Seconds With Steff

I learned about the Lincoln Highway while completing Route 66. If you look back to our Summer 2024 road trip along the Pacific Coast Highway, one of the first things I said was that I wanted to drive the Lincoln Highway — and I linked a 7½‑hour YouTube video by Noah Caldwell‑Gervais that I had watched in its entirety. At the time, it was really the only major YouTube video I could find on the Lincoln Highway. I don’t remember how I came across it, but I remember being a little obsessed with the road trip. PS: I’ve watched it ten times since then.

Anyway… instead of doing the Lincoln Highway, we went to the Columbus Zoo and then accomplished the Pacific Coast Highway. Then last year was taken over by national parks (still a little fuzzy on how that happened), exploring the Mighty 5, Grand Tetons, and Yellowstone. Plus, I knew I needed more than two weeks to make this drive, so the summer of 2026 is the summer we finally make it happen!

Back in 2021, there was very little information on the Lincoln Highway. Honestly, there still isn’t a whole lot, but there is a touch more … and it’s just enough. I found two more books, and my beloved Josh and Pops actually took the trip last spring, so … just in case God forbid they ever figure out I exist in this world: this is for you guys: THANK YOU. I’m doing many of the same things you did. Just please always stay a trip ahead of me. And of course, I linked them above in case anyone wants to watch them.

I can hear you all now: What is the Lincoln Highway? I’ve never heard of this thing. And where are you going?

Almost everybody reading this knows exactly what Route 66 is. You know the song and/or you’ve seen Cars. Well, the Lincoln Highway predates the Mother Road. And it has a song and a nickname too — you just don’t know it… yet!

Long story medium…

In 1912, there were barely real roads … only wagon trails and dilapidated turnpikes in the East. Having built the first car dealership, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and raised Miami Beach from a swamp, Carl Fisher dreamed of creating what he wanted to call the Coast‑to‑Coast Rock Highway, which would span the country. He desperately tried to get Henry Ford involved, but Ford wanted no part of it. However, two other car‑industry moguls did pledge money: Frank Seiberling, president of Goodyear, and Henry Joy, president of the Packard Motor Car Company. It was Henry Joy who changed the name in an effort to memorialize Lincoln and get money from Congress. He became the main representative for the Lincoln Highway … basically the hype‑man. I tell you all of this because there are monuments and tributes throughout the trip to these men, especially Henry Joy, so I want you to know who you’re looking at.

The Lincoln Highway became sections of different roads that were kind of put together with, you know, spit. Some parts are brick. Some parts are paved … not our kind of paving, but their kind of paving. Some parts are gravel. Then a couple of years later they’d make improvements that changed the route, and a couple of years later they’d make more improvements and a couple of years later another improvement would change the route again. So I’m actually going to post here what the map looks like so you can have a good laugh because… yeah, I’m going to try to follow that. I am also adding the Lincoln Highway Association link. If you click, you can see the interactive map that has helped me make turn-by-turn directions across the country. Yes, you read that correctly. I have spent hours upon hours making a 102‑page Excel spreadsheet with turn‑by‑turn directions that will carry us from Times Square, NYC to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.

You see that nonsense right there … the pink and the green and the blue and the purple? Yeah. That’s insanity, I tell you. So I am following blue. We’re trying to follow the most original 1913 alignment as much as humanly possible. Sometimes the route doesn’t exist anymore and we’ll be directed onto the highway because that’s where it was rerouted, but we’re going to do the best we can … except twice when we are consciously leaving the 1913 route.

We’re from New York, so we’re not going to do much here except take our picture with the eastern terminus, which sadly, is the only representation of the Lincoln Highway in the state.

We’re also going to stick to our Route 66 rules and not really go off the road itself to explore side trips; however, because it’s Hunter’s trip, we will be going to zoos and aquariums. He really missed that last summer. Even though Yellowstone provided natural animals, it’s not quite what he’s used to.

So for the first time ever, I’m not posting the “getting ready” announcement from an airport but from my living room. It’s such a weird feeling.

And because it’s me and there always has to be a story… I picked up the car at the local Enterprise, and instead of a midsized SUV, I was given a Honda Odyssey. It’s a boat! But that’s ok. It’s no bigger than my Explorer had been. So I get it home and go to pack it. I lower the third row and find YUCK.

So I get on the phone with customer service, who is horrified, and a regional manager will be calling me. But in the meantime… I clean. Then Frank says, “Why don’t you go to MacArthur?” So… I warp speed it to the airport where I was able to get a Jeep Compass in ORANGE… it’s dark, so pictures will be forthcoming. I think I’m going to take a Xanax and go to sleep… we set sail at 6:00 a.m.