As far as the road will take you going East
I’m not a big one for selfies. Oh, I love to take pictures, but I don’t need to be in the shot. I already know what I look like, and to tell you the truth, all things considered I’d rather look at other people.
All the same, I had to take a selfie the other day. That’s because I’d just come to the End of the Road. And not just any road. It’s the road that runs a mile and a half south of my home on County Road 7 – The Highway of the Grand Army of the Republic, otherwise known as US 6.
Truth be told, US 6 is Main Street in a lot of cities between Long Beach, California, and Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Anyway, my wife Jennie and I were on vacation recently on the Cape Cod peninsula, which is around seventy miles long and juts out from the mainland of Massachusetts into the Atlantic Ocean. US 6 is Cape Cod’s main highway. It slices right down the middle, first speeding east, then slipping north when the peninsula bends. Jennie and I had decided to visit Provincetown, the village at the end of the road. A mile or two past the city the road starts to get sandy because you’re coming to the end.
And there’s this sign.
It displays the familiar highway shield with a 6 smack in the middle, with the word EAST all in caps, and the road’s title: Grand Army of the Republic Highway. Underneath that it reads:
END OF US RTE 6
PROVINCETOWN, MA
TO LONG BEACH, CA
3,652 MILES
COAST TO COAST
The Grand Army of the Republic Highway comes to an end at that point, but a service road continues a mile or so longer, taking you to a parking lot and beyond that is the Atlantic Ocean. My calves got a funny feeling, like they were jelly. Nothing between me and Europe, except maybe a few islands and three thousand miles of ocean.
Who wants to fall off the edge of the map? So I recited a couple lines from a little poem I’ve memorized about the English Channel, from “Alice in Wonderland,” by Lewis Carroll.
“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly friend replied,
“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
“The further ‘tis from England, the nearer ‘tis to France…..
“Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.”
When you turn the other direction and head back towards California, you find another sign that tells you that thanks to the “1953 Realignment” US 6 now ends in Bishop, California, which is still an impressive 3,205 miles down the road.
Bishop is a small town on Highway 395 in California, East of Yosemite National Park, where there’s this bakery that works overtime year round. They’re constantly rolling out tall rickety carts filled with freshly baked bread that’s so warm and fluffy it’s better than cake or donuts. If US 6 has to stop somewhere, I highly recommend this yeasty spot for a terminus.
As it turns out, I didn’t fall off the edge of the world. Instead, Jennie and I got back in the car and headed down the road for our next adventure as a married couple.
Next time I drive up to US 6 on my way to beautiful downtown Nappanee I’m going to remember if I ever get carried away, who knows, I might just end up back in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
It could happen.