Rest and be thankful

Thank you Ryann Ford.

For reminding me of places I’d forgotten about. But which have figured prominently in my life.

White Sands National Monument, New Mexico © Ryann Ford

Rest areas. Those architectural gems scattered all over the USA offering roadside ‘services’ to the weary traveler.

As a long-distance pedal cyclist and motorcyclist, I’ve covered many tens of thousands of miles in the USA, on one trip weaving my way 12,000 miles through the west and central plains, and I have many fond memories of rest areas.

There were occasions when a rest area table served as my four-poster bed on a warm desert night; other days when hailstones the size of marbles battered the rest area roof relentlessly as I sheltered gratefully beneath it. And days characterized by epic rain, and that wild jagged lightning that only the central plains can produce, terrifying in its intensity and malevolence, during which I prayed for a rest area to appear sometime soon….hoping…hoping..soaking…

But rest areas are all about people, uniting us in the punctuation of our journeys. No matter our point of origin, nor our destination, rest areas are simply about the ‘here and now’ and the need to stop, thus magically enabling the intersection of the trajectories of many many lives that would otherwise pass unseen.

There was the couple in the Winnebago who saw me shivering uncontrollably beside my bike at a rest stop on a bitter mountain day and invited me into the warmth and comfort of their ‘rig’ to feed me and warm me up. The retirees with a fridge on the back of their gloriously shiny Harley who gave me a welcome cold drink on the road into Death Valley as I staggered around in the blazing heat with my brain frazzled at a rest area looking for water, and the Hells Angels on their much much rattier Harleys who jovially offered directions when I looked lost standing beside my tiny trail bike loaded with gear, at another rest area; their gentle ribbing and genuine interest in how far I’d come, and how far I was going on such a tiny bike, was in stark contrast to the aura of muscular, tattooed scariness they had initially projected.

And at a rest area in California one day I met Eddie and Dawn, and their friend Tony. Tony was having a farewell couple of days with his two old friends who were heading for Alaska to start a new life and to fish for crabs with the licence they’d had to sell their house to buy. This chance meeting was the start of several days of adventures we four enjoyed together in the High Sierra, and led on to Tony and I undertaking an epic journey across country in his old camper almost two decades later.

Tony catches some rays and stretches his back, rest area, Nevada © John MacPherson

Tony, a ‘desertophile’, was by now very ill and thought he’d never again see some of his favourite desert areas, so I went over from Scotland for several weeks to be his driver and companion, and together we traversed Hwy 50 the so-called ‘Loneliest Road in America’ and a few of the lesser known desert byways that occasionally branch off it, stopping often in gloriously remote rest areas. It was a journey made with the unspoken understanding that this would be his last journey to many of the places he loved most dearly. He died not long afterwards. But with desert dust still in his clothes and a broad horizon filling his mind.

Hwy 50, and a bend in the road © John MacPherson

Ryann describes her motivation for undertaking this project to record rest areas:

Rest Stops : Vanishing Relics of the American Roadside

Literally, before our eyes, rest stops are vanishing from the landscapes of America. All over the country, rest areas are losing the fight to commercial alternatives: drive-thrus at every exit and mega-sized travel centers offering car washes, wi-fi, grilled paninis and bladder-busting sized fountain drinks. They’re on the chopping block for many states, their upkeep giving way with tight highway budgets. Louisiana has closed 24 of its 34 stops, Virginia, 18 of its 42; pretty much every state in the country has reduced its number of rest areas, or at least cut operating hours. And they’re not just being closed, they’re being demolished. “They’re just toilets and tables?” you might say. But if you take a closer look, you will see that they are much more. For the past 53 years, rest stops have given us rest, relief, hospitality and nostalgia. They have been an oasis of green to walk your dog, have a picnic, study the map. For some, what was seen and read at rest stops could be all that was known of a region’s historical, archeological, geological, or cultural significance. Many people these days only know of rest stops as a blur from the car window. Many don’t know the historical significance of these quirky little roadside relics.

This is a great project: a glorious celebration of concrete wigwams, fake cabins, wagonwheel walls, or even just simple covered tables, but all evoking nostalgia for places seen, people met, and fanning the coals of yearning to be out on the road once more.