Travel

Travel

Visiting every state capitol building in the USA was high on one retired members list of crazy things to do. Here, he charts his trip Providence, Rhode Island W By Steve Smirthwaite, retired BALPA member ith its origins dating from 1974, when I drove from Washington DC to Los Angeles and then hitchhiked back, the fourth in my list of increasingly crazy things to do in my 60s had been two years in the planning. After consideration of several other possibilities, I fell into the idea of visiting each current state capitol building in the USA, but to do it properly in other words, all 50 in one trip! As train travel in the USA is limited several cities I planned to visit dont even have passenger trains stopping there bus travel is incredibly tortuous and slow, and air travel is expensive and too open to disruption, it soon became obvious that driving was the only option to consider. Fortunately, our friend Google came to my aid and, after a bit of investigation and working out of where to start and finish, I had a route. This involved a minimum of 12,500 miles by driving the shortest route between each city. With this not always being the quickest, or best route, I refined it to 13,500 miles. Starting in San Francisco and ending in Seattle, I planned to visit the contiguous 48 states in 48 days. I would then fly to Honolulu and return to Vancouver to join a cruise to Juneau, the capital of Alaska, which can only be reached by air or water. My wife decided that spending seven weeks in a car was not her idea of fun, but she would, surprisingly, like to visit Hawaii and Alaska, so would fly out to join me in Seattle. I thought about renting an RV, but as these are expensive to hire and run (overnight hook-ups can be nearly as expensive as staying in a motel), I managed to organise a 52-day rental of a small SUV (Hyundai Tucson) for a very reasonable cost considering my planned mileage. Snow way through Sadly, what I hadnt planned for was the worst American winter in many years. Arriving in San Francisco on 26th February, I was greeted by strong gusty winds and torrential rain, and it took three hours to drive the 80 miles to my first state capitol, Sacramento. Next morning, at 3am local time, after checking the two routes to Carson City, Nevada, it was obvious that I was not going to get through the heavy snow that had been falling over the previous few days. My plans were thrown into turmoil as I started Day 2 on Plan B and headed south through California and on to Phoenix. It was to be a very long day. To have the satnav tell me, on reaching the freeway, continue straight ahead for nine hours and 58 minutes was quite an eye-opener, when I had so many miles in front of me. I used three tanks of fuel and completed 890 miles that first full day. I also found myself driving the same route from Los Angeles to Phoenix and on to Flagstaff that I had taken 45 years earlier, when I had hitchhiked from Washington DC to Los Angeles and back again as a 19-year-old. I spent my second night in what was to become increasingly familiar: a pleasant, but very cold and snowbound town. Next day, I was again off very early, now travelling along part of Route 66 to Santa Fe and on to Oklahoma City, spending the night in Amarillo (someone told me the way). The day was very cold, with some light fog and freezing rain, but, otherwise, quite easy driving. Next stop was a night in Austin, followed by a planned sidetrack to visit The Alamo. By chance, I was in Texas on the day of its annual independence celebrations, so there was a lot going on in both cities. With Houston on my route to Baton Rouge, a visit to the Johnson Space Center seemed a great way to spend some downtime. Feeling refreshed from my day off, I needed to get a move on, as the forecast for the next few days was OK, but set to turn extremely wintry through the southern MidWest by midweek. To keep ahead of what was to be some horrid weather, I decided to get through the area in quick time. TO HAVE THE SATNAV TELL ME ON REACHING THE FREEWAY CONTINUE STRAIGHT AHEAD FOR NINE HOURS AND 58 MINUTES WAS QUITE AN EYE-OPENER The 48 contiguous state capitols drive began in California (Sacramento) and ended 48 days later in Washington State (Olympia) Hitting the road Over the following week, I recorded temperatures down to -20C coupled with very strong winds, which made walking around some of the state capitols extremely unpleasant. I also encountered some interesting objects in the middle of the freeways. These included: a double mattress; a bag of cement (full); a set of stepladders (with about eight to 10 rungs difficult to tell exactly, as I passed it at 70mph); and six to eight feet of heavy-duty chain link. I was also amazed at the amount of roadkill I came across. Among the many birds, raccoons and possums, were deer, coyotes and even an armadillo. It was