It was one of the best travel inspirations I’d seen a group of small towns pull off.
In 2019, the Wheeler County, Texas, Chamber of Commerce, joined forces with other entities north and south along US Highway 83, a Panhandle route heavily traveled by truckers but not many tourists, to create a multi-day, multicity festival.
“Wild and Free on 83,” they called it.
Kristen Moudy, an energetic promoter of her hometown of Wheeler, pooled the tourism budgets of her counterparts and hired a big-time Amarillo agency to create the branding, ads, social media, and yes, the T-shirt. I wrote the song.
By then, in my work for the Texas Heritage Trails program, I'd driven every Texas mile of the route. I'd been inspired by the same books Kristen had read: Nebraska native Stew Magnuson’s “Last American Highway” series. He’d called it that on account of the road’s predominant two-lane configuration spanning the entire length of the U.S., 1,885 miles from Brownsville, Texas, to the Canadian border.
A journey along what another writer had dubbed “The Road to Nowhere” beckoned.
Flash forward to 2023. The chance to participate in a writers' convention this summer in South Dakota provided an excuse to drive the full northern half of the route.
Next week, after settling into the convention hotel in Rapid City, I’ll share that experience, which by now is in the rear-view mirror.
In the meantime, flip to the back page of this issue for a few travel pics from the road, as your Nomadic Newspaper wraps up this week’s issue from the famous Black Hills. | MORE PHOTOS, PAGE 10
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