Ghost Highway

Who doesn’t love discovering secret things?

Some of my favorite childhood memories involve the search for secrets. I grew up in Northern Virginia in a small town that both Union and Confederate soldiers crawled over during the Civil War.

As a kid I would spend hours in my family’s wooded backyard trying to find that past. Literally digging for treasure. While I never found anything that would excite Ken Burns, I was periodically rewarded with pieces of metal, rusted farm implements, and old glass bottles.

The crowning moment was the day I dug up a small fully-intact bottle embossed with “Hires Root Beer Syrup” on one side and “makes 5 gallons of delicious drink” on the other. Soon, half the kids in my neighborhood were in my backyard, digging for their own treasure.

While 40 years have passed since those days, that kid archeologist still lives within me.

Old Highway 101

I recently took a solo vacation to the southern Oregon coast. As with any visit on the pacific coast, at some point you will find yourself driving along Highway 101. In my case, nearly all of my drive from Portland had been on it. One of the most famous highways in America, Highway 101 hugs the coast from Southern California, all the way through Oregon, and well into Washington State.

It is a mostly two-lane affair, famous for its incredible views of the Pacific Ocean as it winds its way around coastal mountain ranges and through countless sleepy beach hamlets.

I’ve been on a lot of Hwy 101: from Oceanside in Southern California all the way up to the shadow of the snowy Olympic Mountains in Washington. It is not a new highway, nor does it feel new. It has a cozy, throw-back feel, enhanced by the timelessness of the faded billboards outside its one-stoplight towns.

So imagine my kid-like surprise, heading out for a hike one morning, when I happened upon this innocuous sign:

Old Highway 101? I hadn’t realized the Highway I have spent so much time on was the “new” one. There was an older one? Why had I never heard of Old Highway 101?

I would later take to the internet to answer my many questions: Why had it been replaced? How old was it? How long ago it had been replaced? Amazingly, after an exhaustive 8-minute Google search, I couldn’t find a single fact about Old Highway 101.

All I knew was this: I was about to go hiking on a secret highway. All those 8-year-old memories of discovering a forgotten past came flooding back. Once again I would be digging for metaphorical treasure. I swung my bag on my back and walked into the past.

But first: Ferns

Actually, before fading to black and white, we need to address the ferns. You see, the first quarter mile of this hike was dominated by a well curated “fern trail,” which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. I’ve never seen so many varieties of ferns: leather fern, coastal wood fern, bracken fern, lady fern, goldenback fern, and the dramatically named Giant Chain Fern (which was neither giant nor chain-like).

Each fern garden was well demarcated and had a lovely little sign written on a rock. Clearly, someone had devoted a lot of time and care to this effort. And while it was all immaculately well-tended, nowhere could I find any indication of who these fabled fern fanatics were. No “brought to you by…” or “for more info…” signs written on spare rocks. Just one of the many mysterious things about this forgotten highway: even the gardeners were ghosts.

Ferns behind me, I walked down the middle of the sun-dappled pavement, canopy of trees above, wildflowers on either side, and absolutely not another person to be seen.

I was the only living soul on the ghost highway.

I walked this way for long enough that I realized this was my own personal road. I could do anything I want! I could walk as slow or fast as I wanted, I could enjoy any view or overlook without anyone blocking my view, I could sing Kenny Loggins songs at the top of my lungs, I could dance like a lunatic, I could —

At that moment I came around a bend in the road and froze mid-“Kick off your Sunday shoes — “

I wasn’t alone.

At the top of the hill was an ocean vista, a picnic table and a solitary older gentleman seated at it. His head was buried in his hands. I stood there for quite some time, scarcely breathing. He was motionless. As in: motionless. I started to wonder if he was an art installation. Or a very realistic mannequin. Or. Maybe. Dead.

Slowly I started walking again. Making sure to make loud (but not too loud) crunching sounds with my shoes. I wanted to confirm he was alive (or real) without startling him. He continued to aggressively not move. Hm. What to do?

Being the compassionate, thoughtful Good Samaritan that I am, I completely ignored him.

If he was still there when I returned I would call 911 (or the local art gallery…?). I continued my walk, secure in the fact that technically I was still the only confirmed-to-be-alive-and-real human on the ghost highway.

Ghost Highway

Ferns and Mannequin-or-possibly-dead-guy behind me, the walk started in earnest, and the full glory of the ghost highway came into focus. It was clear that it had been a highway. It was narrower than the current Highway 101, but not significantly narrower. It would sweep up and around a hill, providing sudden and exhilarating views of the Pacific:

It would rise and dip, open up to the sky and then descend into the forest. It made a wonderful hiking trail, but I began to understand why it had been abandoned. It was beautiful but impractical for the modern era. Too narrow for further growth, too many tight curves for speed, too hilly to maintain effectively. A part of me was sad that it had been abandoned and I stood in the middle of the road for a moment and tried to image it 80 years ago.

I imagined the old fashioned cars driving along the two lane road. Roadsters, Studebakers, maybe even a Model T here and there. The loud growl of the old engines and sudden pops of backfires. The old-fashioned car horns — Beep Beep! Cars zipping around these tight curves, wide-eyed children in the backseat, pointing out the open windows at the stunning ocean views below. Those parents would be long dead now, and likely the kids too. Ghosts all of them. Just like the highway itself. And now, those hairpin turns and stunning views would be enjoyed by wild foxglove, earnest snails and chipmunks, rather than families on excursion.

In the end, just as I never found a Confederate Graveyard in my backyard in Virginia, I didn’t find all of the ancient contours of the ghost Highway 101 on my walk either. No abandoned saloons or rusting filling stations. Not even a decaying set of tires. But I found enough. In some sections I could see the full original highway with the yellow lane marker faded but visible. At other moments of the hike, nature had come back to the fore, nearly erasing the highway entirely. Both parts, and all of the in-betweens, made it magical.

As I headed back to my car, I once again passed the vista with the picnic table. The man I had observed earlier in my walk, had vanished.

I wasn’t surprised. Just another ghost.