My Road Less Traveled Was Very Slow, but Worth Every Minute (840 minutes, to be exact)
A 500-mile road trip from New York to Niagara Falls, avoiding interstate highways.
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My road trip was more of an idea than an itinerary. I would drive the roughly 500 miles from Manhattan to Niagara Falls without taking any interstate highways. I would go instead via backroads, staying away from anything that could be considered a city. Riding through the small towns and countryside of New York State from where the Hudson River drains in New York harbor to the U.S.-Canada border where the Niagara River spills into Lake Ontario, I would, as the singer Paul Simon said about his impending retirement, "discover what I discover." I knew it would take longer than the seven-plus hours by interstate highway, but I was in no hurry.
The night before I felt excited like I used to get as a kid before the first day of school, unable to sleep as I wondered what the next day would bring. That's what happened this past Tuesday night. I got home late from the Yankees game (they won) and didn't get to sleep till after midnight and then slept fitfully till 5 a.m., before finally abandoning the effort. I got up, finished packing and left just before 7 a.m. As I left Manhattan, I took small perverse pleasure watching the cars creeping along in the inbound lanes. I was going the other way. My exit was smooth and easy.
U.S. 20, just east of Albany, N.Y.
Interstate 5 in California, photo credit: Getty Images
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, as it is officially called, is a monumental accomplishment. Ike inked the Federal Aid Highway Act in 1956. It's unclear what was the first interstate highway. Kansas and Missouri stake claims that work started in their respective states later that year, while Pennyslvannia's existing (and, to me, often harrowing) Pennyslvania Turnpike was simply designated an interstate. It had been expected to take 12 years to build the system at a cost of $25 billion. It ended up taking 35 years and cost over $500 billion in 2020 dollars.
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Today, the country is entwined with 48,756 miles of interstate highways. For speed and efficiency, you can't beat it. They reduced travel times by many hours, propelled commerce (the government says every item you buy was transported at some point on an interstate). It made leisure trips easier and more accessible to people. When I was a little kid growing up in L.A., before Interstate 5 was built, when my family drove to the Bay Area to visit my aunt and uncle, it would take around 8 hours each way on Highway 99 or 101 which were old, narrow and often crowded with traffic. And you couldn't safely drive very fast. Now it takes about five hours.
But for what we gained in velocity and efficiently, we lost the gentle pleasure and occasional adventure of savouring the getting-there part of road travel. That doesn't mean I advocate ripping up the interstates out of misty nostalgia anymore than I would want to ride a horse instead of drive a car. It just means that, when I can, I prefer to travel the old way. Slowly. Scenically.
The U.S. Department of Transportation says on its website, "The Interstate Highway System (is) an integral part of the American way of life." It would not be an integral part of my drive to Niagara Falls.
There are two highways north from New York. One is the interstate toll road, I-87, which runs along the west side of the Hudson River Valley. The other is the Taconic Parkway which runs along the east side of the valley. The Taconic has just two narrow lanes in each direction and no shoulder. It has no roadside service stops. No gas. No food. No lodging. It was a spare but beautiful highway. For an hour, I rode in silence, then turned on the original Broadway soundtrack to West Side Story from a music app. The weather was perfect. I lowered the windows -- I don't like air conditioning unless absolutely necessary -- and cracked the sun roof and traveled.
The Taconic Parkway ends where it merges with I-90 near the New York-Massachusetts state line east of Albany. Days earlier, I had studied a map -- yes, an actual physical road map I bought in an actual physical bookstore -- and identified what looked like a promising route across New York State, U.S. 20, which I learned is reputed to be the longest road in the United States. It covers 3,395 miles from Boston to Newport, Oregon. Across New York, it goes through only one city, Albany.
I would take U.S. 20. But first I had to get there and that wasn't easy to figure out. My GPS app kept insisting I get on I-90 and pick it up in Albany. I had to consult the road map to plot a serpentine course through small towns along minor roads and streets to find it in a town called Nassau.
