Jamie Jensen
Road Trip Usa
Cross-Country Adventures On America's Two-Lane Highways
Avalon Travel Publishing
2002
I knew I was going to drive to Long Island, NY, but I had no idea of how I'd get there. When I ran across this book in a bookstore, I picked it up and found it to be very inspiring. U.S. 50 was one of the roads mentioned -- "The Loneliest Road in America" -- and this sounded appealing to me. I ended up following Route 50 to Cincinnati where I stayed with another U.S. 50 traveler I found through the web site www.route50.com. Along the way I saw many of the sights and attractions mentioned in the book, plus many more. The one unfortunate thing for me was that I was traveling before Memorial Day and some of the attractions were closed. In addition, the number of miles I traveled each day, coupled with loss of hours as I traveled east, meant that I arrived too late to see some of them. Despite this, I learned a lot from the people I talked to.
From there I diverged from Route 50 while visiting friends and family in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Wisconsin, but on my way back, I hit 3 of the other roads mentioned in the book: U.S. 2, "The Great Northern" ; U.S. 20, "The Oregon Trail"; and, U.S. 101, "Coastal West Coast". I didn't get to see all I wanted on these roads but I met some great people and have plans to return.
The book was well-organized, taking the reader not only on journeys along the routes highlighting various attractions, restaurants, and places to stay, but also side trips of interest to the traveler. Other roads featured were Route 66 and the Appalachian Trail, among others.
If you are planning a road trip, you will find this book full of inspiration as well as a lot of useful information. If you are not planning a road trip in the U.S., maybe you should think about it. I've driven across country and back three times now and have never been able to see or do everything I'd like. There is a certain homogeneity to life on the Interstate that can make travel easy, if boring; detouring onto one of these two-lane highways adds a little bit of spice without going too far astray. Great camping everywhere, too, even in the off-season.
This book is also available at
Amazon.co.uk
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