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Video Of Driving Indiana Two-lanes


mobilene
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When I was driving home from my US 31 trip I went exploring, noodling along US 6 and then a bunch of state highways I'd never driven before. One of them was State Road 17. It struck me as the typical minor Indiana two-lane highway -- cornfields upon cornfields, with some 90-degree turns left over since the road was never major enough to warrant being smoothed out.

 

So for those of you with unslaked Indiana two-lane thirst (and I'm thinking of you, Keep) here is 5 minutes and 23 seconds of State Road 17 on a hot summer day. Please pardon the black area on the left edge; I think it's a result of having dropped my camera on the trip. I didn't know at this point I had damaged it or I would have pushed the lens into proper position. Bonus points to anyone who can identify what I was absentmindedly whistling starting at 1:12.

 

 

Here's a couple minutes of video as I drove through Burlington, IN, which is on State Road 29, which has been an old friend of mine for many years now. It's also the northern connector of the Dixie Highway. It's also the Michigan Road, Indiana's first state road, built in the 1830s and 1840s, running from Madison on the Ohio River up to Michigan City and Lake Michigan. My kids' school was first built in 1837 along this new road.

 

 

These aren't professional productions. I shot them partly just to see what would happen! But given that, gosh, everybody has a dream of driving in Indiana one day, I thought I'd take the edge off by sharing these now.

 

jim

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I sent the URL's to my daughter - she said, after hitting the full screen button, that it felt like she was moving. LOL

I kept wanting to pass that truck in the 2nd video. LOL ROF

Next best thing to being there - but one thing does bother me. Who was driving??? hehehehe

 

Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

MemphisTraveler

Memphis, TN

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When I was driving home from my US 31 trip I went exploring, noodling along US 6 and then a bunch of state highways I'd never driven before. One of them was State Road 17. It struck me as the typical minor Indiana two-lane highway -- cornfields upon cornfields, with some 90-degree turns left over since the road was never major enough to warrant being smoothed out.

 

So for those of you with unslaked Indiana two-lane thirst (and I'm thinking of you, Keep) here is 5 minutes and 23 seconds of State Road 17 on a hot summer day. Please pardon the black area on the left edge; I think it's a result of having dropped my camera on the trip. I didn't know at this point I had damaged it or I would have pushed the lens into proper position. Bonus points to anyone who can identify what I was absentmindedly whistling starting at 1:12.

 

 

Here's a couple minutes of video as I drove through Burlington, IN, which is on State Road 29, which has been an old friend of mine for many years now. It's also the northern connector of the Dixie Highway. It's also the Michigan Road, Indiana's first state road, built in the 1830s and 1840s, running from Madison on the Ohio River up to Michigan City and Lake Michigan. My kids' school was first built in 1837 along this new road.

 

 

These aren't professional productions. I shot them partly just to see what would happen! But given that, gosh, everybody has a dream of driving in Indiana one day, I thought I'd take the edge off by sharing these now.

 

jim

 

Jim,

 

That movie got me to the edge of my chair and ready to head for Indiana! ;) What I liked most was the musical accompaniment. I guess there isn’t much else to do but whistle!

 

It may have only been 5 minutes but it seemed like hours. I guess that is an advantage of traveling the flatlands...even a short trip fills the day!!!

 

I never appreciated a stop sign before, but it was the only break form the monotony.

 

Don’t they have other cars in Indiana?. Was there a bomb scare or something? And I didn’t know they licensed lawn tractors for highway travel in any state.

 

And BTY, you are supposed to reduce speed through villages. That movie could get you convicted. B)

 

Thanks buddy. I may return the favor. I too do windshield videos, but until you set this new “standard” I have been reluctant to post them. I have been doing them since before you were born. How about 10 minutes of road dips on old US80? Do they have academy awards for windshield movies? I’ll have to look through the archives. Are 8mm films transferred to video eligible? :D

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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Jim,

 

State Road 29 was a little more interesting. I guess the higher the number, the nicer the road! However, looking at the butt end of a semi is not the best perspective.

 

Actually, I enjoyed the two videos. However I do highly recommend a video editing program that allows you to cut about 90% of the length and then combine clips.

 

I would like to see what roads I haven’t visited look like, and video does help. But KISS (keep it short...you know the rest)

 

Now I may see what I can dig up. My road trips “collection” goes back at least to 1962 when I first started doing movies. I knew those old 8mm would be good for something one day!!! Beware!

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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Guys, this was a normal day along the two-lane in Indiana! Not only do you see lawn tractors turn onto the highway, you sometimes get some nitwit farmer who turns his combine out into the road right in front of you and then proceeds to go 4 mph.

