Preview Magazine - WINTER 2011

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When winds blow sour, consider road trips through orchards and groves--a custom that inspired this issue of American Road.

Our fruit-filled edition contains features of watermelon size" "Orange Bowl: Enjoying the Sweet Life Along Florida's orange Blossom Trail" presents the largest photo-essay we've ever assembled--twenty pages of fresh-squeezed Florida scenes from the Georgia state line to Miami.

Back in the winter of 1939, the 458-mile Orange Blossom Trail was promoted as Florida's new nutritional route south--a pulpy path sliced skillfully down the state's juicy center. Nowadays the Orange Blossom continues to serve northerners who like a little tang in their trips. Rove through the groves and don't miss Chalet Suzanne near Lake Wales. The 1931 restaurant-turned-lodge serves an Orange Aspic soup that fills bowls full of Florida flavor.

Each spring, the orchards of eastern Wisconsin blossom fragrant and white --the start of an annual cycle that sees the Door Peninsula produce five percent of the nation's tart cherries. "Cherries Jubilee: Driving Wisconsin's Door Peninsula" follows State Trunk Highway 42 as it chases those cherries around the recovered hull of the 1876 lumber schooner Lottie Cooper, fiery fish boils, and a herd of goats that graze atop the roof of Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant & Butik.

Look for the lingonberries---you'll find they complement the Swedish pancakes--and enjoy.

Our road departments continue our fruit-flavored theme as we discover huckleberry ice cream around the Yellowstone Trail; Giant Oranges on US Highway 99; and pecans along the Old Spanish Trail. We wrap with "Route 66 Kicks!" in which we meet a man who chases a bright glowing orb through the woods. It could be a tomato. Odds say it's not a kohlrabi.

We hope you enjoy reading the excerpts from this issue.

Copies are available at your favorite newsstand location, or you can subscribe and have them delivered.