Why tool around the haunts of Springsteen and George Washington? No reason | Mike Strange

There is more than one way to travel. Today I recommend wandering.

My last travel commentary was in May, a European junket that included a Rhine River cruise. The agenda was set. This excursion leaves at 9 a.m., that one at 1 p.m. If it’s Thursday, we’re in Cologne. Be back on board for dinner by 7.

On Labor Day I pulled out of Knoxville, a party of one, bound for a favorite destination, Charleston, South Carolina. Only this time, Charleston was a mere launchpad.

From there, I would meander north up the Atlantic shore, avoiding the freeway, planning no more than one day ahead – if that. I wasn’t sure what my mission was. Or if I even had one.

For a week the highway – with interludes of several ferry rides – led me up the coast. Occasional bicycle rides offered a break from the driver’s seat.

Other than ferry departures, zero appointments.

Mike Strange: Pittsburgh was Majors' second home, and they carry the torch for him still

Previously:Tennessee football has displayed its near best and worst vs. Akron | Mike Strange

Soon, some context emerged, a reminder of what I had learned in classrooms long ago. The Atlantic shore is where our history as a future nation began. At least the European era.

Stand on a beach and look eastward at that vast sea. You have to marvel that 500 years ago on the other side, small wooden ships were setting sail with only wind and hope to propel them.

Somehow, some of them made it across.

In 1526 a Spanish ship made it to near what became Georgetown, South Carolina, where I enjoyed a waterfront lunch. On board were the first African slaves brought to our continent. The expedition went bust but the horrid precedent was set.

The Atlantic coast has seen plenty of fighting. It is, after all, our eastern flank.

One morning I stood at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, from where in 1861 a Southern rebel bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor ignited the Civil War.

A car ferry delivered me to the southern tip of the Outer Banks at Ocracoke, a refuge for the pirate Blackbeard until he was killed there in 1718.

In the 1940s, it wasn’t pirates patrolling the Outer Banks, rather German U-boats, sinking tons of cargo shipping.

Crossing into Virginia, I landed at Yorktown. On that hallowed ground in 1781 George Washington’s army – with a mighty assist from the French – defeated England, deciding the Revolutionary War in our favor.

Up the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland, another ferry carried me from Delaware to New Jersey. That’s where my own timeline caught up.

I watched the Vols beat Pittsburgh from a hotel outside Atlantic City. The next day, I arrived in the faded beach resort, Asbury Park. Time to pause and reassess.

Sports:10 Tennessee football season openers we didn't see coming | Mike Strange

Read this:Will Tennessee football finally beat Florida and other questions about 2022 season?| Strange

Continue north or was it time to head home? Asbury Park helped me decide.

Bruce Springsteen was born in New Jersey in 1949, five weeks before my squalling arrival in Kentucky. By the early 1970s, Bruce had, in his words, got this guitar and learned how to make it talk. His debut album in 1973 was titled “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.’’

I (and millions worldwide) related to his poetry of youthful angst. Even in Kentucky, girls combed their hair in rearview mirrors and boys tried to look so hard. Let’s just say I’ve remained a fan.

As I sat on a boardwalk bench on a Sunday afternoon, I pondered the local characters who inspired Bruce’s songs. Rosalita. Wild Billy. Jimmy the Saint. I felt I was paying homage to an old friend. From somewhere came a vague sense of a vague mission accomplished.

Time to head home to that other Thunder Road, the one that ran through Knoxville.

Good call. By evening I was eating tacos at a farm brewery in Maryland. The next day, a bicycle path led me into Washington, D.C., for a spontaneous two-wheel tour of the monuments and White House.

The day after, I wandered down the Shenandoah Valley. The day after that, I wandered home.

Mike Strange is a former writer for the News Sentinel. He currently writes a weekly sports column for Shopper News.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Mike Strange traveling in the paths of Springsteen, George Washington