Frank Beacham's Journal

Elspeth Beard was the first English woman to circumnavigate the world by motorcycle

Elspeth Beard, 27, shortly after becoming the first English woman to circumnavigate the world by motorcycle.

The journey took three years in the 1980s and covered 48,000 miles.

After her motorcycling feat, Beard bought the derelict Munstead Tower in Godalming, a 130-foot tower built in 1898. Over the course of five years, she renovated it, converting the former water-tower into a habitable house.

The renovated tower was featured on a 1995 episode of Homefront, and in 1994, the tower won the Royal Institute of British Architects award for South East England.

Today, Beard is a noted architect near London.

After nearly six decades of use, the iconic Route 66 entered the realm of history on this day in 1985 — 36 years ago

After nearly six decades of use, the iconic Route 66 entered the realm of history on this day in 1985 — 36 years ago — when the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials decertified the road and voted to remove all its highway signs.

Some 2,200 miles long in its heyday, Route 66 stretched from Chicago to Santa Monica, California, passing through eight states.

According to a New York Times article about its decertification, most of Route 66 followed a path through the wilderness forged in 1857 by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Edward Beale at the head of a caravan of camels. Over the years, wagon trains and cattlemen eventually made way for trucks and passenger automobiles.

The idea of building a highway along this route surfaced in Oklahoma in the mid-1920s as a way to link the state to cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. Cyrus S. Avery, the highway commissioner, touted it as a way of diverting traffic from Kansas City and Denver.

In 1926, the highway earned its official designation as Route 66. The diagonal course of Route 66 linked hundreds of mostly rural communities to the cities along its route, allowing farmers to more easily transport grain and other types of produce for distribution.

The highway was also a lifeline for the long-distance trucking industry, which by 1930 was competing with the railroad for dominance in the shipping market. Route 66 was also the scene of a mass westward migration during the 1930s, when more than 200,000 people traveled from the poverty-stricken Dust Bowl to California.

John Steinbeck immortalized the highway — which he called the "Mother Road" — in his classic 1939 novel, "The Grapes of Wrath."

Beginning in the 1950s, the building of a massive system of interstate highways made older roads increasingly obsolete. By 1970, modern four-lane highways had bypassed nearly all sections of Route 66.

In October, 1984, Interstate 40 bypassed the last original stretch of Route 66 at Williams, Arizona, and the following year the road was decertified. According to the National Historic Route 66 Federation, drivers can still use 85 percent of the road, and Route 66 has become a destination for tourists from all over the world.

Often called the "Main Street of America," Route 66 became a pop culture mainstay over the years, inspiring its own song written in 1947 by Bobby Troup. The song, “Route 66” was later recorded by artists as varied as Nat "King" Cole, Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones as well as a 1960s television series.

Here, Asleep at the Wheel performs “Route 66”

Thanks History.com

The Gay Parita Sinclair Station, three miles west of Halltown, Missouri, on Route 66

Photo by Peter Armstrong

A bricklayer’s dream, Route 66’s surface varied from pavement to dirt to brick.

Photo by Peter Armstrong

Here, the road is shown near Auburn, Illinois

A Weekend in Woodstock

This weekend I tagged along on a wonderful trip to Woodstock, New York with David Kinney, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who is working on a new book on Bob Dylan for Simon &  Schuster. It was partially wonderful because I had to do zero work whatsoever while David did all the heavy lifting, and because it was jammed packed with events that any Dylan fan would have loved to have experienced.

In two days, we visited Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble, met Elliot Landy, photographer of Dylan, the Band and rock’s elite during the 60s, and hung out for two and half hours at Big Pink, the house where the infamous Basement Tapes were made. 

David got some great interviews—all of which I’m sworn to secrecy not to reveal. However, I can say that Woodstock is like any small town, except that it experienced a period of extreme fame within the lifetime of many of its current residents. The fallout from that fame is still evident everywhere—with all the stories, jealousies and continuing misunderstandings that one learns to expect from human nature.

I especially enjoyed meeting Don and Sue LaSala, the current owners of Big Pink. Though tourists continue to come on pilgrimages to the historic house constantly, they were charming and friendly and allowed us inside, both in the famous basement and upstairs in the living quarters. 

To sit around a warm, friendly fire in Big Pink with truly nice people was a strangely ghostlike disconnect. To me the house is sacred ground, where amazing art was made by extraordinary people. Yet being there was so “now” and in the moment. The LaSalas are determined not to allow Big Pink to become a museum, but a living real place where art continues to be made. I admired their attitude. 

Of course, Levon Helm connects to those days and his “barn” still continues the tradition, as we found Saturday night at the Midnight Ramble. Carolyn Wonderland, a wonderful blues singer who reminded me of Janis Joplin, was the opening act. Levon’s regular band was there, led by the former Dylan guitarist Larry Campbell. 

Levon’s voice was weak, and Larry did most of the speaking. But it was a very substantial show that lasted more than three hours. At $150 it’s expensive, but worth it.

We met Elliott Landy on Sunday at Bread Alone, a small Woodstock coffee shop. Though Landy took some of the great rock and roll pictures of the 60s, he was definitely a very lucky guy who was at the right place at the right time. What years he had in 1968 and 69! 

Perhaps some of his most famous pictures were of Bob Dylan and Band. He shot Dylan at his first Woodstock home on Byrdcliffe Road, and the Band at various locations in town. Many of his images have become icons. Perhaps best known is the photograph of Dylan tipping his hat used on the cover of Nashville Skyline. All by Elliot Landy.

David’s book will probably be published in 2012. We’ll all have to wait until then to really learn what we accomplished on this trip.