‘Citizen’ Bruce Schwartz Hits the Road, from the Palisades to Michigan

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Bruce Schwartz, the 2017 Citizen of the Year in Pacific Palisades, drove about 2,250 miles across the country to Michigan last month. He left at 6:30 a.m. on July 23, arriving at Grand Junction, Colorado around 8 p.m.

The next day, he drove 12 hours to Omaha, where he spent the night. On July 25, he arrived in Detroit around 11 p.m.

Schwartz, a member of Palisades PRIDE, which works to beautify street corners, medians and other neglected areas around town, organized a pumpkin-planting campaign this year, and many people have the pumpkin plants from his donated seeds growing in their yards.

Also, a member of the Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness, Schwartz was responsible for having the high-fire-severity zone signs placed that prohibit camping in brush-covered canyons.

Basically, he’s a great example of one citizen making constant efforts to make this community a better place to live.

This weekend, Schwartz sent photos to Circling the News that capture scenes he enjoyed while on his road trip.

These are the famous rock formations in Southern Utah along Interstate 15, where Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks are located.

(Zion is a 229-square-mile park featuring sandstone canyons and forested mountains in a landscape that varies from rivers to desert. Most of the sights may be reached along the 6-mile Zion Canyon Scenic Drive, which is only accessible via shuttle from spring to fall.

(Bryce Canyon is one of America’s most unique geologic landscapes, a rugged 90-square-mile universe marked by vibrant forested canyons and the world’s highest concentration of colorful rock spires known as hoodoos.)

Caption 2: Going through a tunnel in the Rocky Mountains.

According to a 1964 New York Times story (“Drilling the Big Tunnel Through the Rockies”), “The twin‐bore tunnel at 11,000 feet is only a part of the infinitely involved plan to push Interstate 70, a Los Angeles-bound superhighway, west from Denver through 200 miles of the highest and thickest mountains in the nation. Some engineers say that the Colorado segment will cost $100 million. Others predict that twice that sum may have to be spent before the entire project is completed in about eight years. Among other things, it will enable one to drive through these magnificent uplands at 70 miles an hour. For generations, the Loveland Pass area has been a problem to travelers. The soaring barrier of 14,000‐foot peaks here forced the Union Pacific Railroad to bypass Colorado in 1869, and the maze of deep canyons and boiling streams leading from Denver to the Loveland area made life grim for the gold and silver miners of the 1870’s.”

“They don’t call them the Rockies for nothing!” Schwartz said.

The Rocky Mountains stretch 3,000 miles from the northernmost part of British Columbia in western Canada to New Mexico. The name is a translation from the Cree name as-si-wati, which means that when seen from across the prairies, the mountains look like a rocky mass. Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre in 1752 wrote about them in his journal, calling them “Montagnes de Roche.”

Traveling In northeastern Colorado, this photo was taken looking out at the Green Belt along the Platte River.

Historically, emigration trails established along the north and south banks of the Platte and North Platte River were the Oregon, California, Mormon and Bozeman trails. The route was developed as an important trail route used by migrant wagon trains for westward United States expansion after 1841.

Soybean fields and wind farms were found along the interstate that cut through the center of  the state of  Nebraska.

In 2019, windmills produced 19.92 percent of the electricity-generated in the state, according to Wikipedia.

The town of Grinnell, Iowa, population 9,205, was busy.

The town is known for its historic architecture, especially for the Jewel Box Bank, designed by Louis Sullivan, who was Frank Lloyd Wright’s mentor.

Caption 7: Nearing the end of the journey, entering Indiana, the 38th largest state by area and the 17th most populous.

I passed the hometown of Ronald Reagan, who called Pacific Palisades his hometown before moving to the White House. Reagan’s birthplace, also known as the Graham Building, is located in an apartment on the second floor of a late 19th-century commercial building in Tampico, Illinois. The building was built in 1896 and housed a tavern from that time until 1915.

On Schwartz’s return trip, which he said he’d start in tomorrow or the next day, he’s thinking of driving along the upper Michigan Peninsula to Duluth and taking The Great Northern Road Trip: U.S. Highway 2. That route has been called one of the most stunning and unforgettable, not to mention longest, of all the great transcontinental road trips.

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