While this has been a train tour, when we get to the 11 cities we’ve visited over the past 15 days, we rent a car—and for the first time have been traveling with our new GPS. So, it’s the first time we’ve ever relied on “the lady,” as Diane calls he, in the GPS to tell us where we need to go. She is always right, even when she doesn’t seem to be—“just listen to the lady” has been Diane’s mantra (which she likes better than “just trust me” when she was the map-mistress, and google maps sometimes failed her.) But the voice of “the lady” is now a constant part of our driving life—balancing her volume level and the radio’s is very subtle work—and we’re enjoying getting to know her, especially the way she says “recalculating” after we’ve missed a turn with just a touch of snippiness in her voice.

Because “the lady” so improves the marital relationship in the car, we began to wonder if it’s time for someone to create a GPS for men to use during sex, the other place where they generally don’t know where everything is and how to get where they are supposed to be. During one long drive when we got really punchy, we imagined a whole GPS seduction scene. And, of course, when the guy got too excited too quickly, we knew exactly what “the lady” would say:

Recalculating.

ABQ Journal book critic David Steinberg on Fred:“This year is only some three months old, but I want to recommend Stephen Fried’s ‘Appetite for America’ in the category of best biography of 2010.”

For those of you who couldn’t attend our train tour events, C-Span has just posted its Book TV coverage of my talk at Kansas City Union station. check it out.

It was seventeen years ago, during a brief overnight trip to the Grand Canyon, that I first encountered Fred Harvey’s portrait in the lobby of historic El Tovar, first learned a bit of his story from a brochure, and first heard Diane ask “who the hell is Fred Harvey?” So it was amazing to walk into that same lobby—which has been very nicely restored since our first trip—see Fred’s portrait in the distance, but also see signs welcoming me to the Canyon for two days of book signings and a lecture. We had a great time, the Xanterra folks took great care of us (especially Bruce Brossman and Henry Karpinski, who also helped during my research trip there several years ago, and Mike Freeman), and we had a raucous celebratory dinner in the El Tovar dining room—where they are now using Mary Colter’s classic Mimbreno china (and serving on it, among other yummy things, something called Hummingbird Cake–a spice cake that captures everything wonderful about carrot cake but deletes the parts that get overbearing, namely the carrots and raisins). I signed a lot of books for hotel guests, but also for South Rim staff, who are fascinated by the Fred Harvey heritage of the place (in a way you never see employees curious about the history of their employers) and were really very welcoming.

Of course, the highlight of any El Tovar visit–for me anyway–is the chance to slip out at 5:30 am and watch the greatest show on earth, sunrise over the canyon which is slowly, painstakingly illuminated, creating more subtle gradations of color than there are names for. When the sun itself is finally visible over Yavapai Point, you feel a kind of glorious hum that you can’t tell if you’re hearing or seeing or both—the essential “let there be light” moment reproduced there as a daily miracle. It is a mixed blessing that there is now cell phone and wifi service at the Grand Canyon. But to be completely alone at the canyon rim yet still able to send a cell-photo of that sunrise to my nieces and nephews back east (and Diane still sleeping back at the hotel) is a rare technological treat. And to get a text back right away from my niece Miranda saying “that’s so beautiful!” is the only reason I can think of that Blackberries are good for human beings.

There’s no point in posting any of my pictures of the sunrise—cameras can’t really do it justice (especially crappy digital cameras like mine, which go through batteries every seven pictures)—so here’s a shot of Fred and me, reunited after 17 years, and Diane and I doing the famous (at least in our house) “Fred Fist Clench.” (Just for fun, we made Xanterrans Brossman, left, and Freeman do it, too.) As we continue our travels through Fred Harvey’s America (next stop, Winslow, AZ at La Posada) I am continually amazed at what this one guy was able to accomplish and inspire, and how much of what is good about America—then and now—can be accessed through his story.

