Roll over to preview

The Winter 2011 fruit-filled edition of American Road® magazine contains features of watermelon size: "Orange Bowl: Enjoying the Sweet Life Along Florida's Orange Blossom Trail" presents the largest photo-essay the magazine has 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—one will find they complement the Swedish pancakes—and enjoy. The magazine's road departments continue the fruit-flavored theme with discovery of huckleberry ice cream around the Yellowstone Trail, Giant Oranges on US Highway 99, and pecans along the Old Spanish Trail. The package wraps up with "Route 66 Kicks!" in which one meets a man who chases a bright glowing orb through the woods. It could be a tomato. Odds say it’s not a kohlrabi.