numerals?” she asked.
Huh? It’s just a big white semi with a cloud of diesel vapors that smells bad.
I paced the truck for several miles, waiting in vain for Troopers to save the day as I gave a play-by-play to the dispatcher.
The cavalry never came, too busy following the Corvette parade, maybe?
I’m assuming the truck eventually ran out of fuel. Luckily, hard rains took care of the stench and saved the van’s paint job. But what if a convertible - or worse yet – a top-down ZR-1 Corvette drove into that toxic hazard? It would have been a real tragedy.
And the occupants might have smelled bad, also.
Yes, road trips can be both as exciting and as dangerous as the final destination, especially when you’re the only one who uses his turn signal.

(Vintage Trailer Photos of a 1948 Aero Flite, courtesy Charles Dickenson. All other photos public domain, My Road Notes photos soon to be recovered and added. GM)