quite disheartening to see so many animals lost to the traffic. About this time, my choice of music listening became somewhat restricted basically to those tracks on my iPod. The only music I could tune into almost totally comprised country music stations or religious stations playing country music. This was to repeat itself a couple of weeks later when I traversed the northern Mid-West the other way. The most interesting place through this part of my journey was Des Moines. As an air cadet, in 1973, I had visited the USA along with more than 200 cadets from around the world, as part of the International Air Cadet Exchange. We had a wonderful three weeks, which included for my group of 17 from the UK 10 days in Iowa. Although we thought wed been hard done by (the other half of our contingent went to Florida), we visited the SAC HQ at Offutt AFB in Omaha, Nebraska, and were made Honorary Citizens of Des Moines by the then Governor, Robert D Ray. I remembered the capitol building, with its bright gold dome, as soon as I saw it, despite it being surrounded by snow this time. Sweet home Alabama Having mostly managed to stay ahead of the snow, ice and tornadoes throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee, I arrived in the balmy, warmer climes of Alabama. I now found I had some respite from the Arctic conditions and could look forward to much kinder weather over the next week or so. Montgomery, Alabama, proved to be a lovely town and housed The First White House of the Confederacy, which was the executive residence of President Jefferson Davis and family while the capital of the Confederacy was in Montgomery. From here, I continued to Tallahassee, extremely relieved that the capital of Florida wasnt Miami! I had also bypassed Atlanta, as I would be returning there in a few weeks time for the Masters golf tournament at Augusta National. I had now visited 18 state capitols in 12 days, and was well ahead of my schedule. With the poor weather behind me and moving northwards, I felt a day off in one of my favourite places on the east coast was needed and I was able to renew acquaintance with an old haunt from previous golf trips namely, the Salty Dog Caf on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. My plan had changed numerous times, but I now had the chance to see a couple of friends in New England who I would otherwise have missed. Over the next few days, I visited South and North Carolina, Virginia, Washington DC (as the capital of the USA I had to include a visit to the Capitol Building), Maryland and Delaware, before heading to a small town called Skillman, just north of Princeton in New Jersey. It was lovely to relax in a real home and I was treated to being driven to Trenton the next morning, followed by a most pleasant afternoon wandering around Princeton University and its town. I had reorganised my trip around New England to go clockwise through New York, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and on to Rhode Island. But first I had a lunch appointment in New York City with a chap (well known to all as Mossy) whom I first met 20 years earlier and who had recently moved there from Los Angeles. After lunch, I drove to Albany and spent a long time wandering around the New York state capitol. In my opinion, Albany has the most striking and impressive capitol of all 50 states. Dont rain on my parade Rhode Island had become home to another friend from England whom I hadnt seen for a couple of years. I arrived perfectly in time for St Patricks Day and this gave me the opportunity to watch the Bostonians version of our own Londons Lord Mayors Parade. It seemed that the idea in Boston was for lots of people in uniform, or silly outfits, to walk past lots of other people getting drunk. As I was going to be driving a long way the next afternoon, I decided to be one of those who watched the festivities, rather than join them. Some beautiful scenery lay ahead of me and driving through Connecticut, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio was a feast for the senses, although the trees did look a little dull without leaves. The freeways I used wound their way through the Appalachian Mountains before I turned and headed towards the Great Lakes and some more rather drab and cold weather. This was particularly noticeable as I drove past Chicago (towards Madison, Wisconsin) in driving rain and thick fog. My original idea of catching the ferry across Lake Michigan after visiting Lansing, Michigan, was scuppered because the lake was frozen over and the ferry not starting operations until 1st May. I had now visited 36 state capitol buildings in 24 days and was looking forward to a much more relaxed second half of the journey. If youd like to find out how it went, please read more in the next edition of The Log. The state capitol in Concord, New Hampshire TRAVEL A CAPITOL IDEA