It was precisely five years ago that we completed the Lincoln Highway portion of the trip chronicled in Lincoln Highway 101. As I’ve mentioned before, this was not a done deal and was fraught at points. But, we made it.
We finally arrived at Lincoln Park, the western terminus of the Lincoln Highway, on May 25, 2014, at 3:50 pm. Interestingly, Lincoln Park was dedicated in 1909—a few years before the Lincoln Highway came into existence. It seems hard to overstate the power of the 16th president of the United States’ name in the early 20th century.
According to the reasonably accurate trip odometer (it needed to be quite precise to pass an NCRS performance verification in June 2011), we had traveled a total of exactly 3,250 miles in nine days. Our Lincoln Highway portion had been about 3,150 miles in eight days or approximately 394 miles per day. The odometer also showed us averaging an absolutely astounding 26.0 mpg with that relatively large V8 and very rudimentary engine controls that were designed in the late 1970s. Still a little doubtful about this mileage, I confirmed the accuracy of the trip computer’s numbers with our gas station receipts after our trip was complete—it turned out to be off by well under 1%.
Despite our painfully substantial delay, our friend Jordan was (still) patiently waiting for us at the circa 1924 Legion of Honour in Lincoln Park with very unexpected but excellent champagne and tasty cheese—undeniably taking a lot of the edge off what had been an extremely trying last day of our Lincoln Highway experience. He did seem quite perturbed that he had somehow left some accompanying bread at his apartment, but we were certainly not complaining! The three of us spent a little more than an hour together eating, drinking, and talking on that breezy late afternoon. Afterward, we parted ways, with Jordan departing on his snazzy BMW R1100R motorcycle and the two of us driving a final five miles to our stop for the night.
Lincoln Highway 101, Second Edition
J3Studio Press 