I wove my way through some pretty but pretty empty hamlets, stopping once for gas ($4.99 a gallon for regular) and just to watch a large gathering of children and parents in a huge field beside a school. The laughter of children playing is like music. I'm drawn to it.
I finally connected with U.S. 20 in Nassau, a desolate speck of a town, and turned west toward Albany, its soaring government towers beckoning like Oz.
Luckily, U.S. 20 circumvented downtown Albany, instead taking me through some quiet residential neighbors of varying degrees of niceness. I drove along one street past rows of beautiful old homes, then got stuck in traffic by road construction.. Westward bound, I slowly left behind the urban world and was soon driving for miles through just the kind of scenery I had been hoping for, along hills bright with the greenery of foliage, small towns and, more and more, farms. With the windows down, the air was often pungent with the aroma of manure and hay. Soon, the traffic grew sparse and mine was often the only vehicle going in my direction for many miles.
Albany, N.Y.
Upstate New York is gorgeous and I absorbed its beauty as the miles rolled by. Then, I saw the big teepee. Or rather, The TePee. It was a giant teepee on the eastbound side of the road with a statue of a buffalo posted next to the parking lot. There were no other cars and the place looked closed save for the Open sign in the window of the front door. I entered. The place of chock full of bric-a-brac, knickknacks, souvenirs, tee shirts, decals, and what looked like real Native statuettes. From somewhere in the back came a woman's voice. The woman who worked there came out and cheerfully asked me what I was looking for. I wanted to buy a bottle of water. That was one item they didn't have. I bought a Route 20 pin instead ($5.99 plus tax).
"How's business?" I asked, fearing for the worst.
"Very good," she said.
"Are those crafts really made by Native people?"
"Oh yeah."
"Which people?"
"Iroquois Mohawk," she said. "That's Mohawk Valley across the road. You can see all the way to Vermont."
"Except when it snows," said the cynic.
"Yeah," she said, "but when a storm rolls in, it's amazing to see."
The TePee
I thanked her and left. From the parking lot, the vistas were magnificent. A vast wide valley of hues of green spread out like an enormous blanket and in the distance, I could see the sharp edge of a mountain range. The Adirondacks.
Glimmerglass Opera House
I stopped near Cooperstown to take a golf lesson, again just to step out of the car and inhale the beauty, and finally at the Glimmerglass Opera house on Lake Otsego, just to see it. Its annual summer opera festival, which began in 1974, is a huge attraction.
In Cooperstown, I had lunch at a deli then drove around town. It has wonderful old architecture and a tranquil vibe. I'd been there before to play golf and visit the Baseball Hall of Fame, a must-see for any fan.
I had left Route 20 to go into town. Now I had the choice of doubling back to 20 or heading west another way and reconnecting with 20 later. I chose Route 80 which would take me close to Syracuse and then I could cut back north to 20. I loved the idea of taking a detour impulsively.
The scenery along the way was quite pretty, but even in the succession of small towns I went through, I saw only a handful of people on the streets. Strangely, there were also few stores, virtually no restaurants except an occasional diner, even very few gas stations. The one business that seemed to be thriving or at least omnipresent were Dollar General stores. Still, I was grateful not to pass any fast-food outlets or Starbucks or Wal-marts. It was like stepping back in time before they existed and dominated.
A couple of times, I passed people clomping along in horse drawn carriages. I knew from a previous trip through central New York State, they were members of the Amish or Mennonite community in that part of the state. They dominate the dairy farming industry in that region despite their relatively small population.
I reconnected with U.S. 20 just east of Syracuse. It was like meeting an old friend. There was now more traffic on the road, but not a lot. When I crossed over I-81, I looked down at the thick ribbon of concrete and speeding cars and trucks and was happy I wasn't there.
Skaneateles, N.Y.