We’re on the Grand Canyon Railway headed to the South Rim—the very same train line which opened in 1901 and began taking tourists to the Divine Abyss—sitting in a very cozy parlor car where the bar service begins at 9:30 am. (Jack, our very animated bartender/porter offers five reasons to start drinking immediately—“you’re on vacation and it’s not a vacation until you’ve had a cocktail by 9:45; you can’t say you’ve been drinking all day if you don’t start in the morning; you’re probably never going to see these people again; your chances of seeing wildlife will double; and nobody makes a better bartender than a recovering alcoholic, I live vicariously through you folks, don’t let me down”) The train crawls across the Colorado Plateau and the forest like a caterpillar (not my image, John Muir made the analogy over 100 years ago.) It is a very civilized way to visit the canyon—we’ve only ever gone up by car—and we just had our picture taken on the rear car of the train. It’s the closest we’ll get to whistlestop touring, since regular trains don’t have cabooses any more. (damn)

In the cool sub-basement of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, we’re getting an extraordinary private tour of Indian baskets, blankets and Kachina dolls from the priceless Fred Harvey Indian art collection—which the family donated to the museum in the 1970s. Some of these pieces can be seen, behind glass, in Heard exhibit cases, but we’re down in the storerooms, where the 4000+ artifacts are warehoused, shelf after shelf after shelf of amazing work, some of them the very same pieces visible in classic Southwestern photos. I’m here to give a talk to what is probably the most Fred-knowledgeable audience in the country, including curators at the Heard who have been working with the family art collection for years (the corporate files are also here), and wrote the first great books on Harvey in the 1990s. (Here’s a picture of Kathy Howard, one of those author/curators, showing very cool baskets well over a hundred years old.) During the talk and booksigning (co-sponsored by the excellent indie store Changing Hands) we all met a delightful Grand Canyon Harvey Girl from the 1950’s. We’ve now met former Harvey Girls at almost every stop and never cease to be amazed how youthful and engaging they are. Apparently it took a really special kind of young woman to have the guts to leave home, travel west and succeed as a Harvey Girl—and they all grew into really special people.

Before I tell you about the pudding, a couple highlights of our evening at Bookworks in Albuquerque—the first indie bookstore on our tour after many museums. I signed a book for a ten-year-old girl who wanted her own copy because she is really into reading histories; her parents were thrilled to have a daughter so literarily precocious, and I was thrilled to see more evidence that reading is not dead. I also met one of the first-ever Native American Harvey Girls, who worked at El Navajo in Gallup—the Harvey location closest to the Navajo Reservation—during WWII. And Nancy and Laura and the rest of the Bookworks staff were great. They even made La Fonda Pudding from the recipe in the book for everyone—a pretty big group, over sixty people, many standing back through the aisles, and anxious for pudding. Interestingly, when we were at La Fonda itself the night before, they also served La Fonda pudding. Each preparation was completely different, and completely scrumptious. But, clearly, someday there will need to be a Northern New Mexico pudding bake-off on Iron Chef.

Very nice little foodie piece in the Phoenix New Times about the book and Harveys in Arizona, which includes a great old HG picture and a recipe I didn’t know for “Alligator Pear Salad” (apparently when avocados first started appearing on Harvey menus in the 1920s, they were called “alligator pears” which, honestly, I like better.)

The further west we travel on the One Nation Under Fred tour, the more casually-dressed the audiences—which I have been using as a reason not to wear a suit for every talk. But now I have no choice. During our off day in Santa Fe, I sent my suit and all my shirts out to be cleaned. Before picking them up, I got the call you never want to get from your Martinizer: “Mr. Fried,” the woman said, tentatively, “there’s been an incident with your pants.” Turns out some machine destroyed my suit pants, so it’ll be jeans and a suit-jacket-turned-blazer from now on. Diane claims I am always looking for any excuse not to wear a suit. Even she has to admit this is a pretty good one.

Sorry to miss a day of blogging, but we built into the tour a chance to go up to the cabin in the mountains outside of Pecos where we wrote and edited a lot of the book (and later recovered from it) so we could relax and I could fish. Some have suggested this entire book project was a six-year excuse to get to the cabin more often; in my defense, the reason the cabin is even there is partly because of Fred. (The cabin is in a private compound—no rentals, a friend loans us hers–that was originally built in the 1920s when more people started visiting the Santa Fe area because of the Harvey Indian Detours.) Here’s a shot of what it looks like up there when the sky is impossibly blue and the clouds and jet streams are really glorious. I took this just after documenting yet another lovely trout caught in one of stocked lakes on the property. (Of course, I put the fish back—it’s catch, photo-op and release.)

