The Highway to the Ends of America

Hwy 20 winds through the unabashed landscapes and urban tangles of this country, hinting stories of people and land, history and toil, progress and emptiness. I want to capture the road and its people. Before it all changes, again, forever.

From its beginnings in the Central Oregon coast, it is already an echo of the evolving American pathos--the dim and damp mountain forests here are the realm of shattered timber livelihoods and the muse of Ken Kesey novels. At its opposite extreme it fades into Boston’s Kenmore Square, there, under the 60-foot Citgo sign that has won the vehement, if unexpected, affection of the bustling city’s population.

Between these two ends, US Highway 20 unravels through the unabashed landscapes and personal inflections of the US countryside--telling a story of geography and land, history and toil, progress and emptiness.

In its cities: the primacy of the American industrial dream, its triumph and its treachery. The small towns: shuttered commercial centers grow dusty as the economic base ruthlessly evolves. And between! The farms, the quiet, the spaces, the mountains.

Highway 20 is the connective tissue that joins these points in space and time. By exploring the communities and landscapes along its length, I want to create a mirror of what it means to be American. Not the charged, angry, or self-proud political American. Nor the hackneyed trappings of so-called Americana. But the real places and people driven by the land and the history of our vast country.

I want to record this for history. I want to capture this snapshot of time, when the foundations of our rustic ancestors are still visible in the mannerisms and storefronts of gas attendants and small-town drugstores. I want to show you the gloomy erosion of the emptying farm communities, the still-verdant grandeur of the forest, the grittiness of the steel belt, the hopes of urban renewal. Before it changes, yet again.

The open road is part of our cultural identity, but not one that is fixed. It evokes the notion of freedom and adventure, but not without worrisome overtones of petroleum crises and crumbling infrastructure. US highways are an indelible mark of our own national hubris, unfurled blacktop across ancient, beautiful homelands of cultures far more established than our own. Yet they bring us to vital, energizing places: Highway 20 runs through Yellowstone National Park, Chicago, crosses the Mississippi, skirts the Great Lakes.

In the end I want to translate the current face of that most peculiar of American institutions--the national highway--into images that catch the sense of this nation’s whirlwind changes, deep history, and persisting hope.

Implementation

A car, some gear, some small-town motels, the Internet, my camera, the wind and weather, the people, my historical curiosity, books, references, my love of driving, the quiet, the beauty, the decay, the traffic, the truck stops, the wonder.

$50,000 would get me a reliable, fuel-efficient (or hybrid) vehicle, mid-range lodgings, and diner meals. Whatever is left? I’d like to give it to someone or someplace who needs it more. Maybe someone or someplace I’ll meet along the way?

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