We hit the road for USA 250 | The Excerpt
On the Friday, July 3, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: Ahead of July 4th, USA TODAY retraced the journeys and stories that shaped America – from the Oregon Trail and the Underground Railroad to Route 66 and Paul Revere's midnight ride, all the way to NASA's Artemis II mission. USA TODAY National Correspondent Trevor Hughes and USA TODAY National News Reporters Sarah D. Wire and Karissa Waddick share what these places and the people in them reveal about the country at 250.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Dana Taylor:
To mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, USA TODAY sent reporters to follow iconic American journeys from the Mississippi River to the moon and to capture our shared American heritage. USA TODAY National Correspondent Trevor Hughes and USA TODAY National News Reporters Sarah D. Wire and Karissa Waddick have spent 2026 in the places that define who we are, doing what they do best, capturing the voice and spirit of America.
Hello and welcome to USA TODAY's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Friday, July 3, 2026. Sarah, Trevor, Karissa, it's so wonderful to speak with you.
Trevor Hughes:
Good to be here.
Sarah D. Wire:
Thanks for having us.
Karissa Waddick:
Great to be here.
Dana Taylor:
To begin, tomorrow flags will be waving across the country some stitched at a factory in South Boston, Virginia. Karissa, you've probably written about symbols before, but inside this factory, the meaning attached to the American flag varies from person to person. What stayed with you not only about these workers, but also the culture inside the factory?
Karissa Waddick:
They all thought about freedom differently as they were sewing the American flag, putting themselves into the American flag and their dreams for their future and the country. I talked to one woman who recently got out of incarceration and she said that freedom really meant a second chance to her. This job represented freedom. I talked to another woman who said this job and the American flag really represented being able to have crab legs on the couch for 4th of July with her grandchildren. And so really the differences that freedom represents to every American but all represented under that one flag.
Dana Taylor:
That moment where a flag from the factory is seen at the 9/11 Memorial was particularly moving. Can you talk a bit about that and the deeper purpose the workers you spoke with tie to what they make on the factory floor?
Karissa Waddick:
Yeah. We were walking around the factory with Mark Lane, the operations director, and he was telling us all about the nitty-gritty details of how the flag comes together. And we stopped and we asked him, "What does it mean actually though to you when it's completed?" And he paused and he reflected on a moment with his grandchildren when he was at the 9/11 Memorial in New York, as you said. And he saw an Annin flag there in a crevice next to the names of those who died on that day. And he realized that somebody had put that flag there, an Annin flag to remember somebody that they had loved and they had lost. And he really choked up at that moment. And I think to him that deeper purpose was really finding a way to help everybody find their own meaning.
Dana Taylor:
Trevor, you were a man on the move this year. One of the places you visited was the Oregon Trail. You captured the pioneer spirit of America on that trail. What struck you the most as you explored our roots of being a nation on the move?
Trevor Hughes:
Yeah. That was such a great assignment. I took my camper and my dogs because my wife had to work and we spent about a week traveling down portions of Interstate 80 across Wyoming and Nebraska, which followed the Oregon Trail. And I stopped at Scotts Bluff in Nebraska. It's one of the big iconic landmarks on the Oregon Trail, but it's in the middle of nowhere. And it really struck me as I was talking to people there, what an adventurous spirit that we have as people.
Many of the people on the Oregon Trail, their families had just come from Europe a generation before their parents or maybe their grandparents. These were relatively new families to America. And they really went west in search of a better life. That obviously had a lot of consequences for the Native Americans who lived there. But it was really this adventurous spirit, this idea of like, "What is on the other side of the hill? What is over there? Could things be better? I'm sure they could be better." I was really struck by that in the course of my reporting on this story.
Dana Taylor:
Well, I was struck by how many people walked. And what a long walk it was. It's a great piece, Trevor. Sarah, I know for you this idea of a nation on the move led to a story about the space race. It must have been especially intriguing to look back at what brought us to this wonder we all experienced this year with the Artemis II moon mission.
