by Allan Maclaren

Created on: May 13, 2009

The Pleasures of Roads Less Traveled

The interstate system was designed as a splendid network to move traffic quickly from one point to another. Interstates are clogged with traffic. Trucks trying to pass one another blocking the left lane while they creep by at a snail's pace. Vehicles pulling travel trailers, ditto. And for the most part, dull as dirt. Leave the interstates for commercial vehicles and travelers in a hurry. Take parallel U.S. or state highways instead and discover a whole new United States. The original highway system ran from town to town and through the towns. Occasionally a by-pass was built. Some of these highways are divided four lane roads. Most have little traffic. While you can't make the same time as on the interstate, you can often come close because of the sparse traffic. Don't speed through towns. It is unsafe and arrogant, and an invitation to a ticket. You will see an America that is fading into oblivion as small towns lose population and businesses to the larger towns and cities. You will also see historical markers that you never heard off and scenery that is always better than that of the interstates. Pause for a moment to visit the country's smallest chapel. There are at least two of these, one in Montana and one in Georgia. Try a restaurant that you have never heard of but seems to attract the locals given the number of vehicles parked outside.

Pause to look at the castle-like structure that used to be the county jail and now houses the historical society. Marvel at the new four track railroad main line through Wyoming and western Nebraska and coal train after coal train that you'd never see from an interstate. See where Billy the Kid is buried in an unlikely setting. Some of the sights can be a little heartbreaking: a small abandoned cemetery whose graves have faded from the memories of anyone now alive; boarded up gas stations and dry goods stores; empty motels with their doors swinging in the wind. Houses now empty and habitation fit only for field mice. Fields of cotton, of winter wheat, corn or maize. Wind farms with the latest generation of giant windmills driven by the ubiquitous winds. Pick a road that's famous in our nation's history: The Lincoln Highway, the Natchez Trace, the National Road, Route 66 some of which is as intact as it was before Interstate 40. Have you seen the world's largest hand-dug well? The town fathers wanted to be a railroad junction center and dug the well for the steam

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