Gary drew on the map the road that goes east and west as north and south. Without the '96 West' on the map, it would've been hard to find the cardinal direction. For the town's people, a place is where one reaches by following a road. Who would bother with azimuth or cardinal points? Those are for people who don't know anything.
From Sinclair, Sumi and I began searching for a town called Spencer according to the map Gary drew with his shaking hands.
Ignore any new and straight road!
Straight line is boring!
Crinkum crankum find only the old ones!
From this town to next!
Like the treasure map of a pirate captain!
If we followed the map, there would be an old landscape and abandoned shops, a town filled with treasures that had been out of fashion for over fifty years. For anyone who wants to get there, you must give up speed. The right turn into Spencer was narrow and dark, it seemed like once you miss this turn, you'd end up in a roundabout for a long time. If we weren't going thirty miles per hour, we could've easily missed the turn. Not so much because it was hard to see, but because we normally wouldn't be so tempted to make the turn. We were humming along and wouldn't care if we made circles all day, so we happily made the turn onto the road to Spencer. Soon, inside the road, a bridge with paint stripped halfway appeared.
'Johnson Creek Bridge(1926) is a stately steel truss bridge located near the hamlet of Spencer.'
It was written in the book we just bought at Sinclair. Very simple editing of the book with only pictures and dates. It served the purpose within less than an hour from the point of purchase. "It already paid for itself $1 worth out of $35," I said to Sumi. From the name of the bridge, I figured the small stream running under the bridge was Johnson Creek, and the bridge was the gateway to the small town Spencer. It wasn't much of an attraction coming in through the winding road, but with the bridge, suddenly created a wonderful view. However, this intimate landscape was also the reason for its disregard. The highway that opened just a few miles away cut off traffic into this town. This town didn't create enough reasons to be stopped in place of giving up speed.
All it was in hamlet of Spencer was a small store building. In the boom of travel on the Route 66, it would've been all travelers' stopping point with all the necessities like gas station, food store, barber shop, and even post office. It must've been hard to compete with the big highways. The entire Route 66 was losing its charm because of the highways, a small town would've suffered the most. The outcome from the battle was a few random visitors like us holding a map which was drawn by a shaky hand. Sumi and I started collecting the remnants of few things that went out of fashion long ago. Pepsi Cola adverts that looked to be over sixty years old, gas pump, and building facade were collected in our cameras. The desolate surrounding was collected in our eyes. And the things that we couldn't collect by the two methods, we collected in our hearts--curiosity, awe, and excitement of the things that are two generations before us.
The roads in the past connected a town to town, but the highway system made towns disappear. Then the road that connected the towns also disappeared. A generation had passed and even highways became the thing of the past. Then a new stream of travelers began driving on this road instead of on fast highways. We were one of them. "You are once again being acknowledged and remade now. Hurry and get up. Make a new album, a movie, or anything. Here is the contract." I wanted to tell the old and run-down refrigerator and gas pump and the barbershop sign that people started to come around here again.
When the next traveler crossing the Johnson Creek bridge was in sight, we got in our car and on the road again, with the map that Gary drew in our hand.
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