The Lure of the Open Road

December 28, 2008 10:39 AM

Wartime wandering through the Eastern states by bicycle, truck, and riverboat. 1944.

In 1944, a dear friend, Doris Roy, and I undertook an adventurous journey that we dreamed of during countless hikes together over our college holidays. We had been Camp Fire Girls together, loving the out-of-doors, camping and hiking the open road. Our dreams finally developed into a plan to ride bicycles from our home in Buffalo, New York, to Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio River met the Mississippi. We admired Mark Twain’s adventures, had read his Life on the Mississippi, and sought to follow his path to the Midwest. We were 21 years old...
posted by Fuzzy Skinner (9 comments total)

I would pay full price to see this in a movie theater!
posted by DenOfSizer at 10:53 AM on December 28, 2008

On 8 December 1933, Patrick Leigh Fermor (now Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor) left his home in London, took a steamer to the Hook of Holland and set out on an overland-by-foot journey to Constantinople, arriving on New Year's Day 1935. He recorded his trip in two volumes (with a planned third having never appeared heretofore), A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water.

Fermor's trip is the first thing I thought of after reading this post, and if you're tickled by the post, you couldn't do much better than continuing on to read Fermor's books.
posted by The Michael The at 11:30 AM on December 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wonderful find, thank you! I haven't gotten farther then the description of their first night's supper on the road (salad, potatoes, and veal chops, not bad for a camping trip) but I'm looking forward to the rest.
posted by footnote at 11:33 AM on December 28, 2008

Between The Woods And The Water. My favorite travel book ever (though it's much more than that).
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 1:05 PM on December 28, 2008

Wonderful find, not finished reading but wanted to say thanks, Fuzzy Skinner. Her grandson has some good travel tales on the main site, too, so she apparently passed on the hobo gene.
posted by madamjujujive at 2:40 PM on December 28, 2008

This is great fun.

Not to derail, but I emphatically third the recommendation of the Fermor books.
posted by gudrun at 10:06 PM on December 28, 2008

Cool post. I was just about the post the same link, though, darnit!

Well done.
posted by Doohickie at 7:10 AM on December 29, 2008

I haven't gotten farther then the description of their first night's supper on the road (salad, potatoes, and veal chops...

...and lashings of ginger beer!)
posted by uncanny hengeman at 3:45 PM on December 29, 2008

it will be a good adventure movie.
posted by Bob Royan at 8:39 PM on January 16