Sarah D. Wire:
It was really fascinating talking to so many experts and so many people who love space travel because the nation is experiencing this moment differently. During the original Apollo missions, spaceflight was a fantasy. And now we have whole generations who have grown up where this is possible. And in some ways, NASA's having a hard time explaining why it's necessary to go back to the moon. But as we got closer and closer to the Artemis missions, we started to see that excitement grow.
Dana Taylor:
In your piece, you mentioned questions many are asking about our plans to not only return to the moon but colonize it. You asked why. You said, "That's one big question." Another one is peace and hope for all mankind still the goal? And if not, what is? Well, what did you find?
Sarah D. Wire:
The original missions to the moon were about beating Russia up there, about beating the Soviet Union. And Congress and NASA have tried to frame this as getting to the moon before China. Getting to the southern polar regions of the moon where we think there might be ice and other resources we need to go further into space. But that's not an easy slogan. It's not something that's capturing a lot of attention. I think NASA adding more missions into space and having them happen more frequently for the Artemis missions is going to grab onto some of that attention because you still have people who are looking to the skies. And they've been experiencing this through television and books and video games in recent decades and they still want to go out there. There's still fascination with being an astronaut.
Dana Taylor:
Karissa, in covering Paul Revere's ride, you wrote about this message that ripples throughout history. What is that message and does it still resonate with Americans today?
Karissa Waddick:
Yeah, it's really protest and dissent have been integral to America since its founding, as Sarah knows from her coverage of the No Kings protests and the protest movements across the country more recently. But when you think of the American Revolution, you think of the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's ride. These were moments of extraordinary dissent against the British government by American colonists. These individuals had enormous bravery. They were really risking their lives for this movement and for American freedom. And we've seen that ripple throughout history, as you said, with the civil rights movement and then some of the protests we see today. Of course, you also think of Stonewall, Stonewall Inn. So protest has been a part of America since its founding.
Dana Taylor:
Karissa, you went to Lexington, Massachusetts in part to separate the myth from the legend in this story of Paul Revere. What did you discover?
Karissa Waddick:
When we think of Paul Revere, we think of this lone rider galloping through the night by himself calling out to colonists, "The British are coming." And in reality, Paul Revere was not alone that night by any means. When I went to the Paul Revere House, they told me that they said there was about a dozen other riders out there that night. You go to the spot where Paul Revere was captured in Lexington and there's a plaque on the ground that honors Samuel Prescott and William Dawes, two other riders that were out with him. When I climbed the steeple at the Old North Church in Boston, going up those switchback steps, I really thought about that church sexton who needed to make that journey with two lanterns in hand in the pitch black that night to make sure that people across the river had the message whether Paul Revere got there or not.
And so it was very clear that he was not the only person. And that his journey was part of collective action as the entire American Revolution was. Is that not just one person makes a difference that you need a ton of people working together to really make that change.
Dana Taylor:
Trevor, you spent time on the Mississippi River, which is a backbone of the country. The river resists being just one thing, doesn't it?
Trevor Hughes:
It really does. I live in the west and so for many of us, the Mississippi River is the border to the east. It's also a massive super highway of commerce. It floods. It creates massive opportunities for farming and for wildlife. It really is such an iconic part of America. And the journeys that people have taken on the Mississippi River since time immemorial, frankly, is really astounding. One of the things I thought was the most interesting, as part of my Mississippi River reporting, was that there used to be a settlement, a Native American settlement on the banks of the Mississippi River, in the year 1000, was bigger than London. I think that's just outstandingly interesting. We have this idea in some ways that the United States was not totally empty, but that there weren't that many people here. And that's actually not true. It was very well populated when Europeans arrived.
Dana Taylor:
Our shared history really is carried in the current of the Mississippi River. Trevor, can you talk about America's contradictions through that lens?