 

While I am liberal on the gas on the open road out there, I stick like glue to the in-town speed limits, no matter how annoying they are. I may tell the story why someday.

 

Are you kidding, Keep? I would love to see 40+ year old road films! I'll bet I'm not the only one. Uploading to YouTube is easy and you don't have to worry about disk space!

 

jim

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Guys, this was a normal day along the two-lane in Indiana! Not only do you see lawn tractors turn onto the highway, you sometimes get some nitwit farmer who turns his combine out into the road right in front of you and then proceeds to go 4 mph.

 

While I am liberal on the gas on the open road out there, I stick like glue to the in-town speed limits, no matter how annoying they are. I may tell the story why someday.

 

Are you kidding, Keep? I would love to see 40+ year old road films! I'll bet I'm not the only one. Uploading to YouTube is easy and you don't have to worry about disk space!

 

jim

 

 

Jim,

 

Kidding aside, I really did enjoy the videos. They give a much more realistic view of the road. But no kidding, get an editing program.

 

I can’t really joke about the scenery. You could have been driving in Washington State (except maybe for the corn).

 

I will look through my old films to see if there are some interesting road shots. So much of what I did at the time was waterfalls and mountains, you would think I figured they would dry up or fall down...well Mt St Helens did.

 

Some of it might have actually (and accidentally) captured something interesting.

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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Mobilene,

 

Now that I know your love of home made videos, I may post a few road shots of my own. The 58 second clip here is on Route 66 last winter. The start is about 14 miles east of Amboy, California headed westbound. You would have loved the old alignment in the video.

 

It ends with a shot of the famed Bagdad Cafe. I did no editing so the wind and car noises are “authentic.” I usually take videos as I go along, just for reference. It is nice now to have the video in the still camera

 

I don’t want to mess with YouTube right now, so I just posted these on one of my sites. The best quality is the Windows Media 640. You will enjoy it most if you go to full screen. For some reason I don’t care to figure out right now Quicktime won't work...perhaps it is blocked by forum security.

 

Windows Media 320

Windows Media 640

 

 

I have started to look through my 45 year old movies. There are a few interesting road shots there, but they will have to wait as I am backed up now on several projects, including posting maps on HistoricalroadMaps.Com. I’m not complaining as these projects will certainly keep me out of trouble in the long Northwest wintertime coming.

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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  • 2 weeks later...
Bonus points to anyone who can identify what I was absentmindedly whistling starting at 1:12.

 

OK, I've dissected the audio as much as I could, but the road noise is infiltrating too much. Can we get a hint?

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One of my other hobbies is collecting audio and video clips from vintage television. I'm not quite sure how I fell into this hobby, but I've been at it for years. The centerpiece of that collection is a pretty large set of local news clips, mostly opens. For some reason, that day, a news theme used on several major-market CBS stations in the 70s was running through my head. It's called "I Love Chicago, Chicago My Home," and it's written by Dick Marx. Here's a link to a 1977 promo from WBBM in Chicago that uses the theme. The video quality is lousy, but the audio is pretty good.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oHsJk0i0mE

 

Whoakay, could it possibly get more obscure?

 

jim

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One of my other hobbies is collecting audio and video clips from vintage television. I'm not quite sure how I fell into this hobby, but I've been at it for years. The centerpiece of that collection is a pretty large set of local news clips, mostly opens. For some reason, that day, a news theme used on several major-market CBS stations in the 70s was running through my head. It's called "I Love Chicago, Chicago My Home," and it's written by Dick Marx. Here's a link to a 1977 promo from WBBM in Chicago that uses the theme. The video quality is lousy, but the audio is pretty good.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oHsJk0i0mE

 

Whoakay, could it possibly get more obscure?

 

jim

 

Oh yeh...I recognized that tune right away. That’s the one I sing just before I’m asked to sing “Far Far Away”

 

You are definitely the history collector guy, and good stuff. News clips....great idea. Include the ads. I assume you have mined Archives.org.

 

Now take your video camera and record every town and village in your area. Drive around familiar places, take shots of signs and buildings, cars and traffic. Lots of car shots. I have a few from the 60’s which friends and relatives actually enjoy seeing.

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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It's remarkable, isn't it, how a humdrum snapshot of a place can be exciting 30 years later just because so much of that place has changed?