Fifteen minutes before my talk in Santa Fe was to begin, as the AV guy and I were futzing with my power point presentation, we heard a strange loud hum and then all the lights went out in the windowless auditorium. At first we thought we had blown a fuse, but then the emergency lights came on and we realized power was out in the whole building. And after a few cell phone calls (luckily, they worked) we realized there was no power in the entire downtown Santa Fe area. Perfect timing, since the 180 people who had pre-paid to hear me speak at the New Mexico History Museum—and then have a Fred Harvey dinner at nearby La Fonda, where the power was also out—were already lining up to get their books and their seats in the handsome, and now dimly lit auditorium. The director of the museum, Fran Levine, who had been organizing this event with her staff for over seven months, remained as calm as possible, assuring us this happens in Santa Fe sometimes and the power usually comes back on in, say, half an hour.

It didn’t.

The capacity crowd waited patiently and good-naturedly in the dark—without elevators, we had to help some of the older folks down stairs to their seats. Just to be safe, I asked if anyone had a flashlight with them. Members of the Harvey family were sitting in the first two rows, and three Harvey girls immediately fished flashlights out of their purses—a long thin one, a flat square one and, my favorite, a robot Lego-toy one, which shot light out of its feet. After the crowd had sat for half an hour, Fran came to the stage, announced she had no idea when the power was coming back on but that, somehow, the show and the dinner would go on. Then she said she had to go back to calling the power company and gave me one of the more unique introductions I’ve had in my public speaking career.

“Stephen,” she said, throwing up her hands, “deal with it.”

So I grabbed my book and one of the flashlights and started to read, wandering back and forth on the stage, projecting as loudly as I could because, of course, there was no microphone. And once I finished the section from the prologue I like to read, and the lights still hadn’t come on, I began speaking off the top of my head in the dark. The crowd was with me, I was with them and, honestly, I don’t think I ever had so much fun lecturing. Twenty minutes in, we started hearing strange loud sounds from upstairs, as if someone was jackhammering through the ceiling to come rescue us. Fran appeared and announced they were setting up chairs for us in another room with windows—and the crowd and I all told her not to bother, we were having fun where we were and the noise was bugging us.

About thirty minutes into the talk, the lights came back on and, miraculously, the problem the AV guy and I had been having with the power point solved itself. So I just put up the first photo and kept going. It was great fun, people asked great questions afterwards, and then they all got up, left the museum, and walked en masse across the Santa Fe’s famed plaza to La Fonda, where the dinner came off without a hitch. Chef Lane Warner prepared old Fred Harvey recipes from the book, including Chicken Lucrecio, which had a delicious spicy gravy with almonds, and La Fonda pudding. During breaks in the meal, there were fascinating talks by Daggett Harvey, Jr. who spoke eloquently on behalf of the family, and Brenda Thowe, a BNSF vehicle fleet manager who has, for years, been the leading lay “Harvey-ologist” and helps former Harvey Girls and their families stay in touch (there were at two feisty former Harvey Girls among the dinner guests.)

The whole evening was, as many people noted to me, “very Santa Fe.” And Diane and I have never felt more welcomed and at home in this city we’ve been visiting for 19 years. Thanks to everyone who helped make these events a success, and May Fred be with you.

Just recovering from last night’s wonderful, warm Santa Fe dinner party and Harvey family reunion. It was held at the gorgeously cozy home of Kay Harvey, and included three generations of Harvey family members from London, California, New York and Chicago, some of whom knew their family history pretty well (and were very helpful with the book) and others who are just learning it now, and their excitement is contagious.

One highlight of the evening, besides the terrific food and company (including all the folks from the New Mexico History Museum who made this whole Santa Fe event possible), was the scene in the guest bedroom with Liz Drage Pettifer–a relative from England that none of the Harveys had ever met. Liz is–stay with me here–the niece of Freddy and Betty Drage Harvey, whose birth was the reason Betty made her fateful trip to England in 1936 (after which she returned to New York, new puppy in her arms, and Freddy flew her home and, well, you know.) Since the Drages and the Harveys went on to have their own issues, it’s not surprising that Liz grew up not knowing her Harvey family at all–she was reconnected to them only when I reached out to her for help on the book.

She brought with her from London some of the dresses and accessories that Betty Harvey had bought in London in 1936 before flying home–stuff that was then delivered to Liz’s parents, and the family has kept it ever since. So, back in the guest bedroom, Liz was pulling out dresses, a fur collar, even the baby blanket stitched with bunnies that her Aunt Betty had given her–while several generations of fascinated Harvey girls oohed, aahed and literally got in touch with a new chapter of their history. All the clothes were in mint condition (even the black feather fan), and it was a delightful and unexpected end to a terrific night in Santa Fe, a city full of pleasant surprises.

