Make Way for the Wind Turbines

The train carrying wind turbine blades had some trouble passing through Fort Collins, Colo. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

The train carrying wind turbine blades had some trouble passing through Fort Collins, Colo. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — On my way north out of Colorado to link back up with the Lincoln Highway’s route through Wyoming and onward west to San Francisco, I followed U.S. 287 into this city of roughly 145,000 people, according to the 2010 Census, making it the Centennial State’s fourth-largest city.

Driving north from the Jack Kerouac gas station outside Longmont and into Loveland, where Lincoln Avenue carries northbound traffic through the center of the city, the mountains of the Front Range frame the western horizon. Longs Peak, a 14,255-foot mountain is the highest point in this part of the state, though it’s only Colorado’s 15th-highest.

Peakbagger.com has described the mountain as “a craggy monster with several enormous vertical cliffs, set among the sea of 13,000 foot peaks that make up Rocky Mountain National Park.”

Fort Collins a hub for the northern Front Range, home of Colorado State University‘s flagship campus and a number of great local breweries, including New Belgium Brewing Co., Equinox BrewingOdell Brewing Co. and The Fort Collins Brewery. Anheuser-Busch has a large facility here, too.

It was mid morning and, unfortunately, too early to take a break to sample the local beer. (I have had may fair share of beer brewed by New Belgium over the years.) On my way out of town, I was actually contemplating turning back when a freight train carrying wind-turbine blades blocked my route to Cheyenne, Wyo.

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Rising High Above the Lincoln Highway

One of the many wind turbines within view of the Lincoln Highway near Van Wert, Ohio (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

One of the many wind turbines within view of the Lincoln Highway near Van Wert, Ohio (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — How do you know you’ve reached the Indiana state line on the Lincoln Highway? Look to the right. If you stop seeing tall wind turbines, you’re in Indiana.

The area north of Van Wert, Ohio, is a hub for wind-energy production, which is quite evident as you’re driving west toward Fort Wayne. There are hundreds of wind turbines rising from the flat farmland. In 2011, there were about 210 wind turbines in the Van Wert area with hundreds more planned. (The Van Wert County Convention and Visitors Bureau’s promotional website says there are now about 400 turbines.)

Fort Wayne, Indiana’s second-largest city, was my final destination for this leg of my Lincoln Highway trek before temporarily leaving the route to visit my parents in Michigan.

But before that, there’s one landmark I wanted to visit downtown. Continue reading

On the Old Forbes Road And Over the Mountains

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This Lincoln Highway-themed gas station pump sits outside the Historic Texas Lunch in Chambersburg, Pa. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

PITTSBURGH — It’s already abundantly clear that I’m not going to be able stop off and see — and photograph — everything that I would want to along the Lincoln Highway. That became evident yesterday as I was racing from Gettysburg to make it to the Flight 93 memorial in Somerset County before its 6:30 p.m. closing. I breezed through Breezewood, which is not that scenic, but also through places like Chambersburg, the town burned in a July 30, 1864, Confederate raid where I hopped out for literally 30 seconds to snap a photo of the highly decorated gas pump you see here.

But if this is a preview of what the highway offers as I go west, then there’ll be plenty for me to see.

The route through the mountains is naturally beautiful and largely empty, dotted with plenty of aging and artistically repurposed gas pumps, bucolic barns with Lincoln Highway murals, breathtaking mountain-top vistas of the valleys below, and plenty of 19th century buildings from the pre-Lincoln Highway days, when this was this was the primary — but rough — road across Pennsylvania.

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