Trevor Hughes:
Yeah. One of the things that, you remember Mark Twain's book, Huckleberry Finn, Huck Finn and Jim are escaping. And Jim is an enslaved young man. He is escaping to freedom. And there's a saying in America, if someone betrays you, you've been sold down the river. That actually traces itself to the Mississippi River. That if you were deemed, as an enslaved person, if you were deemed troublesome or in some way unwanted, you would literally be sold down the river from the more northern states to the deeper south where you would potentially be treated even worse. We're talking about places like Louisiana. And so the Mississippi River has been this flow of commerce both up and down the river for a long time, but I was really saddened to hear how much of that commerce was people.
Dana Taylor:
I want to pivot now to the classic American road trip. Sarah, for your family, what began as this classic trip down Route 66 really gave us a deeper look at things that bind Americans together, including shared time. Your family was able to enjoy this gift of extended time together, right?
Sarah D. Wire:
Yeah. It started out as just me going down Route 66. And Trevor immediately said, "You cannot do this trip without your family. It's the classic American road trip." And somehow we talked everyone into the idea. So it was my children, my husband, and my parents altogether on this trip down Route 66. It takes a minimum two weeks to do the trip. A lot of the people we spoke to along the way were taking a month or longer to do it.
I live far away from my parents. I think a lot of Americans can resonate with that. So this is the longest time they've ever spent with my children or with my husband. And so we had to really balance the interests of everyone on this trip. Planning it took almost a year, trying to figure out where the closest park was for the kids whenever they had a meltdown, but also things that my parents would want to do and make sure that there was actually something that everyone wanted as part of this trip.
Dana Taylor:
This trip down Route 66 shows that journeys across America aren't just about distance, they're about who you share them with. And love measured in just how hard it is to say goodbye. Why do you think that resonates so deeply right now?
Sarah D. Wire:
There's a lot more distance, physical miles, but also technology. It's so easy to have people around the dinner table and everyone's looking at their phone. We really worked so hard on making sure there was very little technology on the trip. The kids weren't staring at iPads. Halfway through the trip, we realized that we hadn't even turned the radio on in the car, which is still amazing to me.
But I think people resonate with the idea of a slow trip. I kept looking over at the freeway and thinking, "Man, we'd be going so much faster if we were only on the interstate." And I'd have to smack myself and remember the whole point is the journey. And we stopped for maple syrup on the side of the road. And we stopped just to see the world's second largest rocking chair in Missouri. But every place you stopped, people had a story and they wanted to tell you the story and they really wanted you to respect that slower way of life.
Dana Taylor:
As a reader, the most delightful moment was when your kids, fully clothed, jumped into the Pacific Ocean. It just so wonderfully illustrates the wild abandon freedom of childhood. What do you hope they remember from this 2026 classic American family trip?
Sarah D. Wire:
We still talk about the trip daily. They bring up something. Or they see a national park in a TV show and they say, "Oh, we've been there." So I hope that sticks with them. I hope it's not remembered as the two weeks of torture where, by the third day, my four-year-old was crying every time we had to get in the car. "I want to go back to Maryland." I kept telling them the only way home is forward.
And I hope that they remember that curiosity. And I hope they remember the experience of being a place they've never been before. And that two week run across two-thirds of America, it was amazing. We saw planes and some of the biggest cities. We saw desert and mountains. They got to see so much of what this country is geographically, but also just the humans that make it up. I hope they hold that in.
Dana Taylor:
You've all spent years covering America in so many different ways. And working on these stories for USA TODAY 250, did anything about the country feel clearer to you or perhaps more complicated? Karissa, I'll start with you.
Karissa Waddick:
I'd say on the more complicated side, there's no doubt to me, in talking to people in these different parts of the country, that we are politically divided. But there were also people who despite that political division really were trying to find ways to come together. They didn't want to be divided. They didn't want to get into those divisions. They wanted to avoid them as much as possible. But they just couldn't find a way to break through that wall. And so it's that tension was really evident throughout the country, what I found in different places.
