Banks Breaks Speed Record an a Driveway

00:02 hi I’m Bethany and that’s Drew and today we’re in Newberry Springs California on a piece of Route 66 history that just so happens to be someone’s driveway the fact that this driveway is 4.1 miles long is incredible enough but the story behind why the road was built makes it a

00:17 true odity come with us as we drive as fast as we possibly can down miss or Cut’s driveway no no we’re not doing that oh we’re doing it we’re not we have driven all this way long way to drive on a driveway today driving on a driveway that’s the episode usually you park on a driveway and drive on a

00:44 Parkway but today we’re actually driving on a driveway this is the whole Intel but it’s actually a really fun story so we will get into that Mrs orcut driveway is located in the heart of Newberry Springs California from Interstate 40 exit at Fort Katy Road and head north

00:58 after crossing the freeway the first right should be Memorial Drive this is the beginning of Mrs or Cuts driveway this is memorial so is this where we’re supposed to turn yes so this is technically Mrs or cut driveway really is just a rest stop for truckers we’re

01:12 also tempted to do this entire episode from the car because we did not realize the wind would be 35 mph it’s very windy oh my gosh look how long this driveway is just goes on and on you know you know what I love about it though is you can go 10 m hour or you can go 70 M an hour and no one’s around

01:37 a lot of car Enthusiast caught on to this fact and in the 1980s many people brought out their Lamborghinis and their Trans Ams and just tested their cars on this road to their heart’s desires Mrs orcut actually didn’t mind too much and we hear that she thought it was kind of

01:52 fun I mean there’s nobody around to chase you off so why not and it’s nice and straight perfect uh-oh ah watch out okay see now there’s potholes so we can’t recommend using it as a test track these days because it’s not very well maintained at a glance the road

02:13 placement seems pretty random but it was actually constructed to appease miss or Cut’s request when Interstate 40 was constructed and it completely cut off her driveway the legend of Miss orc Cut’s driveway began in 1964 when the new Interstate 40 had taken hold of the

02:29 Newberry Springs territory government officials eyed Mrs orc’s property as the ideal location for the new freeway to run their plans called for the interstate to cross her land and cut her driveway to Route 66 in half making her closest Freeway Exit 4 miles away Mrs

02:43 orcut rejected the government’s offer of $16,000 in compensation and insisted on having her own exit built or new driveway constructed linking her property to the nearest freeway exit orcut lobbied for herself in a time of a lot of changes in Newberry Springs she built a life on her property that she

03:01 understandably wanted to keep so after a lot of back and forth with officials about the construction of the road she wrote letters of protest to Edmund G Brown president Lyndon Johnson and even ladyb Johnson oh my gosh you okay oh jeez this Road’s freaking me out do you want to drive

03:19 sure okay oh the wind the wind filming an episode on a drive would be so freaking difficult I’m driving she’s driving now I’m driving on the driveway I couldn’t handle the wind well somebody paid attention to miss or Cut’s lobbying because the department of highways forked over

03:42 $100,000 to build this driveway the road was constructed from her H to the Fort caddy Road overpass and was completed around 1968 or so now while the road is technically property of san bino county everybody knew who it really belonged to widowed at the age of 44 after her

03:59 husband and Kenneth passed away in a plane crash Margaret Bonnie orcut was a Powerhouse before her legendary perseverance for her driveway orcut played a role in the naming of Newberry Springs after she wanted to build a wildlife preserve and decided Newberry Springs sounded better than Newberry her

04:16 wish was granted and it looks like we’re getting close to the end yes we are getting close to the end and we’re hoping to see if there are any remains from Margaret or Cut’s property Road ends 500 ft that’s the first sign I’ve seen on this road looks like an impromptu culde here and then we got a

04:33 couple of red morning signs and it keeps going I don’t see her property anywhere there’s no fence there’s a structure right there okay that’s probably her house she did have a trailer out here as well and it was actually hooked up to her house cuz she liked to have the feeling of different

04:50 rooms so she installed the trailer to have like a another part of the house and someone took it crazy at least with this driver you know when people are coming to visit you yeah you can also have large parties and park everyone in the driveway there we go okay there is a