 

This link is to a photo of a Burger Chef under construction on the corner of 25th St. and Wabash Ave. (US 40) in Terre Haute, IN, in August, 1965, two years before I was born. When I arrived in Terre Haute almost exactly 20 years later, the Burger Chef had been converted to a Hardee's, and the Chauncey Rose Home in the background had been torn down in favor of a lousy strip mall with a K-Mart at one end. Today, 22 years later, the Hardee's has been torn down, the K-Mart is gone, and the strip mall is spiffy with a new Kroger at one end. I wish I had a photo from my first days in Terre Haute for comparison!

 

And as I write in this blog post, I remember once seeing an early-1940s photo from the front lawn of my grade school that shows a big field to the school's east -- a field on which my parents' house now sits, and has since 1951. Several roads that are there today had not been built yet at the time of the photo. It was very strange to see!

 

jim

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Mobilene,

 

As promised, I started to look into my old home movies (8mm) from before you were born for “interesting” road related clips. I think you may have had to be there to enjoy seeing them now!! :P

 

I did find some short segments that might be interesting to someone who knows or recognizes the places. These are from my “early period” - 1962-63.

 

California’s Sonora Pass as a one lane road - in friends’ “vintage” Ford

The ghost town of Bodie, California, including dirt road into town

June Lake, California with good footage of road in, downtown, and old cars.

Knights Ferry (CA) Covered Bridge and driving through town. Includes General Store

Virginia City, Nevada - before it was restored.

Grand Coulee Dam, Washington when the water used to come over the top

Crossing the Columbia River on one of the last old time ferries (Umatilla, OR)

Mobile gas station stop in Willows California & downtown Willows with Western Auto.

Old Yellowstone Trail (Sunset Highway) coming into Spokane from the west.

Gas station stop in Biggs, Oregon on Old Columbia River Highway

Old Childs Meadows (Mt Lassen) Lodge and resort before it burned.

 

Mercifully, most would be under one minute if I put them on video. I will throw a couple up here for reaction. You really have to be an old movie junkie to watch this stuff. :blink:

 

Knights Ferry, 1962. On California 108, approaching the Sierra foothills on the way to Sonora Pass. Today the general store is the oldest in California. It still exists today (and is the same color), as does the bridge. The web photos I looked at today of Knights Ferry surprisingly don’t show a great deal of change. Perhaps the neighbors don’t still meet under the tree on the main road...but who knows?

 

Virginia City, Nevada 1962. The famous mining town before it was renovated.

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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Mobilene,

 

Thanks for posting the videos that remind me very much of my "adopted" home (at least during my stay at college) in northeastern Miss. I thought I recognised the whistling, as that theme is one of my favourites, but I thought, "Nah, that couldn't be it." Funny how people with similar interests share other interests.

 

Keep,

 

I must be a movie junkie, as I watched both of them. And yes, I listened to the sounds of the projector in both shots </geek>. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone still meets under that tree! Small towns can be resistant to change.

 

I enjoyed the look at Virginia City as well. It was fun to count the number of Fords in that video just by looking at the taillights. Thanks for posting these from a time when neither of my parents had started grammar school!

 

Tracy

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I listened to the sounds of the projector in both shots.
Oh. Is that what that was? I thought you must have been driving around with a constantly running teletype in the seat beside you.

 

Good stuff from places I've never been but a time I remember well. Thanks.

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Keep: I loved those videos! It was great to vicariously drive over that covered bridge through your film given that it's been closed to vehicular traffic for 26 years now! And I loved seeing all the old cars when they were new(er) along the street in Virginia City. I'm sure preparing these for us is time-consuming, but I'll happily watch any more you post. I've been to Mt. Lassen, so I at least have experience with the area in that film! (My ex-wife's uncle owns a sheep ranch near Redding, and we went up to se Lassen when we visited in '95.)

 

Cityboy: I've never heard northwestern Indiana compared to northeastern Mississippi before. Well, at least not in terms of landscape. People often use Indiana and Mississippi in the same sentence when talking about poverty and literacy, sad to say. Anyway, I'm about blown away that you recognized the tune. Dunno why that one sticks in my mind when my favorites include Stephen Arnold's "Signature," Frank Gari's "Pride Inside," and the theme WNEW used from '77 to '84. Guess the Dick Marx tune is just easier to whistle :).

 

jim

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At last...a use for these old movies!

 

Mobilene, when I transferred the Knight’s Ferry clip, I had no idea the bridge is now closed.. So something has changed! Sheep...you want movies of sheep..I got em, and cows, and horses, and chickens...cars you say...not so many.

 

Cityboy..., and you are almost the age I was (22) when these movies were taken. And I too like the click click of my old Bell and Howell projector...like me, still going strong after all these years! And we are driving a Ford station wagon in the clips.

