Stories from Summer Vacation: Brendan
Gaughen Researches Place Collecting ''Am'ri"• Studies
In the last gasp of sLJmmer, here are a few words from Brendan Gaughen, who spent his
summer taking several trips across the nation for his dissertation research -
I'm finally doing some dissertation research and did some tfavel ing this summer to do some
interviews and generally report on what I saw. I'm looking .at specific ways people inter.act
with the places they vis it .and how some treat travel as a form of collecting. how technology
facilitates or enables these practices, and the ways in which some of these practices can
function as .a sort of voluntary surveillance.
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This is the largest annual gathering in North America for .a community of practitioners of a
GPS·b.ased hobby called geocaching, in which people hide containers, post the coordinates
online, and others go out and find them. It's pretty simple bu t some of these so-ca lled
"geocachers" take things to the extreme, turning the hobby into a full-t ime occupation. There
are more than 2 mil lion geocaches hidden around the world, .and an entire cottage industry
has sprung up in the last several years cate ring to this community. Geocache rs often hide
objects as a way to memorialize places they find significant, though non-geocachers
("muggles," borrowing a term from Harry Potter canon to describe those without wizard
powers) generally have no idea these conta iners exist.
Extra Miler Club Convention, Reno NV
This is the only formal annual meeting for this group of people wi th intentional travel goals,
generally that of visiting all 3141 counties in the united States. Many members document
their accomp lishments by tak ing a photograph of themselves at every county line sign; others
attempt to do certain things in each state (such as play golf, eat at a Dairy Queen, etc). I
spoke at length wilh one couple who drove their RV through all 48 states in a very circu itous
manner, stopping to get an envelope stamped at the post office in every county sea t in the
us, something that had to happen during business hours Monday thru Friday. They had a page
for each county with .a postmarked envelope, self-photograph in front of the courthouse, and
short write-up about what the town was like. This personal archive totaled 20 binders,
something I would love to explore in fu rther detail.
Lincoln Highway centennial celebr.:ition, Kearney NE
The Lincoln Highway was the fi rst t ranscontinenta l highway built in the United States and
Kearney is the closest city to the highway's midpoi nt (it ran between New York and San
Francisco). A few dozen vi ntage autos started at either end of the highway and met up in
Kearney, so the town was temporarily saturated with Packards, Ford Model A's, and more cars
my dad can more easi ly recognize tha n I can. Aside from witness ing a lot of nostalgia for
archaic forms of automobile tour ism, I attended some presentations about the history of the
current incarnation of the Linco ln f-lighway Association and its 12-year long effort to map every
iteration of the entire route - over 5,000 miles counting all the bypasses, realignments, and
modernizations of the route. Some Lincoln Highway devotees wish to travel as many mi les of
the origina l route as possible, and at one stop on our bus tour I watched about 100 people feel
compelled to walk a 500-foot strelch of century-o ld concrete, an original 1913 section of the
Lincoln Highway. I was BY FAR the youngest person there, so it seems th is [firsthand]
nosta lgic feeling toward the Lincoln Highway, and postwa r road culture in general. may be in
danger of disappearing altogether.
I made many contacts and took extensive notes at all three ol these events, which, once I tie
in a theoret ical framework, will be beneficial for a couple chapters of my dissertation. I sti ll
have to decide how to approach wri ting about these groups and their members, but these
trips have resulted in a ton of raw data, photogra phs, and interview notes. Being in lhese
places reminded me th.at Amer ica is a big, fascinating, and complex place, and that the re is a
certain joy to discovering, interpret ing, and complicating .aspects of American culture.
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This entry was posted in Sto1'ies from Summer Vil.cat ion and tagged geocaching, geography, highways, surveillance , travel
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