05:07 little bit of a turnaround up here which is nice mhm there it is it’s her house there’s still a a path foot path there to the front door I guess we could park and get out and have a look there’s that wind the wind’s going to close it for you now no tour of Miss or’s driveway would be complete without

05:26 taking a look inside her house at the end of the driveway the desert climate and lack of upkeep have definitely taken their toll as it’s taken its toll on us today uh but we’re going to have a look see what’s left a little explore what a cute little house I feel like it would

05:43 have been a really nice little house yeah is this the front door in we go there’s actually a lot more here than I thought there would be given that this place has been abandoned for over 30 years true over here’s okay so this is a gunport and she made these cuz she was a

06:07 competitive shooter and she also installed these in her home so she could see if someone was coming down her driveway and if she needed to get her gun out this way to see if uh you know someone’s parking with they shouldn’t be watch out for the nails oh yeah 30 plus years of dust this

06:24 may may have been a bathroom I don’t know the tile is smooth kitchen Perhaps Perhaps a kitchen i’ love to have seen pictures of when this place was in its prime just to see what she has set up and I know she was a concert pianist and things like that so she did have it kind of set up to meet

06:40 all of her needs uh-huh oh this was probably the bathroom this is like a shower oh okay like where a sink would be Plumbing so she was very self-sufficient out here at the end of her long driveway very cool another gunport I think oh sure enough per yeah they were

06:60 on every side of the house she I mean yeah she knew where to put them so she did have a trailer attached here at one point ah but I believe it was stolen after she passed away yeah they just kind of ripped it out of the wall and then took off with it and everything just collapsed around it I guess

07:20 eventually we’re going to go out back how about that careful sliding through the now aframe house you know what’s funny is somebody who used to work for her said that she had a carport but he doesn’t remember her ever having a car so did she actually have this whole

07:38 driveway built but didn’t have a vehicle herself because I think that would be funny I think that’s great I think it’ be a great touch on her to be like I want a driveway even though I don’t have a car it seems like her personality yeah now if you look at this house it’s made

07:50 mostly of adobe brick and it was installed by Miss orcut herself nothing that she couldn’t do I’ll say she was very handy speaking of Handy what is this over here we’re finding all sorts of fun nooks in this in this house this looks like it might have been some kind of a storage

08:11 shed or just a little Nook chicken coup who knows another gunport ah those are fun to find uh-huh I’m not sure like I guess this would be for shooting somebody that was at that door trying to break in that I mean if I was going to put it in a gunport it probably wouldn’t

08:26 be right there but what do I know she knew what she was doing okay yeah what do I know about gunports there’s also supposed to be a well on the property and she had her own water tank as well she was ready for anything self-sufficient and we are back to the front door

08:42 now aside from what she already had built she did Envision making a kind of a resort for single mothers interesting which I don’t I don’t believe that ever happened but when she lived here she actually installed water ports along this road for any visitors who wanted to come take a hike

09:00 they could stay hydrated huh I don’t think those are still around but people could just kind of come and walk up enjoy the view a fascinating story and I think she talked them into building this as well when they came out to lay the asphalt on the driveway is this like a

09:17 little turnar around a little turn around this wasn’t part of the original plan I think she talked them into it when they were out doing their work like hey why you’re there can you install me a nice little walk around path since you’ve got extra rocks Margaret Bonnie orcut passed away in

09:34 1987 but not without carving out her own corner of the world complete with its very own legendary driveway Mrs orcut driveway is a reminder that self advocacy is important the road to her home may show signs of being reclaimed by nature but has paved its way into the history of Newberry

09:52 Springs hey if you enjoyed this episode and want to help support future Adventures check out our patreon page we’ll put a link to that in the description thanks for watching and we’ll see you on the next one we were just on the slide of Mrs or Cut’s driveway and we see this big rig

10:11drive by us this road does not lead anywhere except to Mrs or Cut’s house yeah what is our friend doing down here he’s trying to turn around and the wind is about 40 mph right now oh he might maybe he’s doing it if nothing else he’s going to get stuck in the middle of Miss

10:26 orc’s driveway it looks like he’s 3/4 of the way yep he’s going to make it that’s good I was worried that we’d have to go walk down and rescue him oh he got it I don’t know how but he pulled that off that is impressive