Taking the Alternate Route

"Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, one can now travel across the country from coast to coast without actually seeing anything."  -Charles Kuralt

How right this man was.  Express highways have transformed not only our travel experiences, but an entire culture.  I had been meaning to write about the concept for some time, especially after I had an experience this summer of seeing the Toronto-North Bay corridor in Ontario pretty much reduced to a rapid transit pathway.  Where before there had been delightful little towns with great roadside restaurants and maple sugar candy shops, 2012 had shown itself to be the year of excessively mowed down forests (to make room for hundreds of yards of clearance on either side of the glorious new double-landed divided highway) and signs that point off an exit toward towns that now exist to travelers only in name.  This, of course, is old news back in the United States, where the transition from interesting federal highways to streamlined interstate took place more than half a century ago.  There, little towns faded out of existence in some cases, along with grand urban cores that diminished as people could now more easily live in distant suburbs and commute further away from, in less time (the brake lights say otherwise), downtown areas.

Fortunately, nostalgia and tourism can often combine in an effective marriage.

In Springfield, Illinois.

US Highway 66, now largely supplanted by I-55, 44, 40, and 15, is one such child of this nuptial blessing, and rightly so the most famous of buried highways.  When the interstates replaced her long, glorious road from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean, many roadside attractions, businesses, and entire communities suffered greatly.  Still, many have survived, enough so that taking the business loop on the modern freeways is definitely a worthwhile experience, if for no other reason than to see the namesake of song lyrics.

Yes, you really can stand on the corner in Winslow, Arizona, but you have to exit I-40 in order to do so.

Tourist traps and affordable hotels aside, heading down the older highways is often the only way to get to travel some of the former great travel paths of the continent.  Much of the emigrant trails of the 19th century have not been replaced by modern interstates, where technological advances in engineering allowed for more direct routes to be carved and blasted through formerly difficult terrain.  Those wishing to get to California or Oregon the more traditional way need to say goodbye to I-80 at Ogallala, Nebraska.  Sure, you don't get to speed along in your car at 80mph or more, but a solid 60 is not horrible, and you can pass by things like, well, this:

Chimney Rock, at Bayard, Nebraska.  US 26 can take you there!

You know, just as people used to, because it was an easier, more pleasant route, and because you could actually see a thing or two on your way out there.  Sometimes the first part does not always hold true, as is the case with US-6 going over, rather than tunneling under, the continental divide, but the second part usually benefits from this.  I doubt I will ever want to drive I-15 in Utah again, not after the fun and dangerous route I got to drive on Utah 2.  The views alone were worth the extra gas.  That said, I actually think I used less gas, because I was not driving like a rabid dog barreling down the interstate.  Something can be said for the old 55mph limit.