Dana Taylor:
And what about you, Sarah?
Sarah D. Wire:
I think how many people wanted to preserve their way of life, but also wanted to understand how America was in other places. Especially on the Route 66 trip. I met couples from all over the country who this was a bucket list trip because they wanted to understand Route 66 and the role it played all the way from the Great Depression, to the 1970s, and get your kicks on Route 66. It's played such a role in who we are as a country. And I feel like they wanted to look back and firmly grasp that so that they had a firmer base on how we could move forward.
Trevor Hughes:
I was struck by how curious Americans are. I don't mean weird people. I mean people were genuinely curious about our country. I was doing a story on the Underground Railroad and I was visiting an area where Harriet Tubman had been born and had grown up. And I was trying to film something and it's the middle of this cornfield and it's in rural, rural, rural Maryland. And this couple rolled up in this giant fifth wheel with a big old pickup. And they saw me filming and they had questions and I was like, " Well, I'm a reporter and I'm doing this."
And they just started popping out with Harriet Tubman facts because they had made this journey from somewhere in the Midwest because they wanted to visit this trail of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. And they had facts at their fingertips because they had looked it up. They had been reading about it. That was one of the things I found most gratifying in doing this was how many Americans had a real interest in our history, good and bad.
Dana Taylor:
Trevor, I want to stick with the Underground Railroad. The story of America is inspiring and it's also horrifying. In visiting the Underground Railroad, you grappled with both.
Trevor Hughes:
Yeah. I grew up as a Boy Scout. And I learned all kinds of tricks and tips on how to survive in the wilderness, how to navigate, how to read maps. And this part of Maryland where Harriet Tubman's from, it's flat. Real flat. It's really hard to know which way is north. And so this idea that people would simply escape slavery just by running away, it's not that simple. In some cases, people lived on islands or peninsulas. And that was the thing I was really struck by in looking at the Underground Railroad was how hard it must have been for people to do this. The conditions in which they lived, the conditions in which they were kept, that they were forced to live in and how brutal it was. Harriet Tubman made a number of journeys helping people escape. There was a wide informal network that we call the Underground Railroad.
And one of the things that was really fascinating to me is that there has been a bit of revisionist history and a lot of white Americans in particular talk about how their families played a key role in the Underground Railroad. But the reality is it was mostly Black Americans freeing themselves.
Dana Taylor:
Finally, Trevor, on the eve of the day when America will celebrate 250 years of independence, of freedom, I'm wondering if there's something you can share from your experience that was particularly moving or even uplifting.
Trevor Hughes:
Yeah. I also wrote a story about Lewis and Clark. The Lewis and Clark expedition explored the Louisiana Purchase. It also led to the devastation of Native American tribes. And I interviewed a canoe guide who has adventured all over the world. And he guides people on the Missouri River, on the Mississippi River. They actually float down to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. And he and I were talking about this idea that wilderness still exists in America, that there are still unexplored places. There are still things to learn about our country. And I was really struck by that idea, that we don't know everything about our past and we certainly don't know much about our future. But that all of the people I talked to were really interested in knowing where we've come from and where we're going next.
Dana Taylor:
For people who want to hear more about these iconic stories, we have links in today's show notes so you can look for them there. Thank you all so much, Trevor, Karissa, Sarah for joining me on The Excerpt, and of course, Happy 4th of July.
Sarah D. Wire:
Thanks for having us.
Karissa Waddick:
Happy 4th, thanks.
Trevor Hughes:
Happy 4th of July.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to our senior producer, Kaely Monahan, for her production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think for this episode by sending a note to podcasts@usatoday.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. I'll be back Monday morning with another episode of USA TODAY's The Excerpt.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: We hit the road for USA 250 | The Excerpt
Reporting by Dana Taylor, USA TODAY / USA TODAY
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect
This story was originally published July 3, 2026 at 2:10 AM.