US-50: the inspiration

The fact that the web was my first source of information for the pre-planning of this trip should not come as a surprise. I work on the web, I read my magazines on the web, I have fun on the web and I share my photography work on the web. Obviously the web is the first place where I look when searching for any kind of information.

Let me begin by saying that until I started this research I had a very limited idea of what I was looking for and even lesser of an idea of what I was going to be able to find. I didn’t even know the difference between the major interstate highways system and the old national historical routes - except maybe for the worldwide famous route 66 that everyone knows about. All I knew was that we were going to start our trip in New York City and that we wanted to end our trip in San Francisco, my favorite American city and where my wife has some family.

My first stop was Road Trip USA. You can find all sorts of information here (even podcasts) about road trips in the US. The one feature that I really liked from the very first moment I landed on this site is the fact that from the very home page they essentially identify 11 possible routes for amazing road trips. Selecting one of the routes opens up a new page which describes the route in general and then a sidebar which enumerates the states crossed by the route. For each state there are detailed maps that present the major attractions and the best places to visit.

US-50

One route immediately grabbed my attention, the so-called “loneliest road“. US-50, from Washington, DC to San Francisco, “running coast-to-coast through the heart of America,” through some of the most magnificent landscapes, from the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains to the deserts of Utah and Nevada, following the steps of pioneers. TIME magazine called US-50 “the backbone of America” in a long article published in 1997. US-50 “is more like a street than a highway, a long, lazy course that skips the Beltway and heads right downtown through the clutter of our lives.”