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Celebrating our two-lane highways of yesteryear…And the joys of driving them today!

Two For The Trail


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I've just finished Harold Meeks's "On the Road to Yellowstone" and I read "Introducing the Yellowstone Trail", by forum moderators John & Alice Ridge, right before that. Both are good reads recommended for anyone following the Trail even if you do it from an armchair like I did. Someday I'll do the real thing and will be on some of the Ohio & Indiana bits sooner rather that later.

 

"Introducing the Yellowstone Trail" does that and a lot more. It's the smaller of the two books but clearly tells what the Trail was and where it went and places it in context with the world of its day. Its "Driving the Trail Today" chapter includes very practical maps and directions. Though its pages are smaller and there are about half as many as are in Meeks's book, "Introducing..." doesn't cheat you. It paints a full picture of the Trail.

 

"On the Road to Yellowstone" has more details and more pictures. Meeks goes into more depth in describing the world beyond the Yellowstone Trail. The Yellowstone Trail and the Lincoln Highway were rivals that tried, but sometimes failed, to avoid using the same route even when that might have been the more logical choice. There are more pictures of and references to the Lincoln Highway and other routes than I would have expected. The pictures are there partly, I suspect, because they are easier to find than Yellowstone Trail pictures. But they help Meeks tell the story of the Trail and are interesting as well. Meeks's "driving" descriptions will get you some abandoned and long bypassed sections that I don't believe are mentioned in "Introducing..." but I didn't really go back to check that.

 

Meeks was working on a book about the Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway when he died in 2005. His assistant, Anna Clark, published his notes in 2007. That volume is rather disappointing and my own disappointment was increased by reading "On the Road to Yellowstone" and seeing what he could do. There's no doubt that, had Meeks lived to finish his next project, we would now have a very nice Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway book.

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