Gary McKechnie - USA 101. A Guide to Americas Iconic Places, Events, and Festivals

INSPIRED BY CHARLES KURALT, whose On the Road features introduced me to our nations scenic, social, and cultural abundance, in 1998 my wife, Nancy, and I set off on a year-long voyage of discovery for my book, Great American Motorcycle Tours. The experience was beautiful, dramatic, and enlightening. With plenty of time to think in those 20,000 miles, I reflected on a previous journey.

A decade earlier, while backpacking across Europe, people who learned I was from the United States switched their natural accent to a curiously broad Texas slang, convinced that all of America was just a widescreen version of Dallas. Most Europeans I met couldnt grasp that my one nation was as large and diverse as their entire continent.

This was the genesis of USA 101. As I rode Americas highways, I wondered: If these people had asked me to educate them on America, what would I have told them? Which things, collectively, would reveal America, generally? I started a list.

I weighed nearly 200 choices I felt had proven themselves for their longevity, access, and role in our cultural composition. With advice from friends, historians, and fellow travelers, I eventually arrived at what I felt was an equitable balance of 101 icons, events, and festivals that encompassed history, faith, art, nature, adventure, sport, leisure, and our favorite pastimes.

With that list in my pocket, once again Nancy and I hit the road. While humbled by the privilege of exploring America, at times I was exhausted by the task. Racing from icon to icon, wed return home certain that if Miss America saw her shadow, thered be six more weeks of Mardi Gras. But it was all worth it.

As I write this, its Inauguration Day. Millions of people are in the nations capital, billions more around the world have their eyes on the United States. I have no doubt that everyone agrees that its time to rediscover America.

Heres your road map. Travel safe, and God bless America.

Gary McKechnie
www.seetheusa101.com
January 20, 2009

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont

I n addition to the calendar pin-up favorites of covered bridges, rocky shores, lighthouses, and an autumnal palette of changing leaves, New England gives you charming two-lane roads that drift through cooling green forests in the summer and sparkling white snow in the winter. Those roads lead to small towns and villages that reflect a sense of calming reassurance and an unspoken self-confidence, passed down from the 1700s when their ancestors let Great Britain know they were capable of taking care of themselves. That sensibility seems to have drifted across to upstate New York, where the pace of life mirrors that of its New England cousins. Farther south, of course, is New York City, which contains the combined energy of New England in a multicultural pocket-sized version of America.

Some of the states here may seem small, but when it comes to scenery, diversity, history, and hospitality, youll find that the land and its people are larger than life.

Cape Cod, Massachusetts/Maine Coast

The Patti Page song Old Cape Cod brings to mind lovely images of the Massachusetts cape, with its weathered seaside cottages, lighthousesand clambakes in moonlit coves. Farther north, in Maine, fishermen are checking their lobster traps for the evenings entre. Get ready to dig a pita traditional New England bake is a great way to savor these seaside dinners.

DIG IN

If youre unsettled by the sameness of America, consider our nations diverse tastes. Thanks to this, certain places will bring a certain food to mindIdaho potatoes, Hawaiian pineapple, and Rocky Mountain oysters, for example. In New England, primarily on Cape Cod, the feast of choice is called a clambake, while in Maine, its called a lobsterbake.

Im not sure how long ago folks figured out that clams were so tasty, but Steve Hale, a lobster fisherman from Rockland, Maine, told me it took the lobster countless generations before they became a seafood staple.

The Indians used to crush them up and use them as fertilizer, he explained. Theyd just toss the chunks into the ground. And settlers in the 1600s would just smash them up and use them as bait to catch herring and mackerel and cod that they could salt and smoke and ship back home. It wasnt until the 20th century that people figured out how to ship lobsters live.

Whether the main entre was lobster, clams, or a combination with side dishes, the idea for whats become a traditional New England seaside bake was picked up from Indians who knew how to create an oceanfront oven. Theyd dig a pit, toss in some rocks, fire it up, toss in the food, and allow the trapped heat to cook the feast. What they invented several centuries ago is still cooking.