Dale McFeatters, whose column appears regularly on my political news web site, Capitol Hill Blue, waxed whimsical today with a lament to how high gas prices threaten the long-honored tradition of cruising:

High gas prices are threatening an almost sacred American tradition — driving around aimlessly, cruising, if you will.

Driving around aimlessly is such a part of our culture that it has its own signature film, "American Graffiti," in which a group of teen-agers spend the night driving aimlessly around Modesto, California.

There is even a female version of driving around aimlessly, ‘"Thelma & Louise," in which two women drive distractedly and aimlessly toward Mexico. The trip ends badly, but as any small-town kid who spends summer evenings driving up and down Main Street could tell you, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.

America’s roadside culture grew out of driving around aimlessly. Drive-in malt shops and drive-in movies sprang up to give some sense of purpose to just driving around. There is a whole genre of music, largely but not totally from the 1950s, to drive aimlessly by. The music is sold in boxed sets by public television and on late-night infomercials.

I cruised a lot in the 60s in my ’57 Ford and the Blue Ridge Parkway offered a lot of opportunities for driving around with, as Chuck Berry sang, "no particular place to go."

Ridin’ along in my automobile
My baby beside me at the wheel
I stole a kiss at the turn of a mile
My curiosity runnin’ wild

Cruisin’ and playin’ the radio
With no particular place to go.

Ridin’ along in my automobile
I’m anxious to tell her the way I feel,
So I told her softly and sincere,
And she leaned and whispered in my ear
Cuddlin’ more and drivin’ slow,
With no particular place to go.

With gas prices more than a buck higher than a year ago, it doesn’t make much sense to cruise in a Jeep Wrangler that gets about 15 miles per gallon but my Harley cruises along at 50 mpg on the open road so it has become the cruiser of choice on the Parkway — not just for me but apparently for many others. On an 83 mile cruise down the Parkway towards North Carolina and back the other day, I saw dozens of bikes but only a handful of cars. RVs? Not a one in sight.

When the going gets tough, the tough adapt.

The success of FloydFest this past weekend spilled over to Floyd businesses as coffee shops, restaurants, galleries and stores reported a spike in traffic over the weekend.

The record crowd of more than 12,000 that attended the four-day festival also helped fill restaurants throughout the weekend and retail shops in Floyd say business was up sharply during the event.

FloydFest countered a trend nationwide that has brought sharp downturns in attendance at other festivals, arts & crafts shows and fairs.

Across the country, managers of company-owned Bennigans restaurants answered midnight phone calls only to be told to shutter their establishments immediately with no notice to employees. The parent company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, a final step which means liquidation.

Bennigans joins a number of chains throwing in the towel in these hard economic times: Linens ‘n Things and Sharper Image to name two. Starbucks is closing 600 coffee shops nationwise, the Mervyns Department Store chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and tony retailer Ann Taylor will close hundreds of stores.

Analysts expect more closures as the year continues.

From all accounts, FloydFest 2008 will rank as the most successful weekend of music, crafts and fun in the event’s short history. Organizers estimate a record 12,000 plus attended over the four days, the weather stayed dry, the Park Rangers stayed — for the most part — out of sight and the weekend was — as this year’s theme promised — a true family affair.

Don Johnson, the area landscape photographer who covered the event for The Floyd Press because I had a previous commitment, reports the festival this year was an outstanding success. His photos and story will be in Thursday’s paper (the photo above is one I took from a previous year).

FloydFest has become an important part of the area’s summer entertainment schedule and brings a lot of attention to the Floyd and the surrounding region. Our congratulations to Erika, Kris and the crew at Across the Way Productions.

We wrapped up our long weekend in Staunton late Sunday afternoon and packed the Liberty for the drive south and home. Instead of joining the madness of Interstate 81, we opted for U.S. 11. For most of the trip, only a few cars and motorcycles shared the road and we drove by the lush fields, horse farms and tranquil beauty of the Shenandoah Valley.

Just north of Natural Bridge, sculptor Mark Cline’s Foamhenge stood atop a hill on the right, joining the eclectic collection of dinosaur parks, zoos and roadside attractions near the Bridge.

Tubers and canoeists floated on the James River in Buchanan, where Amy insisted on stopping to window shop the Antique Stores while I stretched my legs — still tired and sore from two days of riding a crapped out Buell Blast in the Riders Edge-Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s safety course.

Traffic picked up as we neared Roanoke. We turned onto U.S. 220, then Virginia 419, stopping at Ruby Tuesdays to grab some dinner before heading up Bent Mountain on U.S. 221 for the final leg home.

Arriving home, we found six pissed off cats that wondered where the hell we’ve been for the past three days although they still had plenty of food and water laid out from before we left.  I stretched out on the couch to catch the late news and never made it to the first commercial break — sleeping soundly until a few minutes ago.

We are told this sign will not appear on the Blue Ridge Parkway near FloydFest this year (this photo is from last year’s event) but the information comes from the Blue Ridge Parkway superintendent’s office and the office of the Chief Ranger and both have proven themselves serial liars in the past.

Park Superintendent Phil Francis says the Criminal Interdiction Team, the Gestapo-like Park Rangers who harassed festival goers last year, has been "disbanded."

Reports The Roanoke Times:

A Jan. 18 letter from parkway Superintendent Philip Francis to Boucher said that FloydFest will be treated the same as any other event of its size along the parkway.

Francis also wrote that the parkway would disband its Criminal Interdiction Team, which had been assigned to patrol around FloydFest. The unit had realized its goals of increasing apprehensions for impaired driving and drug and weapons violations, and of cutting down on collisions, Francis wrote.

But what Francis says is different from the double speak from Chief Ranger John Garrison, who told WSLS Channel 10:

The National Park Service demobilized its criminal interdiction team for this year’s Floyd Fest, according to Blue Ridge Parkway chief ranger John Garrison.

The interdiction team caused controversy at last year’s event after a number of attendees claimed rangers were too quick to pull people over, and perhaps profiled some festival goers. Garrison said last year’s concerns were one of the factors which parked the team for this year’s event, which begins Thursday. 

There’s a big difference between "disbanding" and "demobilizing." Garrison says the CIT team has been parked.

In a meeting last year, Francis first told Boucher the CIT was not operating at FloydFest last year but later "clarified" his story to the Congressman. Garrison said the team had not been recalled because of the controversy but later Francis said they had. Francis also claimed a highly-publicized incident between a Park Ranger and Floyd County Sheriff Shannon Zeman "never happened" even though the county’s chief investigator was in the car with Zeman and confirmed the encounter.

A warning to everyone this weekend: The people who run the Parkway and the Parkway police are lying — and usual — and you probably couldn’t force the truth out of them with waterboarding.