Just boarded the Southwest Chief at KC, and we’re snug in our private bedroom in car 330, heading west across Kansas just before midnight as the train whistle blows, the cars rock us into sleepy submission and the only other sound you hear is clicking laptop keys as I submit this report before bedtime. It’s the end of another perfect day in the middle of the Midwest and the cradle of Fred Harvey—Kansas City and nearby Topeka, where Fred’s first Santa Fe restaurant was. I spoke at a terrific lunch at Kansas City Union Station, where we met the mayor, the former mayor, the chairman of the Kansas City Southern, and many others with a stake in the city’s future (and, judging from their interest, the future of its past). C-Span filmed the event (I’ll post info when we find out when it runs.) As soon as we finished, we dashed to Topeka, where I spoke at the Kansas State Historical Society—where the excellent curators had helped me research the book, and were also very gracious in letting me use their photos. We were greeted by a gaggle of Harvey Girl from the Overland Station museum in Topeka; these aren’t actual Harvey Girls—although we met a bunch of them today as well—but longtime HG re-enactors, a popular and charming pastime in some Fred-fed Kansas towns. (this group also cooked four different dishes from the recipes in the book—especially liked the light-as-a-feather chocolate puffs with raspberry cream and the cheese straws with salsa, yum.) Topeka has a lot of Santa Fe railroad alums, and we met a number of them—including one who came with his 102-year-old father, who worked for the railroad in the 1920s (and was still pretty spry and engaging, I think he was kinda hitting on Diane.) Got back in time for a late steak dinner at Union Station at Pierpont’s restaurant, next to the original Harvey lunchroom (which is still a lunchroom, except tonight it was rented out for what appeared to be a prom with some very un-Harvey-Girl-like outfits.) And then we boarded the Southwest Chief around 10:30 pm. An Amtrak employee took pity on us and our absurd number of bags and gave us and our luggage a ride right to the train door, where our attendant Gwen had already turned down our beds. Speaking of which, it’s time for bed, since we have a breakfast date in the morning somewhere past Dodge City with all the Harveys who are also on this train. We’re all headed to my home away from home, the long silver-haired capital of the world, Santa Fe.

Last night we had a standing-room-only crowd at the National Archives–over 215 people in a room meant for maybe 175, so they were lined up against the walls or watching from out in the hallway, apparently the biggest turnout ever in this handsome facility. And it was a wonderful and moving night as we watched Kansas Citians reclaim a part of their history. There were family members of some of Fred Harvey’s top executives there, as well as the children and grandchildren of Harvey Girls and chefs (some with amazing old photos we will post as soon as we get copies), and just people who knew Fred Harvey mattered, but never really realized how much the company had mattered here, and across the country. It was a warm and engaging group (who even forgave me for mispronouncing Arkansas City on the local NPR station earlier that day–it’s Ar-KAN-sas) and a lot of people waiting in the long book-signing line (they sold out) were comparing Harvey memories or swapping tips on visiting the Grand Canyon or Santa Fe or taking train trips. It was a Fred-topia! Afterwards we had a great dinner at Michael Smith’s restaurant with Kimberlee Reid, who organized the entire amazing event for the National Archive, Peter Hansen, the editor of the journal Railroad History, and Heather Paxton, the Kansas City researcher on the book. Today we do a luncheon event at Union Station–where I visited yesterday and got a chance to hang out in Ford Harvey’s old office on the second floor, which has been pretty well preserved (although two of the four carved Indian heads that Mary Colter had designed to hold up the fireplace mantle have mysteriously disappeared.) After speaking later this afternoon in Topeka at the Kansas State Historical Society, we catch the overnight Southwest Chief to Santa Fe, and we’ll be having a dining car breakfast somewhere near Dodge City–along with a gaggle of Harvey family members who are also “Chief-ing” to New Mexico for the Fred events there.

Few in the college town of Lawrence, KS know that Fred Harvey’s very first trackside restaurant–before he began historic relationship with the Santa Fe–was at their Kansas Pacific depot starting in 1875. Nice story today in the Lawrence Journal explains it all, including a chance to see legendary Kansas journalist William Allen White’s original obit of Fred.