American Road Trip Talk

That soft, sweet, summertime sensation better known as DQ or Dairy Queen has been a favorite diversion on the American Road for three quarters of a century. In the fall of 2013 I traveled to downtown Joliet, Illinois to visit the site of the very first DQ in America. Our Spring 2015 issue is dedicate to the oldest things along the American road and this certain fits the bill. My tour guide was former Joliet City Manager Thomas Thanas and, while our tour had to be virtual because the building no longer housed the original Dairy Queen, it was conducted alongside the very real Route 66 in downtown Joliet. Join us as we find more about the birth of this icy American Road icon.

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The Spring 2015 issue of American Road Magazine was dedicated to tracking down the Ancients along the American highway. One of the stories was a fish tale about the oldest resident at the world famous Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Its name is “Granddad”, and he’s an Australian lungfish, a scaly survivor of prehistoric times found in very few places around the globe. Our guest, Mike Marselis, is one of the aquarists at the museum who has some interesting stories to tell about Granddad.

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The winter issue of American Road Magazine featured an article entitled American Road’s Big Birds. The story stretched from coast to coast and the steamy south to the cold north in the search of truly large birds or to be more precise their artistic representations like the 21-ton Pheasant in Huron, S. Dakota or the Big Duck on Long Island, NY. In today’s podcast Doris Schneider, the VP of the Friends of the Big Duck is going fill us in on more of the background of this enormous replica which actually gave its name to a style of architecture. Visit the Big Duck online at www.bigduck.org and look for them on Facebook.

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Tunnel Vision always provides our readers with snapshots of fascinating places along the American Road. Our Autumn 2014 issue featured a story about a Contrary Barber Pole at the National Barber Museum in the Columbus, OH suburb of Canal Winchester. Mike Ippoliti is the curator/director of the huge collection of tonsorial memorabilia and he joins us to talk about a recent tragedy that almost wiped out these beloved mementos of what has been called “the second oldest profession”. Stick around to learn more about the harrowing tale.

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Randy Goodpasture runs a national pigeon race that runs along Route 66 in OK. This is the second part of two podcasts featuring Randy talking about his Oklahoma flock of racing pigeons who use Route 66 as their guide in the +100 mile competitions at speeds near 80 MPH.

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Randy Goodpasture runs a national pigeon race that runs along Route 66 in OK. This is the first part of two podcasts featuring Randy talking about the pigeons and the race.

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In our winter 2014 edition of American Road Magazine, the Tunnel Vision column featured an article that is bound to get you started on the right foot…unless you’re a tea drinker. I’m talking about the Coffee Trail in Columbus, Ohio! In this podcast Meguni Robinson of Experience Columbus will tell you how a group of local businesses got together to create a unique way of promoting their themselves and the city of Columbus all at the same time. Oh and don’t forget the passport!

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One thing American Road readers seems to have in common is that they are avid travelers. It’s not enough for most of us to get information about sites; we want to be there as well. A new tool to help you find a very special place to stay is the website of the National Trust for Historic Preservation which is found at www.historichotels.org. Heather Taylor is a spokesperson for National Historic Hotels of America and she will share some of the many features that the website has to offer you as you plan your next vacation.

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It’s a brand new year for American Road Magazine and for American Road Trip Talk. Normally we use this podcast to introduce you to the people and places behind the stories in the magazine. This time around we are going to cast our gaze in another direction, forward into 2015 in Illinois, home of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. Along Route 66 in Springfield, Illinois you will find the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, which is turning 10 in 2015 which is also the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. Our guest Chris Wills, a spokesperson for the library and museum, has a whole year full of suggestions for your travels. Get your calendar ready to circle some dates for 2015. You’ll find that we do a little Lincoln myth busting along the way. For more information on the ongoing events at the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Il. visit www.tenyearslincoln.com

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The fall 2014 edition of our magazine had fun with the theme of Rock, Paper, Scissors and included stories about everything from a Wall of Scissors to a Waffle Rock and a Paper House. In this podcast we visit with Edna Beaudoin, who is the current caretaker of the Paper House, which is located in the scenic seaside town of Rockport, MA just north of Boston. What started out as a summer project in the 1920’s became a lifelong passion for an engineer named Ellis Stenman who used over 100,000 pieces of newsprint to complete the project. His grand niece Edna tends to the family heirloom which is open to visitors from April through October.

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