 

Denny, it could have been the tappets. :lol:

 

Knight’s Ferry was just a typical small California central valley town in 1962. We passed through many of them on the way to the Sierra Nevada. This was a trip my dad and I made to go camping on Sonora Pass. When we got there, we just tossed out sleeping bags beside the road in an open area, under the trees, and built a little fire. Bet Roadhound will confirm you can’t do that today.

 

Next day we drove down to Bridgeport where the Bridgeport Inn on the El Camino Sierra (US395) kept a few mountain lions on exhibit (again, not today), then north to Virginia City. It was already a tourist destination, but was in a genuine state of decay. A couple of years ago we stayed there with friends and experienced the reconstructed version, complete with camel races. I think I preferred the 1962 version.

 

For you “youngins” regular 8 movie film came on a spool and cost (in today’s dollars) about $15 for a 2 or 3 minute spool for film and processing. Imagine someone who has maybe 100 hours of home movies of mountains, birds, deer, waterfalls, sunsets, and waves crashing on the rocks. Do you know what Crater Lake and Grand Canyon looked like in 1962? Exactly like they look today. The same with the waves, mountains, birds, deer, and waterfalls.

 

I took very few memorable shots because cars, people, and buildings “spoiled” the scenery. But give me a seagull and I spent two spools of film on it. I watched a half hour of the Grand Canyon last night to get 7 seconds of our 1962 Valiant driving past the El Tovar. The rest is red rocks.

 

There is a lesson there....so go out and video tape your friends, family, street scenes, buildings, and the like. They will disappear or change...but please, not another sunset!

 

I’ll start a new thread for more vintage road related home movies....everyone deserves to suffer at least a little!

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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Mobilene, when I transferred the Knight’s Ferry clip, I had no idea the bridge is now closed..

 

The front is also painted red now, per photos I found on the Web!

 

When we got there, we just tossed out sleeping bags beside the road in an open area, under the trees, and built a little fire. Bet Roadhound will confirm you can’t do that today.

 

I can't imagine even trying to sleep by the side of the road today. Not only would you get visited by the state police and asked to move along, you'd be at risk of being robbed!

 

There is a lesson there....so go out and video tape your friends, family, street scenes, buildings, and the like. They will disappear or change...but please, not another sunset!

 

I like sunsets and canyons and seagulls in art shots. But when I look back through old photos, what really interests me is seeing how things used to be. I have a great photo of my mom and my grandparents leaning on the hood of my dad's baby blue '66 Galaxie 500 two-door, on the "driveway" of my grandparents' lake property in southern Michigan. Mom was pregnant with me. My grandparents were younger then than my parents are now. That's the stuff. Especially to see Dad's Galaxie again.

 

jim

 

ps. My previous avatar was the taillight of a '66 Galaxie.

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Mobilene,

 

My comparison of Ind. and Miss. was due to relative flatness and mostly-straight roads. Part of this could be because many of the highways in this part of the state are newer, built over areas that were farmland.

 

I think the opening notes of the WBBM theme are the cause of my favouring it. To me, that theme just screams, "News!" I also like the pre-'95 ABC Information Radio and "Move Closer to Your World."

 

Keep,

 

Now I don't feel so bad for taking pictures of street scenes and such. Even in the short time I've been driving and photographing (about five years), some of the things have changed. I have to admit to taking photos of sunsets, rivers and the like as well, though.

 

Tracy

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Mobilene,

 

My comparison of Ind. and Miss. was due to relative flatness and mostly-straight roads. Part of this could be because many of the highways in this part of the state are newer, built over areas that were farmland.

 

I think the opening notes of the WBBM theme are the cause of my favouring it. To me, that theme just screams, "News!" I also like the pre-'95 ABC Information Radio and "Move Closer to Your World."

 

Keep,

 

Now I don't feel so bad for taking pictures of street scenes and such. Even in the short time I've been driving and photographing (about five years), some of the things have changed. I have to admit to taking photos of sunsets, rivers and the like as well, though.

 

Tracy

 

Tracy,

 

With digital you can take all the photos you like...so long as you do the "street scenes and such." I didn't because film was expensive and I didn't want to "waste it on the mundane." The mundane has turned out to be the memorable, and the lovely sunset to be just one of a thousand.

 

In my defense, after I retired I was still using film. but I deliberetaly took hundreds of Then and Now photos matching 1940's street scenes from real photo post cards with the then present day (2000).......OMG, another opportunity to share road scenes...anyone interested in 1940's vs today road shots taken in the same place?

 

I'll pull out a couple and see who bites.

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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