U.S. 20 took me into the quaint lakeside village of Skaneateles, just south of Syracuse, then I sprinted west toward as the day turned hot and humid. I played Frank Sinatra songs in my car.
I didn't stop again until I got to Auburn where I got off 20 to go see the Harriet Tubman Home. Street lights along the way were festooned with posters commemorating the bicentennial of her birth, but when I got to the historic site it was closed. I Googled it. It had been closed for restoration since 2019. It was very disappointing. Harriet Tubman is an American hero, raised a slave, escaped to fredom and then became the pivotal figure in the Underground Railroad, who personally rescued dozens of Black slaves from bondage.
"I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger," she once said.
Not far from Auburn was Seneca Falls, where history was made one summer that ultimately helped free another group of Americans from another form of oppression. It was there on July 19, 1848, that a group of women -- no men -- gathered at a church to demand equal rights and suffrage.
Skeneateles, N.Y.
At that opening session of a two-day conference, Elizbeth Cady Stanton rose to speak.
Stanton said, "We are assembled to protest against a form of government, existing without the consent of the governed -- to declare our right to be free as a man is free, to be represented in the government which we are taxed to support, to have such disgraceful laws as give man the power to chastise and imprison his wife, to take the wages which she earns, the property which she inherits and, in case of separation, the children of her love."
Some say the American women's rights movement was born that day.
The sun was setting and I was still an hour east of Buffalo. I wanted to reach Niagara Falls, the falls, not the city, by sunset and it would be a close call. To have any chance meant violating my oath and getting on the interstate that loops around Buffalo for about 20 miles. I violated my oath.
Niagara River, just up stream from American Falls
I arrived just as the sun dipped below the horizon. The park that fronts the river and falls was thronged. I parked as close as I could to American Falls and walked down to the river. It was raging and boiling as the currents gathered speed toward the steep plunge ahead. I realized that was as close as I could get to the falls before dark. My journey was done. It had taken 14 hours, about twice as long as if I had taken the interstates. It was worth it.
If you take a road trip, here are a few tips gleaned from the three I've made over the past two years.
1. Have a mechanic check out your car. You don't want to break down thousands of miles from home or in the middle of nowhere as happened to me on my epic 9,000 cross-country roundtrip in the fall of 2020. I got a hole in my radiator. I made it to Lake Tahoe from Crater Lake where the radiator was replaced at an exorbitant price. I was lucky I got there.
2. Pack snacks and drinks. On my trip across New York this week, I went many miles without passing anywhere to buy either. An unpleasant surprise.
3. Don't let your gas run low before filling up. I realize especially now the temptation to not pay outrageous fuel prices. But you DO NOT want to run out of gas. Period.
4. Get a good night's sleep before driving long distances. I didn't. It was a mistake.
5. Don't speed. Not even if everyone else is. It just isn't worth it. Don't drive and text either. I mean it!
New Berlin, N.Y.
6. This may be obvious but worth noting anyway. Try not to drive east in the early morning or west late in the day. As one astronomer said to the other, "The sun is very bright, isn't it?" I also would avoid driving at night. It's more dangerous and there's nothing to see.
7. Assume your trip will take longer than you think and plan accordingly.
8. Driving in silence can be fun and tranquil. I also recommend listening to a local AM radio station to get a flavor for the area you're passing through. On my epic road trip, I was often fascinated by small town local news and talk radio. Maybe that's just me.
9. Don't count on just your navigation app on your phone. Bring an old-fashioned GPS and/or actual map as backup. There are huge swaths of America where you cannot get a cell phone signal.
10. If you can, allow yourself to change your route. Don't feel like you have to stick with your itinerary (unless you really have to). On one road trip, I stopped in Vegas to play golf. I was put with a couple who I told about my travel plans to go through northern Arizona and New Mexico. They urged me to take a detour to see the Valley of the Gods in southern Utah. It was spectacular. Play it loose. Peek around a corner and discover what you discover.
Hamilton, N.Y.