by Jim Huckabee

Created on: July 24, 2009

During the every day of our lives we follow the main arteries to get us to the grocery store, dry cleaners, lunch with a friend, or most any place our lives dictate. We know we will be stuck in traffic jams or road construction but we know no other route. If by chance we decide to venture out of the norm to see the great expanses of the country we plot our vacations by the great freeways crisscrossing America. But how often have we thought of taking, "The road less traveled."?

Yes that would take us through every little fly spec on the map. But what is the Great Americana if not these little out of the way places which no one has ever heard of? Your respiration jumps off the doctors scale when you think about two lane roads and following the little old lady at twenty miles per hour. But the pleasure of doing just that, slowing down will be evident once you do.

These roads leading to no where sometimes lead to the top of a mesa with a panoramic sunset which other wise can only be found in National Geographic Magazine. Along your route you might find a stance of petrified trees or hear a coyote howling. In a museum can be found a model of the mesa with a sound recording of the coyote and colored lights.

There aren't any national chain restaurants to stop at when the hunger alarm sounds. Rather there are the mom and pop home cooking dinners with fresh home made peach and apple pie and a cup of coffee for three dollars. If hot apple pie isn't your cup of coffee then what about a rack of baby back ribs which can only be eaten at a picnic table under a tent.

Sure the Walking Sands of the Southwest or the Great Salt Flat can be seen from the highways and byways. But to walk on them you must get off the beaten path. Maybe the oldest covered bridge in Connecticut would fill the lens of your camera nicely. Nope no main road around.

Maybe you prefer to walk around an attraction. Then follow the Pony Express route through the Rocky Mountains. Oops sorry no roads there. Loose the highways and main arteries and there is gold to be panned in California's American River or a historic cabin and its furnishings made of only pine logs and roots; no nails or screws in Michigan.

The roads rarely traveled are the only way to get to the beaver damn in a small valley under a sky so full of stars you might think you are an astronaut. On these roads are the ghost towns which haven't been found on a map since 1887 or herds of wild mustangs in the foothills of the Rockies.

But there is one thing you will never find on the roads less traveled. The need to get back home to rest before going back to work.

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