In
1982 American travel writer and historian William Least Heat-Moon wrote a book
called Blue Highways: A Journey into America about his 13,000
mile journey across the United States, as much as possible on secondary roads,
trying to avoid cities.
These
secondary roads were called blue highways because on the old-style maps they
were drawn in blue and the main roads drawn in red.
Living
out of his van, William Least Heat-Moon traveled these secondary roads to find
places untouched by fast food chains and interstate highways, "those
little towns that get on the map-if they get on at all-only because some
cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia;
New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot, Mississippi."
Interstate
highways have made travel much easier in this country, but for this convenience
we have paid a price. Food chains and
motels along the interstate are very similar in all states. A Big Mac tastes much the same in Connecticut
as it does in California. We often see
little of the local people, the local customs, the local food unless we get off
the interstates.
I
live very near what would have been a red highway on the old maps. It was a main thoroughfare from points north
to Florida not too many years ago. Now
it is seldom used by any except local traffic.
When
I travel in our country I still like to get off the main highways, to taste the
local food and see the local culture.
Quote
is from Blue Highways
